Estates and Facilities’ energy saving idea wins national award
13 Aug 2012
The University has won its second national Green Impact award and celebrated this year's departmental winners in the environmental accreditation programme.
Every year, each participating institution nominates three special award winners who are then entered into the national competition. In 2010, the University had its first winner in Michael Bane, who was awarded the National Environmental Hero prize.
This year, the Best Energy Saving Idea award went to the Estates and Facilities Green Impact Team, based in the Beyer Building, for their Everest Challenge. The Challenge encouraged people working in the Beyer Building to take the stairs instead of the lift, thus saving energy and getting fitter at the same time.
The team - Steph Marsh, Sam Johnson, Corrina Allcock and Lucy Millard - measured the staircase and worked out how many trips up the stairs would be required to reach the equivalent of six different mountain peaks, finally arriving at the top of Everest. Prizes were awarded to the people who walked the longest distances.
To keep the momentum going, the team will launch its next challenge in September, based around walking the equivalent of the distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
The Beyer team was just one of 27 submissions for the University’s Green Impact scheme this year. Teams were rewarded for all of their achievements at an awards ceremony in July at which the President and Vice-Chancellor gave out trophies made from old slate roof tiles from a house in Wales.
Referring to the ceremony in her Weekly Update on 19 July, the President wrote “I was proud to present the winners of the University Green Impact Awards ... It was impressive to see that 26 different parts of the University took part, compared to 14 last year, and that nearly 3,000 staff were involved. I really hope that we will grow our success even more next year.”
This year, the University's Green Impact teams completed 1,522 'greening' actions - the highest number by any of the 45 universities and colleges taking part - and 30 students were also trained as environmental auditors to carry out audits on the teams (two of the students who were trained last year have now secured jobs as graduate environmental auditors).
You can view the full list of 2011/12 Green Impact award winners on the Sustainability website at:
For more information about the scheme, visit:
If you are interested in joining the Green Impact scheme for 2012/13 or would like to find out more about it, please contact:
- Lucy Millard, Environmental Sustainability Manager, on lucy.millard@manchester.ac.uk
This year, all teams that sign up will be given an incentive pack full of environmentally sustainable products to help them complete their workbook.
If you would like to know more about the Everest Challenge, please contact:
- Steph Marsh at stephanie.marsh@manchester.ac.uk