Sustainability Update
Sustainability Development and a Welcome to Beth Lloyd
Bethany Lloyd is the Climate Change Education Policy Officer for the Government of Jersey. This year, however, she has the pleasure of also serving as your Sustainability Officer here at Highlands College.
The College is striving to become more sustainable in all areas of operation, as well as empowering our students to become informed, engaged citizens who understand the urgency of protecting our planet and have the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing world.
At the College, we are following the ‘Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education’s Climate Action Roadmap for FE Colleges’ (a mouthful, I know!). This roadmap provides clear actions and guidance on how colleges can respond to climate emergencies and advance sustainability.
Since starting in September, we have already seen step changes in sustainability at the College thanks to many of our great staff. Paul Bisson and Wayne Taylor have ensured that every building on campus now has recycling bins readily available; Ellen Marret held a successful clothes swap event for students and staff; the Student Sustainability Group was established, and the (now annual) ‘staff and student sustainability survey’ was distributed and completed by 161 individuals and counting! We have also had 9 more Highlands College staff complete our Carbon Literacy Training and become ‘Carbon Literate’, and thanks to Paul Bisson and the form tutors have delivered many sustainability-focused ‘Future Skills’ sessions, notably one on ‘Offshore Wind’ which facilitated the formal involvement of students in the Government of Jersey’s Offshore Windfarm consultation.
But it doesn’t stop there – this year we have many more exciting projects in the pipeline. We’ll be conducting a waste audit in Café Connect and the Academy Restaurant to investigate the possibility of composting on site, as well as working with Affinity to deliver more Carbon Literacy Training to college staff. We will also be looking at how climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals can be further integrated into the education delivered at Highlands College, setting ambitious waste reduction targets, calculating our college’s carbon footprint, and signing both the Global Climate Letter and the SDG Accord to commit to publicly reporting our progress in an annual Sustainability Report.
Beth would love to hear from you if you have any ideas on what you think sustainability could look like in the college (B.Lloyd@gov.je), or even if you just want a chat about climate change (or food, which is another passion). Either way, I’ll wrap this up with a pertinent quote.
‘We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about it’.
Sustainability Roadmap
The College continues to move in a positive direction with regards our Sustainability Roadmap. Below is a timeline (by no means exhaustive) featuring some of the progress that has been made, along with ongoing efforts to reduce waste, lower the College’s carbon footprint and encourage sustainable practice:
EAUC Events Update
Please find below some upcoming EAUC events which might be of interest to you:
- Engineering and Sustainability: Realigning Curricula for the Future, 27th February, 12.00pm
- Sustainability & Support for Learning: Realigning Curricula for the Future, 7th March, 1.00pm
- Monitoring Education for Sustainable Development in Colleges, 21st March, 1.00pm
- FE Network meeting, 16th May, 11.00am
Further information on all EAUC events, can be found here.
Also EAUC Scotland have launched the new Sustainability Champion Learning Pack. This pack provides the opportunity for people to learn more broadly about sustainability and how it applies to their role and institution in an accessible way. The learning pack is available via Miro as a virtual and visually engaging workspace for interactive learning. The pack’s board incorporates a mixture of accessible text and engaging videos and graphics to support learning. It also helpfully signposts users to external EAUC resources where they will find more in-depth content. Users do not require a Miro account to access and use the pack. The Miro board also uses frames to support use of screen readers. If you wish to request the resource in an alternative format (such as Word) please reach out to Matt Woodthorpe, EAUC Scotland Programme Manager.