By Kestrel Maio and Kristel-June Sartagoda, Student Culture Team

For the past year, the students at the NBI have been working hard to ensure that our work environment and culture is conducive to support both research and well-being. The inaugural NBI Students Green Impact Team was launched in an attempt to drive green action and bring together students across the workplace, giving people a space to talk about climate concerns, drive change, and importantly, provide a break from a busy workday.

Along with other Green Impact teams, we have started to make sustainable change across the site, culminating in the recent success of the Green Impact audit. We are looking forward to receiving the bronze award for 2024!

To achieve the bronze certificate, the team had to a series of tasks from the Green Impact toolkit, including things like spreading awareness about energy saving opportunities, documenting and ranking our positive and negative sustainability impacts.

For instance, a particularly popular workshop was held on poster design to promote green actions across the campus. Many people aren’t aware of the impact of using the hand dryers but as Qi Yang Ngai aptly and artistically described paper towels aren’t just energy intensive; they also lead to deforestation and water usage. The posters made as part of this fun event are around the Chatt building, and we hope they’re inspiring small changes daily!

Another exciting prospect to come out of our team, is the ‘poster tote-bags’. An ingenious idea from Kristel-June Sartagoda, with support from Ethne Clark, was proposed to up-cycle old, fabric posters into hand-made tote bags. This is a way of providing a functional (hopefully) fond memento of past research, so you can remember your research whilst doing your shopping. This initiative not only gives new life to materials that would otherwise be discarded but also serves as a tangible reminder of our shared commitment to sustainability.

With these efforts, we are taking small but meaningful steps toward a greener, more conscious research environment. Here’s to building on this momentum in the next Green Impact Year and beyond! We are looking forward to what the next Green Impact Year has in store (maybe even a silver award?…)!

For more information on sustainability at the Norwich Research Park please see Environment (For current staff only) Or contact clarke@nbi.ac.uk, Kestrel.Maio@jic.ac.uk, kristel-june.sartagoda@jic.ac.uk