Introduction Welcome... ...to the fifth year of Green Impact Students' Unions (formerly the Sound Environmental Impact Awards). Green Impact is an environmental accreditation scheme with an awards element designed specifically for students’ unions. For decades students’ unions have been at the forefront of social and environmental campaigning. However, with the majority of Unions not being metered for the utilities they use, and with sabbatical teams changing annually, many of our members struggled to get to grips with their own environmental impacts. So in 2006 we launched the Sound Environmental Impact Awards to provide a practical framework for greening students' unions. The scheme was a big success with fifty-one unions taking part in 2006/07, sixty-seven in 2007/08, seventy-nine in 2008/09 and eighty-three in 2009/10.
Purpose The purpose of Green Impact Students' Unions is to encourage, nurture, reward and celebrate environmental goodpractice in students' unions.
How does it work? Green Impact is an environmental accreditation scheme. It comprises a list of 215 criteria with each delivering a practical action that will help the union to reduce its impact on the environment. Each criterion is worth a score of between one and ten marks. Each score has been calculated by adding a value for the potential of the criterion in protecting the environment to a value for the difficulty in implementing it. Unions simply work through the list of criteria marking those that they meet, collecting the points along the way. All entrants will be awarded one of four qualifications: Working Towards Accreditation; Bronze Standard; Silver Standard; Gold Standard. To gain the Bronze Standard, Unions need to have met all twenty-four criteria marked as Bronze essentials - these are the actions that we think all students' unions could and should be doing as a minimum. To gain the Silver Standard, unions need to have met all the Bronze essentials plus all thirteen criteria marked as Silver essentials and gained an overall score of 430 or more. Unions can build their overall score by meeting any of the 177 optional bonus criteria – as the name suggests these are non-compulsory, but the more you get, the higher your score, helping you on your way to a Silver Standard. New for this year we have introduced the Gold Standard to replace the Gold Award from previous years. All unions can now achieve the Gold Standard if they meet all Bronze and Silver essentials plus all five Gold essentials and have gained an overall score of 530 or more. The top scorer in the Gold Standard category will win the new national Green Impact Union of the Year Award. Additionally there are four special achievement awards up for grabs open to any union regardless of overall score: The Ecologist Communications Challenge Award; The Green Innovation Award; The Co-operative Most Improved Union Award and The Co-operative International Development Award.
Why enter the scheme? Here are five good reasons to enter Green Impact Students' Unions: 1) Green Impact is a nationally recognised accreditation offering an independent benchmarking of your union's environmental performance. Each union entering the scheme will receive a final score that can be used to set targets and monitor performance against. In addition to being presented with a certificate or award at our Annual Dinner at Convention 2011, entrants will receive a digital Green Impact Students' Unions logo for the standard they have achieved that can be used on their webpages and stationary. 2) The process of completing the application form will help you identify what your union should be doing, that it is not currently, and give you ideas for further improvements - effectively providing an off-the-shelf action plan for greening your union. Its not just a case of being in it to win it! We encourage all students' unions to enter, especially those who are just starting to think about the environment. 3) Greener means leaner. Improving your union's environmental performance will help reduce the amount of utilities used, saving money for the union and/or Institution. Addressing environmental issues is likely to raise the union's kudos with the Institution, and make the union a more attractive place to be for environmentally-conscious staff and students, and helping to change wider behaviours by creating positive social norms. 4) Every year we profile a selection of the best environmental practice we have found through the scheme in our showcase booklet. The booklet seeks to celebrate our collective achievements and is sent to all our 230 member unions, to influential stakeholders within the sector, and to key environmental figures beyond the sector - including politicians, directors of NGOs, business leaders and celebrities. It's great publicity for all unions taking part. You can view last year’s booklet through the webpage link below. 5) The net outcome of your participation will be that your Union has a less negative impact on the environment. To find out what applicants said about the scheme last year visit www.nus.org.uk/greenimpactunions.
Registration and closing date Once your union has made the decision to enter Green Impact Students' Unions, you will need to formally register as an applicant. This year the deadline for registering is 5pm on Fri 08 Oct 2010 and you can do this on the programmes page in the members area of www.nussl.co.uk. As part of the registration process you will need to agree to pay the application fee. The fee is £250 for unions entering for their first year; £125 for unions taking part for a second consecutive year; £80 for unions taking part for a third/fourth/fifth consecutive year. Alternatively you can join the scheme through our new E&E Optin Group which also entitles you to an environmental audit (a Bronze essential criterion) or staff training day (a Bonus criterion), plus a whole host of other benefits, all at a reduced rate for our members. Once you have registered, you need to complete this workbook and email it to greenimpactunions@nussl.co.uk before noon on Fri 17 Dec 2010. For important guidance on how to complete the workbook, please see the guidance worksheet by clicking on the tab below marked 'Guidance'. All that is left for me to say is that I hope that you get a lot out of the application process, thanks for your support, and good luck!
Charlotte Gerada Chair, Ethical & Environmental Committee, NUS Services
Green Impact Students' Unions is run by NUS Services, the commercial arm of the NUS. It are supported by NUS, EAUC, People & Planet and the Ecologist. The main sponsor is The Co-operative Group. v1.02