Birmingham cohort achieves awards for sustainability
By lifETIME CDT Administrator: Emma Lardner (University of Birmingham)
The Healthcare Technologies Institute at the University of Birmingham has received recognition for sustainable practices from the 2021 NUS Green Impact Awards; a United Nations award-winning programme designed to support environmentally and socially sustainable practice within organisations.
The team was led by Emma Lardner, Operations Manager for the HTI and lifETIME CDT Administrator and worked closely with Birmingham CDT students from the 2019 and 2020 cohort to work through an online toolkit of actions to increase sustainable practices within laboratories, offices and support the well-being of staff and students.
The team received a Gold award for sustainable offices and laboratories, a Platinum award for achieving the highest number of sustainable actions within the University of Birmingham and the Innovation for Environmental Improvement award which was awarded to Emma Lardner. Abigail Wright, 2020 lifETIME student at the University of Birmingham was also highly commended within the Student Leadership category for her work driving forward sustainability within her peer group.
The Green Impact scheme is run by the National Union of Students (NUS) and is a nationally accredited scheme which takes part across Universities, Colleges, Student Unions, NHS trusts and local authorities across the UK. The scheme promotes sustainability and encourages labs to introduce new steps to help to reduce carbon footprints.
The programme enables teams to implement new practices to reduce plastic waste, introduce environmentally friendly practices, support team health and well-being campaigns and work towards carbon-neutrality.
Emma Lardner, Operations Manager at the Healthcare Technologies Institute, said: “This is the second year that our Institute has taken part in Green Impact and it’s really great to see our Birmingham CDT students so engaged. I am honoured to have received the Innovation for Environmental Improvement award which recognises my work within the lifETIME CDT setting up the sustainable labs working group which aims to implement more sustainable laboratory practices across each partner University. I would encourage all labs to sign up to their local University sustainability scheme as if we all work together, we can contribute to a greener planet. I look forward to introducing our 2021 cohort to our sustainable labs working group at the beginning of next year, and hopefully inspiring positive change across the new cohort of CDT students’’
