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A conference to establish environmental best practice among Kingston organisations will be held next month as part of the one-year pilot project, Positive Environment Kingston (PEK).

 

The scheme, set up six months ago, supports the voluntary community and private sector in addressing sustainable development in areas like waste, transport and water and energy efficiency.

 

PEK is run by Kingston Council's environment and sustainability department, which has been working with Kingston University Students' Union, training volunteers to act as environmental mentors to local organisations.

 

Response to the scheme so far, has been positive. Paula Geear of Kingston Chamber of Commerce said: "As an umbrella organisation, we are using the chamber as a step into the business world for PEK and chamber members will be attending next month's conference."

 

Jeanett Hall, from the charity Learn English at Home, said: "We are not throwing away as much paper and reserving a lot more resources which means money in the bank for us.

 

"We have been trying to make our office more eco-friendly but on the other side of things the students we teach know very little English and we have been finding ways of involving them. The environment is a major issue and why should they be excluded?"

 

Carolos Queremel, environment community officer at Kingston Council, explained: "PEK is about an internal plan to make offices greener but also an outreach plan where charities and businesses should try and influence the people they work with to encourage environmental best practice."

 

Mr Queremel has been training a group of 13 volunteers in association with Kingston University who have each adopted an organisation. Mentors meet every few weeks to compare ideas and discuss different approaches to their work.

 

Environmental mentor and student, Fay Martin, will be assessing the success of PEK in her degree dissertation. She said: "The project is still in its early stages and we are just getting started with our businesses. However, all parties involved are incredibly enthusiastic and I think the potential for this scheme is huge."

 

People who work for a charity organisation or those running a business are invited to the Positive Environment Kingston conference on May 15 from 12.30pm until 5pm.

 

The event will be held at Christ Church, 91 Coombe Road, New Malden.

 

Learn how to save money, save energy and save the planet.

Dr John Barret from the Stockholm Environment Institute will also give a presentation on the ecological footprint, a tool to measure our ecological performance.

For more information about the conference visit www.kingston.gov.uk/environmental_events.

For more information on PEK visit www.kingston.gov.uk/sustainable_ development.

 

What is the Eco Footprint?

An ecological footprint is the estimated area of land and sea needed to provide us all with the energy, water and food we need on a daily basis.

 

Each of us in Kingston takes up to 5.64 global hectares.

If everyone in the world lived how we do then we would need three earths to support them.

Find out about the Sustainability Hub and the University's Environmental Policy