News
June 2010
Kingston University shoots up the Green League to top position in London
Kingston University has jumped from 46th to 15th in this year’s People & Planet's Green League Table, sharing the position with LSE as the highest scoring London universities. The table classifies universities according by ‘degree’ – and this year Kingston received a First.
The league table is produced by the student campaign network, People & Planet. It is the only league table ranking 133 UK universities by environmental performance. It is based on 11 environmental policy and performance-related criteria including carbon emissions per head, waste recycling rates and new criteria measuring efforts to engage students and staff in cutting carbon emissions.
Nicola Corrigan, Sustainability Facilitator is delighted with the result. “It reflects all the hard work of staff and students who have supported environmental issues at Kingston,” she says. “Since last year we have undertaken a number of actions. These included decreasing our carbon emissions, increasing the recycling rate, buying green energy, setting up a staff eco-champions scheme, working with our catering contractor Avenance to buy ethically sourced fish and working with student volunteers to set up social and food growing areas in halls of residence.”
But, she adds, there’s no time to rest on our laurels. “Green issues at universities are a hot topic and this area is increasingly competitive. We are in good position, for instance with the support of the Sustainability Hub with the academic and research focus on sustainability and with new courses such as Renewable Energy Engineering and Sustainability, Environment and Change. Staff and students can also make a difference by supporting the new recycling scheme and reducing carbon emissions by switching equipment and lights off when not in use.”
David Macintosh, Deputy Vice-Chancellor said “This new rating in the green league table recognises the hard work of all those involved and congratulations to all staff and students in making this happen”.
For more information about the Green League Table visit: http://peopleandplanet.org/greenleague
For more information about green issues and courses at Kingston University, browse our website.
Nicola Corrigan
Sustainability Facilitator
9/06/2010
