GOOD ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES ARE GOOD FOR QUEEN’S AND FOR NORTHERN IRELAND!  

19 March 2019

Staff at the Development and Alumni Relations Office at Queen’s have signalled their intention to do their bit for the environment – in line with the University’s commitment – and they are encouraging graduates, students and friends of Queen’s to do likewise!

The Office’s Green Team – Sorcha Mac Laimhin, Shelley McEvoy and Michéal Ó Fearraigh – is dedicated to promoting good environmental practices and has published a list of ways in which staff, students and visitors to the campus, and graduates around the world, can contribute to reducing society’s carbon impact on the environment.  

Environmental issues facing global society today include climate change, dwindling fossil fuels, lack of sustainable energy solutions, ozone depletion, and resource depletion. Ignoring these issues over generations is believed to have contributed to rising sea levels, droughts, and other extreme weather events around the world. In turn, this has had enormous impact on humans, displacing or often killing scores of people each year.

“Today, more than ever, there is an increasing demand for companies and organisations like Queen’s to demonstrate a responsible approach to the environment,” said Sorcha Mac Laimhin, Development Manager in the Development and Alumni Relations Office, and one of the University’s green champions.  

“Queen’s is committed to improving its environmental performance and is working towards achieving a 21% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 – and the Development Office is fully behind that commitment.”

The University has also produced a video which outlines a number of simple tips that anyone can undertake to be more environmentally friendly and, for staff, more ‘Green at Queen’s’.   

The University is encouraging staff, students, visitors and graduates to reuse and recycle, to conserve energy by switching off, and, where possible, to consider a sustainable form of travel especially when visiting the campus.

“As staff at Queen’s,” continued Sorcha, “our commitment to protect the environment – to use its scarce resources responsibly and to reduce our ecological footprint – extends far beyond the University’s physical campus.

“Everyone is very busy and we all have many pressing tasks and issues to address, which often means that thinking environmentally may not be top of our priority lists. But a commitment to better green practices, even to just changing one or two small things, doesn’t have to be a time-consuming undertaking and who knows, it could have far reaching effects,” said Sorcha.

The University provides numerous recycling points around the campus for plastic, glass, paper and aluminium materials and staff are encouraged to switch off lights and appliances after the working day is over.  

Good ecological practices help to keep employees informed of their environmental roles and responsibilities. They can lower costs through reduced consumption and waste and helps save even more money by improving the efficiency of your processes.

For staff and students at Queen’s, managing individual and corporate environmental impact could also improve the reputation of the University. Adopting the same approach outside of work – in the organisations and places we all frequent in our private lives – could even create benefits for Northern Ireland or wherever Queen’s graduates live.  

“It’s all about awareness really,” added Sorcha. “By thinking green, even just in small increments, together we could bring about a huge difference to the world.

“Whatever about improving things where we work, we are all stakeholders in the world in which we live. If we fail to take action now, we may leave it too late for the next generation.”

As more and more individuals, companies and organisations go green, the idea of going green becomes that much more acceptable. Adopting green protocols rarely takes a lot of time or money and will undoubtedly pay back dividends – individually and in the places where we work and live – over the coming years. And doing so also makes us all feel better about being that little bit kinder to the planet.

To submit graduate news items, or for general enquiries about this story, please contact Gerry Power, Communications Officer, Development and Alumni Relations Office, Queen's University Belfast or telephone: +44 (0)28 9097 5321.

Main image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

 

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