In the spring term Sustainability Services have taken on 4 Student Sustainability Assistants to help aid some of the many exciting upcoming projects. The areas where most of the work is being focussed, is improvements to Recycling and Travel at the University. Mike is a second year Environmental Management student working with the team and this is an update on how he is finding his time with the team.
I started working with Sustainability Services at the start of January to aid Ruth Harris and Anna Glue with the new bin installations at London Road and MERL. This included labelling up new bins in relation to a floor plan to help with easy distribution on the day. Carrying out this fundamental work helped with developing my reading of complex floor plans and developing strategies for distribution which I feel will benefit me with further studies but also in jobs in the future. Alongside the bin installations I carried out audits of the bins present at London Road but also Display Energy Certificates (DECs) on both the London Road and Whiteknights campus. Carrying out these audits provided vital training for working in consultancy areas.
A second aspect of the Student Sustainability Assistant role was furthering the reach of sustainability at Reading through social media and student activities. Building on work done by previous students, I have tried to develop and start the Student Sustainability Award, a project for students to get involved with the environmental issues that are important to them while at the University. The award is developing well with some exciting activates already planned for when the award begins, hopefully in the near future! The Sustainability Team have a successful website which was in need of an update and this is one of my other key roles. It involved the update to many of the recycling pages and also ensuring a universal format keeping it professional. Both these jobs have developed my creativity, website building skills and social media skills, these skills have helped with some of my coursework this year and have also provided me with vital skills to put on my CV.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the team and am looking forward to carrying on the work they have planned.
