JUNE 2011 VOLUME 3 EDITION 6

Green City

City earns the EcoCampus Silver Award

Green City Page 1 6 June 2011

Inside this issue:

City has achieved the EcoCampus Silver Award following an on-site audit by the EcoCampus team last month.

EcoCampus is an Environmental Management System that is designed to improve environmental performance and management across the entire university. It is equivalent to the international stan-dard ISO14001 accreditation and has been tailored specifically for universi-ties.

The Silver Award is the second phase of the scheme, which City has been working towards since achieving the Bronze Award last summer. Ambitious targets have now been set to achieve the Gold Award by the end of 2011 and finally the Platinum Award by Summer 2012.

Environmental Champions to be awarded

Who will win this year’s Green Impact Awards Environmental Champion of the Year?

Vice-Chancellor Paul Curran will be on hand to open the Annual Environ-mental Champions and Green Impact Awards Luncheon to be held this Wednesday (8 June). Student and staff champions will be receiving awards and eco vouchers for all their hard work and achievements this year. Results will be an-nounced in the July issue of Green City.

Green League 2011

Don’t miss People and Planet’s Green League table 2011, being published in tomorrow’s (7 June) edition of The Guardian. Let’s hope City does well!

Meet Linda Jotham 2

Tips of the Day 2

Fairtrade at City 3

Bee Aware 4

The Sustainable Chef 5

Foods in Season 5

Green Law 6

City Cycling 7

Forest and Paper Facts 8

Green Movies Guide 9

Green Holidays 10

Staff Wellbeing Day 12

Staff Environmental Champion

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Linda Jotham Senior Director & Deputy Programme Director

of the Legal Practice Course (The City Law School)

Where are you originally from? South Wales.

How long have you been at City? About 5 ½ years.

What do you most enjoy about your job? Appreciative feedback from

students.

What prompted you to volunteer as an environmental champion? I

could see the many benefits to City of an Environmental Champions Net-

work and given my commitment to sustainability, it seemed a natural thing

to do.

What have you enjoyed most about being a champion? Well, the honest answer would have

to be a bottle of organically-produced Champagne from an artisan producer, which I bought with

my eco-vouchers! As well as teaching at City, I’m also a Master of Wine and so very much enjoy

exquisitely made wine.

What is your guiltiest non-green habit or activity? Throwing away packaging which my local

council doesn’t recycle. I feel a pang of guilt every time….

What do you enjoy doing in your free time? Eating good food and drinking good wine, prefera-

bly together; listening to music; seeing friends.

Green Tips of the Day

When the urge to give flowers takes you, choose a potted plant from a local supplier.

A lot of exotic flowers are grown in green-houses great distances

away. Aside from the issue of transport, there can be high social and environmental costs. For example, in Colombia, the flower industry uses enormous quantities of polluting pesticides, and in Kenya, horti-culture requires a lot of water which re-duces local water resources.

As an alternative ask your flower shop for Fairtrade or organically produced flowers.

Studies by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Program) show that 60% of the food we throw away is binned without ever being opened.

Beat senseless food waste by planning your meals and making a shopping list before you go shopping. It will help you avoid impulse-buying food that will only go rotten before it can be used.

Buy lasting potted flowers! Shop from a list

We can all make socially responsible choices.

Just think of all the tea, coffee and chocolate you consume in a week. By purchasing Fairtrade products you can play a significant role in improving the trading conditions of the most disadvantaged producers.

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Fairtrade at City

Fairtrade products at City All bananas sold at City are Fairtrade. All tea, coffee and sugar served through hospitality are Fairtrade. Additionally, the following products are available throughout the catering outlets:

Last year City became a Fairtrade University, which means the University is committed to making Fairtrade products available on campus and raising awareness of Fairtrade.

Why buy Fairtrade? Buying products with the Fairtrade Mark guarantees: farmers' organisations a fair and stable

price for their products

extra income for farmers and plantation workers to improve their lives

greater respect for the environment

smaller farmers a stronger position in world markets

For more information

For more information about Fairtrade at City, please see www.city.ac.uk/fairtrade. If you are inter-ested in campaigning for Fairtrade at City, or helping to devise imaginative activities to raise aware-ness, and possibly to serve on the University’s Fairtrade Steering Group, please contact Dawn White at dawn.white.1@city.ac.uk.

Café Direct tea

Café Direct coffee

Hot chocolate

Orange juice

Apple juice

Smoothies

Geo Bars

Shortbread

Chocolate brownie

Divine Chocolate

KitKat (4 fingers)

Fairbreak

Cadbury Dairy Milk

Look for the Fairtrade Mark

Bee Aware

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By Gemma Dickenson Student Adviser (Student Centre)

There has been much in the press over the past few years re-garding the declining bee population and what that means for us as humans and the natural environment. The phenomenon was first observed in the US in 2006 and is a con-tinuing cause for concern.¹

According to Bees Action Network (BAN), a UK based charity:

Bees and other pollinators account for up to 200 million pounds a year to the UK economy, sup-ply a third of the food on our plates. They polli-nate a great variety of vegetables, herbs and wildflowers, they pollinate animal fodder so they are also responsible for the meat on our plates and they pollinate a wide variety of garden plants and wildflowers.²

Bees therefore have a huge impact on food supply and the survival of plant life on the planet. So what can we as individuals do to help? The Food in the City group has organised for some bee-friendly seeds to be given to us by BAN and once planted these will help to encour-age bee and insect activity in our garden. This is something that you can do in your own gar-den too. BAN has a list on their website of bee friendly plants for your garden. Have a look at http://tinyurl.com/6jfm8dr for further information.

BAN, as well as other sources, site chemical overload as one of the key issues impacting the bee population.³ In fact BAN state on their web-site that:

‘You cannot better bee design. The bee has been around for millennia, coping with climate change like the ice age and is a master of adap-tation. Until now that is. What is it about mod-ern life that is so deadly for the bee? BAN says bees are suffering from chemical overload and lack of forage and habitat, reducing their

ability to cope by compromising their immune system. Genetically modified food with its dis-ruption of plants' natural DNA sequence and reliance on pesticides, the use of pesticides and other agrichemicals, cell phone masts, air and land pollution and modern farming prac-tices are all implicated.’ 4

By supporting organic farming and an organic lifestyle we can try and halt the decline of the bee population. In fact there are many organiza-tions that have campaigns in support of this as well as the promotion of alternative farming methods without the use of pesticides. BAN is running a campaign called Daisy Chain. Check out http://tinyurl.com/6jbu69b for further infor-mation.

There are several campaigns being run by Friends of the Earth, specifically focusing on genetically modified food and what it is doing to the environment. Have a look at http://tinyurl.com/couphe. This is another chance to get our voices heard and if we support as many of these campaigns as possible the UK govern-ment will have to start to take notice.

Climate change and the impact that it is having on our natural environment is becoming more apparent every day. If we as individuals can take small, deci-sive steps towards helping to improve this then we can eventually hope to make a large im-pact on the state of the environ-ment.

¹ http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/scientists-stumped-as-bee-population-declines-further-1930787.html (accessed 3 June 2011)

² http://www.beesactionnetwork.org/ (accessed 3 June 2011)

³ http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/scientists-stumped-as-bee-population-declines-further-1930787.html (accessed 3 June 2011) 4

http://www.beesactionnetwork.org/ (accessed 3 June 2011)

The Sustainable Chef

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To make the dish you’ll need:

2 fillets of salmon (look for MSC Alaskan wild salmon or organic farmed salmon)

25 g white breadcrumbs

lemon or lime

2 tbsp grated parmesan

chopped parsley

1 tbsp olive oil

Season the salmon with salt and pepper and place on a non-stick tray (or a tray covered with baking parchment). Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees/180 degrees if you have a fan oven.

Whizz the breadcrumbs, lemon/lime juice, olive oil, parmesan and chopped parsley in a food proces-sor and spoon over salmon fillets. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the salmon is cooked through and the breadcrumbs are golden.

Serve with asparagus (also in season!) and new potatoes mixed with herbs and butter.

Parmesan and Parsley Crusted Salmon Serves 2

I didn’t realise it until I checked it here: http://uktv.co.uk/food/homepage/sid/5183 , but it looks like my favourite fish, salmon, is still in season! It’s a perfect choice for people who, like me, don’t like fiddling with their food too much – salmon very rarely has bones and is really easy to cook.

While looking for ideas for dinner recently, I came across a nice way of jazzing salmon fillets up a bit – the breadcrumb and parmesan crust adds a nice texture to the fish and protects the top of the fillet from getting dry.

By Maria Prus Customer Service Coordinator (Property & Facilities)

Foods in Season (June)

Asparagus Aubergine Broad beans Carrots Cherries

Fennel Globe artichokes Gooseberries Mint Peas

Radishes Rocket Spring onions Strawberries Turnips Watercress

Green Law

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In this article and those to follow I will aim to introduce general principles of UK and EU en-vironmental laws and policies, give information about recent developments in those and provide information about institutions whose aim is to protect our planet. European Environmental Agency EEA is an agency of the European Union based in Co-penhagen. It is tasked with providing accurate, inde-pendent information on the environmental issues to general public and those involved in developing, adopt-ing and implementing of environmental policies. ‘Our goal at the EEA is to provide European decision-makers and citizens with access to timely and relevant information and knowledge to provide a sound basis for environmental policies, to help answer their questions about the environment in their daily lives and to ensure that environmental thinking and education is brought into the main-stream of decision-making.’ (EEA Strategy 2009-2013)

Currently EEA has 32 member countries, in-cluding 27 EU Member States together with United Kingdom. EEA is governed by the Management Board consisting of one representative of each of the member countries, two representatives of the Commission and two scientists desig-nated by the European Parliament, who are assisted by the Scientific Committee. In 2011 EEA has 192 listed staff members. Main clients being the European Union insti-tutions — the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council — and the

member countries, EEA also serves other EU institutions such as the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. The businesses, academia, NGOs and other parts of society are also important users of the information provided. You can download more information about EEA and its aims by visiting their website at: EEA Website http://www.eea.europa.eu/

By Agata Lambrechts

Institutions, events and recent developments in environmental law and policies of UK and European Union

City Cycling

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Join the City team in the London 2011 Cycle Challenge

Wednesday 15 June (Cass—Bunhill Row)

Thursday 16 June (Northampton Square)

Thursday 16 June (Whitechapel)

Bring your bike along anytime between 9am and 5pm to have it serviced for free. Appointments not accepted.

Get your bike serviced for free!

It’s nearly that time of year again! Here’s our chance to beat other teams in London in the TfL Cycle Challenge.

To register, just go to http://cyclechallenge.tfl.gov.uk and after registering your details, search for the City University London team so you can register under our team. Then you can start logging your miles from 12pm on 18th June until 11.59pm on 15th July.

The teams with the most miles cycled in each category (based on number of team members) will win £££s of cycling prizes. Plus City will award one random winner (with at least 5 miles logged) with a £100 Evans cycle voucher. All miles cy-cled are eligible, whether recreationally (including those on the London Cycle Hire bikes), and even those logged outside of the UK.

Registration is now open, but you can’t start logging miles until 12pm 18th June. And don’t forget to sign up to the City Uni-versity London team to better our chances to win prizes.

Need some cycle confidence training?

Take advantage of the FREE individual cycle training sessions available to all City students and staff. Choose from 3 levels … basic, intermediate or advanced.

To book your free session, go to http://www.cycleconfident.com/business/. Enter the City University Company corporate code which is: TfL-CityUniversity1.

Any questions or problems should be directed to: David Show-ell, tel: 07841678664, email: david@cycleconfident.com, web-site: www.cycleconfident.com

Forest and Paper Facts

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From regulating our water supplies and storing carbon, to products, economy and livelihoods—ensuring forests remain healthy is down to us all and it's easy to do by making simple lifestyle choices. Nature at your service Trees have been around for over 300

million years.

Forests cover 31% of the world total land area and are home to 80% of ter-restrial biodiversity.

36 million acres (the equivalent of 36 million football pitches) of natural forest are lost each year.

Trees soak up carbon dioxide and store it as solid wood which means almost 50% of the dry weight of a tree is car-bon.

Over 40 percent of the world's oxy-gen is produced from rainforests.

More than a quarter of modern medi-cines originate from tropical forest plants.

Forestry accounts for 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

In the 1990s the UK was the 5th high-est consumer of paper and board in the world.

Present day consumption The average office worker prints 22

pages every working day. Over 21% of prints are disposed of before seeing out their first day.

Recycling paper reduces water pollu-tion by 35% and air pollution by 74%.

The rising cost of energy has shut more than 10 UK paper mills in the last three years.

Recycled paper is never 100% recycled because of the need to use some virgin fibres to give it strength. To check how much recycled content is used in your paper, check the number inside the recy-cle triangle.

10 litres of water are required to make just 1 sheet of A4 paper (80gsm).

Recycling paper reduces water pollution by 35% and air pollution by 74%.

Producing recycled paper uses up to 70% less energy than virgin paper, as well as using far less water.

Recycling 1 tonne of paper (or 200,000 sheets) saves up to 31 trees and the equivalent energy needed to power a three bedroom house for a year.

Take action Ensure Duplex printing is set as default

and only print when you really need to.

Changing from 100gsm to 80gsm can reduce your paper consumption by 20%, whilst reducing from 80 to 70 will decrease by a further 14%.

Buy recycled paper and buy in bulk to reduce packaging.

Promote recycling in your office and make sure that your recycling points are easy to access.

Source: www.globalactionplan.org.uk

This year’s theme for World Environment Day (5th June) was forests. Here are a few facts you may not have known about trees and paper.

Submitted by Agata Lambrechts (Student Adviser, Student Centre)

Green Movies Guide

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Erin Brockovich (7.2/10 IMDb) Erin Brockovich is an unemployed single mother, desperate to find a job, but is having no luck. This losing streak even extends to a failed lawsuit against a doctor in a car accident she was in. With no alternative, she successfully browbeats her lawyer to give her a job in compensation for the loss. While no one takes her seriously, with her trashy clothes and earthy manners, that soon changes when she begins to investigate a suspicious real estate case involving the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. What she discovers is that the company is trying quietly to buy land that was contaminated by hexavalent chromium, a deadly toxic waste that the company is improperly and illegally dumping and, in turn, poisoning the resi-dents in the area. As she digs deeper, Erin finds herself leading point in a series of events that would involve her lawfirm in one of the biggest class action lawsuits in American history against a multi-billion dollar corporation. Director: Steven Soderbergh Writer: Susannah Grant Stars: Julia Roberts, David Brisbin, Albert Finney, Erin Brockovich-Ellis

Who killed the electric car? (7.7/10 IMDb) With gasoline prices approaching $4/gallon, fossil fuel shortages, unrest in oil producing regions around the globe and mainstream consumer adoption and adoption of the hybrid electric car (more than 140,000 Prius' sold this year), this story couldn't be more rele-vant or important. The foremost goal in making this movie was to educate and enlighten audiences with the story of this car, its place in history and in the larger story of our car culture and how it en-ables our continuing addiction to foreign oil. This is an important film with an important message that not only calls to task the offi-cials who squelched the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, but all of the other accomplices, government, the car companies, Big Oil, even Eco-darling Hydrogen as well as consumers, who turned their backs on the car and embrace embracing instead the SUV. This documentary investigates the death and resurrection of the electric car... Director: Chris Paine Writer: Chris Paine Stars: Martin Sheen, Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson

Green Holidays: Tips for Responsible Travel

Green City Page 10 6 June 2011

Submitted by Agata Lambrechts

Responsible, environmentally friendly travel is about more authentic holiday experiences that en-able you to get a little bit more out of your travels, and give a little bit more back to destinations and local people.

Before you book your holiday Choose a responsible operator

Ask to see the tour operator's policy for responsible/environmentally friendly tourism. Make sure it explains how they minimise environmental impacts and support the local economy.

Ask your hotel/accommodation these 10 simple questions to see if they really are eco:

1. Ask lodge owner if they have a written policy regarding the environment and local people. If its not written down ('yeah, yeah we do all that stuff') then it probably means they're are not taking it seriously.

2. Ask them to describe the single contribution to conservation or local people that they are most proud of.

3. Ask them how they measure their contribution to conservation and local communities.

4. Ask the accommodation owner how many local people they employ, what % this is of the total, and whether any are in management positions.

5. Ask them what they have specifically done to help protect the environment and sup-port conservation, and which local charities they work with.

6. Ask them what % of produce and services are sourced from within 25km of the ac-commodation.

7. Ask them how they treat waste water (coral and other wildlife is being destroyed by Caribbean hotels pumping effluent out to sea), and how they heat their building (solar is better than firewood, which can cause deforestation).

8. Ask them what information and advice is provided to tourists on local cultures and cus-toms.

9. Ask them if they employ guides from the local community (local guides not only pro-vide unmatched insights into local cultures, but are also aware of areas/behaviour that might cause offence among local people.

10. Ask them for ideas on how you might get involved with local people and conservation in a worthwhile and rewarding way for you and the destination.

Reduce your carbon emissions

I believe you should reduce the amount you fly, rather than flying the same as before and offset-ting (more on carbon caution in the next issue of Green City Newsletter).

Simple ways to do this -

Take fewer and longer holidays

Take some holidays closer to home

Green Holidays (continued)

Green City Page 11 6 June 2011

Travel by train and public transport where possible

Book direct flights avoiding transfers

Use public transport in destinations where possible

Before you travel Read up on local cultures and learn a few words of the local language - travelling with respect

earns you respect.

Remove all excess packaging - waste disposal is difficult in remote places and developing countries.

Ask your tour operator for specific tips for responsible travel in your destination.

Ask your tour operator/hotel if there are useful gifts that you could pack for your hosts, local people or schools.

Ask your tour operator whether there are local conservation or social projects that you could visit on your trip, and if/how you could help support them.

While on holiday Buy local produce in preference to imported goods.

Hire a local guide - you'll discover more about local culture and lives, and they will earn an income.

Do not buy products made from endangered species, hard woods or ancient artefacts.

Respect local cultures, traditions and holy places - if in doubt ask advice or don't visit.

Use public transport, hire a bike or walk when con-venient - its a great way to meet local people on their terms and reduce pollution and carbon emissions.

Use water sparingly - its very precious in many countries and tourists tend to use far more than local people.

Remember that local people have different ways of thinking and concepts of time, this just makes them different not wrong - cultivate the habit of asking questions (rather than the Western habit of knowing the answers).

When you get back Write to your tour operator or hotel with any comments or feedback about your holiday, and especially include any suggestions on reducing environmental impacts and in-creasing benefits to local communities.

If you've promised to send pictures or gifts to local people remember to do so, many are promised and not all arrive!

Why not donate to a local project in the area you’ve visited? You can find these online.

Enjoy the memories, reflect on your experience and start planning your next trip!

For more details about City and the environment:

www.city.ac.uk/thepoint For questions, comments and suggestions, please email us at: environment@city.ac.uk

Dawn White, Environmental Officer, Ext 8053, dawn.white.1@city.ac.uk

Jason Clarke, Energy & Environmental Manager, Ext 3069, jason.clarke.1@city.ac.uk

Green City Page 12

Notice Board

Green City Page 12 6 June 2011

Follow “CityEnvironment” on:

Don’t miss The Point stall at the Staff Wellbeing Day on Thursday 16 June.

Some of City’s Environmental Champions will be on hand to tell you more about how you can cycle more and eat better to improve your overall health and the environment.

Plus the bike doctor will be here at Northampton Square and at Whitechapel on 16 June (and also at Cass on 15 June).