Green competition expanded to university students

June 3, 2020

Green competition expanded to university students

Green Impact aims to reduce AUT’s carbon footprint. Photo Credit: Htawee Thin

A green scheme is introducing friendly competition to motivate AUT University students and faculty to tackle local sustainability issues from home.

AUT's Green Impact scheme is an environmentally conscious programme invites AUT students and staff to take meaningful actions to achieve  sustainable development.

In 2019, the team-based programme launched at AUT for staff members and this year students can also participate.

Anneke Morgan, AUT's sustainable development faculty member, says due to the special situation of COVID19, the plan was expanded to include students.

“Other universities don’t generally include students in this but due to circumstances, we decided it would be a fun opportunity to get students involved as well,” she says.

“Since we designed all the actions ourselves, we made a student-friendly toolkit this year.”

On Thursday, May 21, Green Impact launched remotely through a Zoom meeting where participants were introduced to the project and what it would entail.

Students and staff are encouraged to enter competing teams across the University, sign up for the online toolkit of actions, and complete tasks to win awards.

Tasks are ranked by bronze, silver, and gold achievements.

Once teams complete a certain amount of bronze tasks, they move on to silver.

“The actions we’ve made, we’ve made most of them so that you can do them at home, or you can adapt to do it at home,” says Ms. Morgan.

“In the biodiversity bronze level, you can take part in the annual bird count to assist the council in biodiversity reporting or encourage your team to use public transport,” she says.

“Little things like that that are quick and easy to do.”

Registration for the new online platform will be available on Student Hub until September, 2020, which will go on to host Green Impact’s events and sustainability information.

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