Sustainability success for Chemistry

The team took home the Outstanding Student and Staff Team award, for their ‘Try before you buy’ initiative.

'Try before you buy' created an exemplar sustainable synthetic chemistry research laboratory, to trial new equipment, incorporate sustainability into the curriculum and empower colleagues to try new approaches to their area of research.

 

Dr Simon Coles, Associate Professor and Director of the National Crystallography Service is delighted with the recognition:

"It is a wonderful honour to receive this award and a fitting testament to the efforts of numerous people in the department and across the University, who strongly believe we can and should operate in a more environmentally sustainable way. This ranges from students through to staff (academic and facilities) to senior management.
 
“This award comes at a particularly important time for us as we are beginning to think about how we can change our working practice across the department to achieve these goals. This always means raising awareness by reaching out to colleagues." 

More than 80 people attended the ceremony on Tuesday 17 March, which was a celebration of sustainability work taking place across the University, in the local community and further afield.

Other winning projects ranged from carbon-saving projects on campus, through to social enterprises and economic development projects, representing the full spectrum of sustainability at the University.

To see the full list visit the Sustainability Action website.

Professor William Powrie, the University’s sustainability champion, introduced the ceremony and Professor Adam Wheeler (Deputy Vice-Chancellor) and Beckie Thomas (SUSU’s Vice President Welfare) presented the awards.

The awards are displayed in the Hartley Library with a short explanation of each winner’s work.