Sustainability Week 2011

20 October 2011

One world, your world. That’s the theme for Sustainability Week 2011 (31 October – 4 November). We’ll be looking at what we can do – as individuals and as a nation - to help our local and global communities.

In our Sustainability Week debate our panel of experts will discuss issues like ‘can one person make a difference to the environment?’, ‘how can a small nation like Wales contribute to the global sustainability agenda?’ and ‘how can we motivate people power and collective action?’.

We’ll also be championing the Size of Wales project throughout the week. This is a unique national scheme to sustain an area of tropical forest the size of Wales as part of our national response to climate change. It was created by the Wales’ Millennium Development Goals Task Force as part of Wales’ response to the dual challenges of climate change and international poverty reduction. During Sustainability Week, we’ll be asking you to help us decide which of the Size of Wales initiatives the University will support.

We’ve also got lots of other events planned including an Eco-Halloween fayre, the Student Switch Off campaign, bicycle MOT’s, bicycle security marking and a locally-sourced menu in all of our restaurants throughout the week.

Sustainability Week is about raising awareness about the steps we’ve taken as a University to reduce our carbon footprint and our environmental impact and what we plan to do in the future. It’s also an opportunity for us to highlight our world-leading research in this area.

So how can you get involved?

We’ll be putting the full schedule onto the Sustainability Week web pages (www.cardiff.ac.uk/sustainabilityweek) in the coming week. There’ll also be a special edition of Blas published ahead of Sustainability Week with more information.

Please, join in wherever you can. Come along to the debate, tell us what you’d like to see more – or less of – in the University, buy local produce from the fruit and veg co-op that we’ll have on campus, donate food to the food bank project.

There’ll be much more for you to get involved in too. I look forward to seeing many of you at the events we’re holding throughout the week.