College wins two awards for sustainability

The College has won not one, but two 2021-2022 Green Impact awards for its commitment to reducing its environmental impact.

Green Impact is the University of Cambridge’s environmental accreditation scheme. It supports and encourages departments and Colleges across the University to improve their environmental performance.

The College has won the Green Impact Platinum award for the second consecutive year in recognition of its commitment to sustainability in its day-to-day operations.

It also wins an Excellence award specifically for its mixed waste recycling points which can be found in the Roost, Chapel Court, Library Court, and at the Lower Park Street gate waste centre.

These enable all College members to recycle more types of waste than before - general waste, cardboard, dry mixed recycling, food waste, and mixed glass. At the Roost café, crisps packaging and home batteries recycling points have also been included.

The initiative has helped bolster the College’s recycling rates to up to 73 per cent, and significantly reduce its carbon emissions - saving 12,210 kg of CO2.

Jo Dell’Orto, Manager of the Roost café bar, who spearheaded the project with former Roost employee and Jesus resident, Justine Lancelin, said: “It’s great to see that many people now bring their waste to the Roost throughout the day to be recycled.

“We hope to diversify the type of waste collected, offering the possibility to collect plastic bottles in the near future, and we are already thinking of other changes we could implement for instance, switching from paper to reusable metal straws.”

Stuart Websdale, Domestic Bursar, said: “I am extremely proud of the work of Jo and Justine and I’m grateful to the wider College community who have embraced this initiative, and others, as we seek to collectively achieve our ambitious sustainability goals and be a leading academic institution in our commitment to tackling climate change.”