Computers On Overnight?

Those of you who have been in a computer room on campus anytime in the evening will probably have been struck that all the computers are on even when no-one is in the room - B23 Llandinam, Penbryn, PJM - even the Hugh Owen library computers are still lit up when the room is dark!

Colossal waste of energy? You bet.
(I haven't counted myself, but I think that's 677 PCs)

Last year's E&E office, Alain, was in contact with Information Services about this and after following up this year, this is the situation explained from IS:

- There was a project being undertaken at the University of Wales Institute Cardif for automatic shut-down of public computer workstations in the evening and starting things up in the morning, and IS was following the outcomes of this study.

-However, the system that is used would not work here in Aber as it would be incompatible with the hardware currently used.

-Shutting down systems automatically seemed to work alright, but the difficulty was with starting things up in the morning - called 'Wake on LAN' (WOL) - for morning classes and to deliver system updates.

- I have been told that Information Services is considering a 'refresh' of their systems next summer and that a WOL capability should be an essential requirement in making the choices for replacement equipment at that point.

So, it'll be another year - at least - before we can expect that public computers will be automatically powered down overnight. That is disappointing and it's something that's been thoroughly annoying since my first year - and there'll be much more wasteful carbon emissions along the way with the amount of electricity used - but at least there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

Climate Bill Announced!

Weeks of rumblings have finally turned into political action with a Climate Bill! That's what campaigning over the last year and a half has turned into - maybe politicians do listen after all =)

Here is the story from the BBC for the two-minute version, but includes the important warning from opposition politicians that we want a Climate Bill that does stuff, and that isn't watered down through the legislative process. We want a meaningful, broad and deep Climate Bill that sets out the framework for effective public policy choices, stimulates the market and incentivizes changing behaviour for individuals!

The DEFRA press release can be found here, and a longer statement made by Miliband to the Commons on Monday. Friends of the Earth, with whom this campaign began as The Big Ask, has their response here.

There is a mountain of material on the BBC website available now with the release of the Stern Report - the review of the economics of climate change - that I haven't had the chance to look through yet, but hope to do so soon. The main story is here, while the Guardian leader article from Tuesday's edition is here (much more comment at commentisfree)

Environmental Sustainability in Aber

I posted this a while back, but thought I'd flag it up again now...

Environmental Sustainability - why you should care and how to go about being sustainable!
http://www.aber.ac.uk/ensus/index.shtml

An Inconvenient Truth Comes to Aber!

Finally! I wasn't able to catch it before I got back to Aber but the good news is that the Arts Centre is bringing the Al Gore movie on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, in November!

Times are:
14 Nov Tuesday - 8pm
15 Nov Wednesday - 2.30pm and 8pm
16 Nov Thursday - 8pm
17 Nov Thursday - 5.30pm

The book behind the film, also titled An Inconvenient Truth, is on sale in the Arts Centre bookstore - I think it was 14.99.

A cheaper buy is 'I Count', published by the Stop Climate Coalition and distributed by Penguin for 3 pounds, available from the Waterstones bookshop in town - full of practical and humourous details on what you can do about the climate change challenge!

Carnival of Climate Chaos

Things are warming up (no pun intended) very nicely for the Carnival of Climate Chaos and the I Count event, in addition to what looks to be a terrific Shared Planet 2006 in just under two weeks time!

I'm really excited at what's coming up and looking forward to a great weekend and give all who are there a sense of what People and Planet is there - dynamic, energetic students all wanting to change the world! If you want to come to Shared Planet, hurry - tickets are running out, and if you want to come just for the I Count demonstration - let me know as soon as possible so we can finalize travel!

The Union General Meeting - Keeping the Commitment

Last Thursday the Guild of Students had its first General Meeting of the year. There are five of these a year and it's a way to democratically decide on 'official' Guild policy and holding elected officers to account. And a way to get a free pint of beer.

I had proposed a motion on the Stop Climate Chaos coalition - basically for the Guild of Students as a whole to support Stop Climate Chaos activities; to ask NUS to affiliate to SCC; and for the Guild to write to local politicians asking for their support for SCC's objectives on climate change.

Wasn't a terribly controversial motion - that said, the evening itself wasn't terribly controversial and could have used a bit of debate - and so after I introduced the motion, with no speakers against it went straight to a vote and was passed unanimously. Hurray!

I also had to speak to object to a number of lapsed policy motions at the GM. These were motions that were passed three years ago by other students and would lapse at this GM if they were not re-voted/debated upon. There were three motions of relevance to Environment and Ethics - the Guild's Zero Waste Policy, its call for Green Electricity at the University; and its call for more Fairtrade at the University.

All these passed unanimously without debate thus remaining a part of Guild policy. If you want to see these motions in full (they're a bit lengthy and ramble a bit) please email me and I'll send you a copy!

NUS Environment Conference

I spent Monday in Birmingham at an NUS Environment/Ethics campaign conference together with sabbaticals and other E/E officers from other universities.

I arrived somewhat late after taking 2 and a half hours to get from Shrewsbury to Birmingham via Crewe but that's another (familiar) story about rail travel.

There were around 25 people at the conference with about 15-ish universities represented there. It was good to see Welsh university comrades from Swansea too but no Cardiff!

The first session that we had was an introduction to the Fairtrade campaign, with presentations both by a People and Planet staff member and Tim from Edinburgh who was speaking for NUSSL - NUS Services Limited, who supply the Union shops with their products. While most of that was familiar material, it was still a reminder of how things haven't really changed much since my first year - there are still only the Fairtrade basics in the Union Shop, it is a battle-and-a-half with Residential Services and we aren't much closer to Fairtrade status. But we've got seven months left in the academic year and much to achieve, with more manpower to get things done.

A second session was on the new Ethical Choice Awards scheme that NUS are launching - aimed at ethicalizing (love inventing new words, do I) Student Unions even further. The basic gist is there are 20 basic criteria for student unions, with about 140 further green/ethical elements that they could undertake. In theory all the steps (the main ones at least) could be undertaken inside two months so it is all fairly do-able stuff and nothing on the other side of the ocean. SUs are ranked depending on how well they do compared to the criteria, and given a Bronze/Silver/Gold rating, with a further extension of the Gold rating to an actual league table for the top 10 SUs in the country. Competition indeed! So from the presentation things look quite positive; I'm quite keen on finding out more about the detail and how we here in Aber can participate in the program.

After a (very nice) buffet lunch in a Fairtrade cafeteria, we moved onto debating some policy motions - things such as support for a lug-a-mug (bring your own, essentially) scheme for coffee places and bars; the Go Green campaign; ethical investment; energy and power generation. That process in particular could have very easily degenerated into a farcial debate but everyone took things pretty seriously and some pretty good points were raised. We passed everything (usually unanimously) that was brought before us, but it seems a good starting point for bringing environmental/ethical concerns back into the NUS mainstream.

There were also elections for the NUS E/E committee - 6 places with 6 candidates + RON. Each of the candidates seemed pretty serious about their interest and enthusiasm even if, as it seemed, not everyone was very clear about what being on the E/E committee would involve!

All in all it was a good day out and getting in touch with what NUS does. I've come away feeling much more positive about NUS, confident about NUSSL and really thinking about my own Environment and Ethics remit beyond what I do that is essentially related to People and Planet-inspired activites. It was a shame that there weren't more representatives and universities there - but those who had been there before seemed quite happy at how things went compared to previous years and I think things can only get better!

Cycle Lane on Campus

You may have noticed a new painted cycle lane on the roads around the Sports Cage and Centre...

Hopefully this will encourage cyclists to travel in a systematic and safer manner around campus as some of the roads can be quite narrow and many of them one-way too! My understanding is that if this system seems to work well it'll be rolled out to other parts of campus.

Kudos to all those who travel by bike in Aber. I couldn't do it!

UWA's Health Safety and Environment Statement

Thought I'd post this up here - Welsh version is available on the main University website http://www.aber.ac.uk/safety-environment/english/policy/index.shtml

This is the text of the university's Health Safety and Environment statement. In case you're wondering, this is it and there isn't much else in terms of translating these nice words into environmental action. If you wander around the HSE webpages you'll find that most of the material is related to the Health/Safety part of it - procedures and safety and so forth. I think that that's a fair reflection of the attention given to the Environment side of things. Anyway, more on this to follow in the coming weeks and months. Here's the statement.
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The University of Wales, Aberystwyth recognises that the protection of the health and safety of our employees, students and others affected by our activities, and of the quality of the environment, are an integral part of the university’s operation and a prime responsibility of management at every level.

Specifically UWA will:
· comply, as a minimum, with legislation and associated codes of practice and improve on the performance standards they specify where it is reasonably practicable to do so.

· conduct our activities safely and in an environmentally responsible manner.

· endeavour to improve continually our health, safety and environmental management systems so that work related ill health and accidents, environmental releases and production of waste are minimised, and energy is used efficiently.

· require all our employees and students to work safely and with due consideration for the health and safety of others and for the environment, and provide whatever training and supervision are necessary.

· involve and consult employees, where appropriate through their representatives.

· by recognising our fundamental role in higher education, aim to include health & safety and risk management topics in our taught courses of study as appropriate.

· wherever reasonably practicable, apply the principles of sustainability when sourcing goods and services.

· require contractors who work for us to accept the same standards of care for health, safety and the environment as the university itself.

UWA will make available appropriate resources to implement the policy. The university will take all necessary steps, including measuring performance and auditing compliance, to ensure that the policy is understood and is being implemented and maintained at all levels.

The policy will be reviewed annually, updated when necessary and any revisions brought to the attention of all employees and those others who may be affected.
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Do You Own a Mac?

A new campaign from Greenpeace on the toxic chemicals and substances in Apple Macintosh computers - and apparently Apple aren't being very responsive in dealing with the issues raised.

Check it out at http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/

Carbon Management Plan

I was slightly taken by surprise when in April/May I saw a full-page ad in the Guardian by the Carbon Trust highlighting universities taking part in a pilot program it was running to reduce carbon emissions from the higher education sector. For all outward appearances the university doesn't seem to be a very eco-, much less carbon-conscious university!

Progress with the plan is still ongoing and updates will be provided here; the basic gist is that an Implementation Plan for carbon management was developed with the Carbon Trust and Nigel Owen, who works in the UWA Estates Office.

This involved the following steps
-Setting a strategy and policy for carbon management. The vision coming out of this is "to reduce the university's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and to increase awareness of issues surrounding climate change to staff, students and the wider community." Warm words, and very welcome too, but the action that flows from this is what really matters.

-Some baseline statistics and measurements to set a base with which to measure future improvements

-Suggestions for actual change include - staff energy awareness training; replacing tungsten lighting with flourescent lighting, motion-sensor lighting, insulating heating pipes, and a few more.

I think that from a slightly distanced position, it's fair to say that the main motivation is the financial savings from cutting carbon emissions. Relatively high fuel prices make that easy, but the challenge is to entrench a long-term commitment. I'm not complaining if the outcomes are desirable, but all I'm pointing out is that a moral commitment would offer far greater certainty and security.

And at the end of the carbon emissions and management is just one environmental impact of the university. It's not a minor one, and it can make quite a difference, but carbon management should be the beginning rather than the end.

Green Dragon

Just before the summer began, the Guild of Students initiated a project called 'Green Dragon'.

Green Dragon is an environmental management program for organisations in Wales, which offers external assistance, monitoring and support to gradually extending the range and remit of environmental controls in place. Organisations begin at Level 1 and try to move up the scale to Level 5 (for instance the National Assembly for Wales, Cambrian Printers).

At a basic level this involves compliance with existing legislative requirements but then moves towards actively putting the reduce, reuse and recycle into action.

It's good to see that the Guild has taken these steps proactively, searching for areas of potential improvement that may not have been paid much attention in the past. Apart from the bars and shops, most students don't get to see 'behind the scenes' at the Guild, and it is the routine day to day operations that probably have the greatest environmental impact rather than the one-off events. This is where Green Dragon has the potential to make the biggest impact. Once a system has been established, and staff get used to it, it helps to ensure that changes are there for the long run. I think that once a basic environmental awareness is communicated among staff, there could be further changes that staff themselves bring forward. After all, who knows how the Guild operate than the staff members themselves?

Green Dragon responsibility will be led mainly by Geraint, the Union's General Manager but it will be followed up by an Environmental Working Group that has been set up within the Guild. I end up sitting on it too.

I'll be posting updates throughout the year as further evaluations are made and improvements evaluated. The website for the Green Dragon operators is http://www.greendragonems.com/