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!