Green Action Week at Wadham

Green Action Week was a great opportunity to share our programme of improvements to sustain the environment for future generations. Thank you to all staff and students who worked with our Director of Sustainability, Frances Lloyd, on this.

At the beginning of the week, many of us attended a staff sustainability training session, at which Frances shared insights about the climate crisis at a global, national, and local level, including what we at Wadham are doing to reduce our footprint.

Our Estates Manager, Chris Cox, led tours of College to show what we mean by 'sustainable energy' in practice. Chris explained how the change from hot water gas boilers to electric sunamp cubes on the College site is reducing our energy consumption and costs.

Head Gardener, David Perdiguero Blanco, and team manage their activities to reduce environmental impact and help Wadham to be Biodiversity Net Positive while keeping the grounds looking beautiful. This term, the team organised fortnightly volunteering sessions for staff and students to get involved with their work. In Green Action Week, the gardeners and helpers planted carrots and parsnips in our new raised beds, which volunteers helped to make in previous weeks. David, donated second-hand plant pots for a painting session organised by Tim Kirtley, our Librarian, combining sustainability with mindfulness.

Our SU's Feminist Society organised a Textiles and Mending Workshop, which was a a great way to give clothes a new lease of life by learning how to fix and mend them.

Increasing our efforts to reuse and recycle, we held a College swap shop for the whole of Green Action Week. Staff and students brought in their clothes, books, accessories, utensils and more, while taking others. Everything left over will go into our end-of-term Heart Foundation collection boxes.

We enjoyed some great cakes at the Merifield Green Bake Off. Entries could be vegan, gluten free, or made with fairtrade or locally-sourced ingredients. The winning entry took a visual green theme, with a Radcliffe Camera cake with blue icing sea lapping around it, to show rising sea levels.

Thank you to everyone who took part in Green Action Week. We will be continuing in our efforts to make Wadham a green College not just for a week but for all time. Find out more about Green Wadham here and by reading our Sustainability Strategy.