Wadham College receives a University Green Impact Award

The Green Impact programme provides a toolkit of actions that we followed to improve sustainability within our College in line with the University's Environmental Sustainability Strategy. Wadham formed a Green Impact team for the first time in academic year 2023/24 and received a gold Green Impact award.

At Wadham, we feel a duty to carry out our activities in an environmentally responsible manner. Our efforts to do so included increasing our recycling with the help of our staff sustainability champions and student staircase champions. Unwanted items were reused or donated, with a student-run clothes swap where faulty items could be mended, and our end-of-term collection boxes for the Heart Foundation and local food banks. We have reduced the use of single-use items, especially plastic.

We reduced carbon emissions related to our energy consumption, with use of EyeSense, a smart distributed Energy Management System that is designed to manage energy use in offices and student accommodation.

Half the food on all of our menus is vegan or vegetarian and we use local and seasonal produce as much as possible. We were pleased to partner with Food Rescuers, a student-led organisation that collects re-usable leftover food from Wadham's Refectory after lunch and distributes it to homeless people and homeless shelters in Oxford.

We are proud that Wadham has had Fairtrade Accreditation since 2018. We are continually looking for more ways to reduce our environmental impact, for example that which is created by the hundreds of parcels that are delivered to the Lodge each week. Wadham is part of a one-year pilot project for "final mile" delivery by cargo bike, working with Pedal and Post. We encourage sustainable travel and provide resources for cyclists, including bike doctor days, cycle safety trainings, bike parking, and more.

We will continue to work on a programme of improvements to sustain our environment for future generations. and to make more improvements going forward. We are committed to being part of the University's efforts to improve environmental sustainability, locally and globally. Find out more and read Wadham's Sustainability Strategy here.