Leeds Trinity Students' Union is committed to continuously working on how sustainable we are.
LTSU are here to make sustainability accessible to all our students, and there’s many ways you can make an impact here on campus. Learn more about our current and past campaigns that officers are working on, the negative environmental impacts of the SU, and key documents.
This year, LTSU is commited to campaigning around the UN 17 Goals, to find out more take a look at our SMART plan.
There are a number of active sustainability policies that your Sustainability Officer, Vice President, and other Council members are working on. Find them here under 'Active Policies'
if you would like to find out more about students' experiences of teaching and learning on sustainable development then you can find the report here
Sustainability Statement
This year, our Vice President has written a statement about the importance of sustainability not just for elected sabbatical officers, but for every student at Leeds Trinity. Read more about the work taken by our Vice President this year here.
Green Impact Excellence 2022/23
LTSU is part of Green Impact, which is a United Nations award-winning programme designed to support environmentally and socially sustainable practice in your organisation. This year, LTSU were awarded Very Good for the work delivered around sustainability. The auditors stated:
“The effort that Leeds Trinity SU have put into GISU this year has been incredible. Some impressive progress has been made despite only having a small team and having to do most of the workbook in just half of the year! It is clear that the SU is passionate about sustainability and how it intersects with other issues that students face. It was really nice to hear from Kelsey who is such a strong motivating force and who’s critical approach is pushing the SU forward.”
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Negative Environmental Impacts of the SU
February 2024
The following negative sustainability impacts are primarily based on our current estimations from Leeds Trinity Students' Union's projected 23-24 academic year ahead. These have been ordered from most impactful to least impactful.
Commercial Waste
Our commercial venue, The Student Bar, is unavoidably our most significant negative environmental impact due to energy usage. However, we have made movements towards reducing our impact in other areas, such as introducing crockery for food service instead of disposables as a standard, with our takeaway packaging being Kraft vegware and cardboard rather than a plastic-based alternative. We have also moved away from disposable single-use glasses and did so before this became legislation in October this year with the introduction of reusable plastic-branded glasses that improve our environmental impact and our standard of service.
All products purchased for the bar for sale are in either glass or cans instead of PET bottles and, therefore, recycled correctly. We limit our ordering for suppliers to a maximum of once per week if not once per fortnight, to minimise and reduce the travel used for deliveries.
We have worked this year to reduce our food wastage considerably, which has been reduced from 15% to 2% as a maximum. We strive to reduce this further. Our Commercial Manager, Jo Barton, participates in the Sustainability Roadmap Group and is accredited as an affiliate member of IEMA?(IEMA)?and a member of the Future Food Movement.
We are constantly striving towards reviewing and improving the sustainability of our commercial offering. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please contact Jo Barton at j.barton@leedstrinity.ac.uk, as we value your feedback and opinions.?
A lack of control over our sustainable outputs (carbon footprint, electrical usage and water usage).
- Water Usage in Buildings: 0.084 tCO2e
- Gas Usage for Heating: 4 tCO2e
- Electricity Usage: 1.76 tCO2e
Without our own building or space, our outputs above are combined with Leeds Trinity University's. We cannot effectively monitor or influence our outputs; therefore, it is the second most significant negative environmental output. With this in mind, we try to make an impact by being as environmentally conscious as possible about our water and electricity usage to make a small impact. We are, however, supporting the university with the commitment to NetZero by 2030 and attempting to hold the university accountable to this promise. We actively support and run campaigns like Switch It Off for all students and staff to reduce Leeds Trinity Students' Union's impacts on the environment.
Marketing materials
Our third highest negative environmental impact is our use of physical marketing. This year, we have rebranded, which means a change from our old marketing materials. We are actively aware of this and have tried to ensure the sustainability of our new materials to ensure they are as future-proof as possible. There are plans to make this reflect in our policies. To combat this negative impact, we are utilising social media platforms and alternative marketing methods to inform students of our charity and the activities and events that we are hosting.
Activities Transport
The activities department of LTSU may have a high potential for C02 emissions due to the attendance of events by our clubs and societies. Our sports clubs have to travel around the United Kingdom on Wednesdays to play fixtures in various leagues against other universities. Previously, they were using coaches with larger seat numbers than necessary, so to amend this, our clubs should have the right coach size this year to reduce our carbon emission on coaches that are not necessary; we are also encouraging our students to use public transport and car-share when and wherever possible. From a financial aspect, this also makes it cheaper for our clubs and societies. Furthermore, the C02 would be much more significant if they travelled individually to these events. Therefore, encouraging these more environmentally friendly alternatives is a way for LTSU to reduce the carbon emissions being created from activities.
Lack of community engagement
With a small student population, we only have a limited number of students actively engaged with sustainability. Although this may not seem like a negative output, we cannot make an active change without strong input from our students. That is why we are not just focusing on quality over quantity this year. Still, we are working to improve sustainability education to prove that sustainability is a part of everything we do. Our focus for improving community engagement this year is the snowball effect. We are training our various student leader communities on the importance of sustainability and how to implement sustainability into their lives so that these leaders can go forth and inform and influence other students to also consider sustainability in their day-to-day lives so that together, we can become more sustainable as a community.
What can I do?
LTSU wants to empower you to make a difference. We have a responsibility to help make behaviour changes as easy and accessible as possible.
There are plenty of ways for you to engage, from campaigns and intiatives on campus, working with our Sustainability Officer, or buying from our sustainable range at the SU Shop.
We'd love to work with you to make Leeds Trinity more sustainable. Send us an email if you'd like to be involved with sustainability initiatives - at the moment a project we're working on is growing food in the planters outside the Student Bar!
If you woud like to find out more about being sustainable, follow the below links:
Student Switch Off - advice on saving money and energy for private renters
Save the Student - 13 ways to save money on energy bills
Confused.com advice on switching energy tariffs (to a greener one!)
What you can do at home to help combat climate change