During the week 18/11/2019 to 22/11/2019 the University of Reading is carrying out various initiatives and promotional activities for Green Festival.

From a Campus Jobs perspective, we thought it would be useful to consider just some of the ways in which you can look to be more sustainable whilst working on campus.

Travel

One of the biggest contributors to Climate Change is the amount of fossil fuels and pollution being contributed to the atmosphere. Reading, in particular, is a very populated town in terms of number of vehicles on the roads every day.

Can you consider a “green” way of getting to work? The Reading Uni campuses are easily accessible via foot (with such great scenery to see), or bike (make sure you look for the Dr Bike set up’s in the Palmer quad every month), or alternatively you could get the bus, make sure to get a student pass to save money on your travel!

Eating and Drinking

The University is committed to buying produce or providing outlets for purchasing produce that is locally sourced or from small traders. Have you visited the Food Market on a Thursday in term time? Or perhaps you like to buy your fresh fruit, veggies, cheeses and breads from the market in RUSU?

If you want to try and reduce your plastic or paper cup usage, why not invest in a sustain IT water bottle which can be used at the Coke Freedom machines to get water (free), or if you top up the chip the bottle can be used to get refillable soft drinks. Alternatively, if you look out for Campus Jobs competitions we quite often give the chance of winning our great Water bottle bundles. Why not sign up to our newsletter via the Campus Jobs portal, or follow our social media pages to be in the know when we next do giveaways!

Paper usage

A lot of the jobs you may do on campus could require you to work from documents, or even for your own studies, do you really need to print out the documents/lecture slides or could you work from them via your laptop?

Campus Jobs alone from just switching to online contracts since August 2018 has saved 30,000 pieces of paper! Think of how much you could be saving by not printing every document you need for work or your studies.

Sustainable Purchasing

Did you know Eat the Square and Park Bar now sell locally sourced produce and goods, you can even fill up your own containers with self serve rice/cereals/pasta and grains, or buy yourself sustainable plastic alternatives like beeswax food wraps or bamboo toothbrushes!

Adding on to this RUSU also has a weekly visit from a local provider of handmade or eco-friendly goods, you can even refill your washing up liquid etc there! Look out for them in the RUSU foyer on Thursdays when the food and vegetable markets are on.

Here are other tips for trying to be a little bit more sustainable during your time here on Campus, everyone making a small difference can have a big impact!