Join a Green Impact Team

Green Impact is an international environmental behaviour change programme that the University is a founding member of. The 2018/19 programme will be the University's 10th and final participating year. After the awards ceremony on 20 November 2019 we will be launching a new section of 10,000 Actions for teams to track their actions. Please visit this website after that date for more information.

Green Impact is open to University staff who throughout the year work to improve the environmental performance of their workplace/department. This is done by progressing through an online toolkit of actions and implementing as many as possible, with the aim of achieving an award at the end of the cycle.

The University of Manchester’s Green Impact programme launches in December and culminates in a grand awards ceremony in Whitworth Hall in November, where teams are recognised and rewarded for their efforts.

There are two versions of the online toolkit – one for office-based teams and one for laboratory-based teams. Actions focus on waste, travel, energy and water, communications, learning, people and procurement.

Each year a team of students audit the teams’ progress and award them either bronze, silver or gold awards. These are then given out at the end of year celebration.

Green Impact is a really fun way to get together with your colleagues and make a real difference to your place of work and help contribute to a more sustainable world. It’s also a chance to be a part of a really big movement. Nearly 300 organisations take part in the award winning Green Impact programme and last year alone, The University of Manchester had over 100 teams taking part with over 4,500 actions completed and 120 students trained with sustainability-related skills.

How to get involved?

Green Impact teams are organised by themselves and can be based in departments, buildings or just a group of like-minded colleagues. There is no size limit and anyone can initiate and lead a team.

Once you have registered you will be supported by the Environmental Sustainability Team.

To take part in Green Impact, simply:

  1. Complete the short online registration form (please do this even if you are a returning team this year, otherwise you will not be registered!)
  2. Visit the toolkit and either register if you're setting up a new team or login if you're a returning team
  3. If it's your first time taking part, or you have any additional questions, please contact es@manchester.ac.uk

Once you have signed up you simply get started on the toolkit. Arrange an initial meeting, have a look at the essential criteria and decide how you want to tackle the workbook through the year. If you need a little more support you have the opportunity to request a Green Impact Project Assistant, these are students we train to support you. This is great experience for them and a little help with some of the legwork for you.

The Green Impact cycle runs from roughly November through to October and culminates in an and awards ceremony and celebration that forms part of the Annual Sustainability Celebration in the Whitworth Hall, early-mid November.

How does the scoring work?

To gain the various award levels you will need to achieve the following:

- Working Towards Accreditation: start doing any of the criteria, even if it’s only a few
- Bronze: complete all actions within the Essential tab, and have achieved at least 300 points in total across the whole toolkit (excluding labs);
- Silver: complete all actions within the Essential tab, and have achieved at least 500 points in total across the whole toolkit (excluding labs);
- Gold: complete all actions within the Essential tab, and have achieved at least 750 points in total across the whole toolkit (excluding labs).

Mailing list

To receive the latest information and events for Green Impact you can sign up to the mailing list.

SharePoint

A SharePoint site is a Web site that provides a central storage and collaboration space for documents, information, and ideas. The Green Impact SharePoint contains more information on all the actions in the toolkit. As well as Green Impact posters produced by other Green Impact teams.