Brian McTeir shares progress from Easter Bush’s transition from bottled water to water fountains, and the strategy to reduce the number of cups used at the fountains.

With plastic being a hot topic in the news, the Printing Services team attempted to find an eco-friendly alternative to plastic binders covers for their 2019 Gold Award.

For their 2019 gold project, the Centre for Open Learning worked to collect, recycle and redistribute stationery from the University to reduce waste and help share resources with the local community.

For their 2019 gold project, the Centre for Dementia Prevention Awards office team worked to create ‘EcoBricks’ to raise awareness of single-use plastic consumption and reduce the volume of waste reaching landfill.

The Easter Bush team chose to explore ways to be more resource efficient in their 2018 Sustainability Awards Gold project. This included avoiding the use of 5,224 cardboard boxes.

Institute for Academic Development (IAD) Sustainability Awards team share the successes of their gold project to use technology to support sustainability in 2016. Their actions ranged from reducing business travel by encouraging video conferencing, to putting in place paper-saving measures, resulting in a 30% reduction in paper use.

50 George Square, School of Literature, Languages and Cultures took part at silver level of the Sustainability Awards in 2016. Their stand out theme was purchasing and reuse. They streamlined ordering procedures, started a book sharing scheme, and increased the use of Warp It, the University’s reuse network.

Fourth-year Sustainable Development student, Ana Díaz Vidal, shares her journey of trying to find a more ethical and sustainable replacement smartphone.

Andy Arnott, Projects Coordinator (Labs), summarises how biohazard waste was reduced by 40% in a pioneering study by a lab in the University of Edinburgh Roslin Institute.

Shirley Simpson at the Hospital for Small Animals, and Steve McLean at QMRI talk about how they saved money and space by finding a new use for old equipment.