PORTFOLIO 2017-18
Making Real Change on Campus
SOCIETYAIMS& OBJECTIVESThis society was set up in January 2016 as a forum for students tohave their voice heard in regards to Environmental issues, which areturned into real actions and solutions on campus.Our main objectives are the following:• To promote sustainability• To raise awareness of environmental issues• To organize environmentally themed events and excursions• To help improve the quality of life for all staff and students on campus• To help maintain the Universities Green FlagOur aim is not just to be one of the best University of Limerick societies,but to be a national exemplar Environmental Society. We aim to breakthe typical negative perception associated with EnvironmentalSocieties (e.g. boring, not fun, unrelatable, intense debates, protestsetc.) and intend on being much more fun, welcoming, relevant andengaging toward our fellow students and the campus community.
A Message From OurPresident 2018Hi there! We hope that in this portfolio,What a year it has been for you will see how various greatthe UL EnviroSoc! This people contributed to numerousportfolio is bursting with projects we ran in the pastboth little and big projects year, and we also hope it mightthat we made happen and inspire you to start your ownachieved to make a real little project. It’s incrediblydifference. We hope that rewarding, you’ll meet lovelyby our actions that we will people and most of all: you’llcontinue to make the UL way have great fun doing so!of thinking a little greener. From, Kathrin Möbius
ENERGY WASTE WATERBIODIVERSITY TRAVELUL C&S LOGO
Start of SemesterRecruitment DrivesAt the beginning of eachsemester the UL EnvironmentalSociety coordinates a highquality presence at the Clubsand Societies’ RecruitmentDrives. Over 35 different clubsand society stalls are normallypresent for each event so it isimportant to stand out to helpattract potential members. Thesociety uses a 2m x 600mmtimber display board to illustrateimages of all of the great eventsthat the UL EnvironmentalSociety entails to entice peopleover and sign up.
Society Set Up &Weekly MeetingsThe Environmental Societycommittee consists of eightmembers: President, Treasurer,Vice-President, Secretary, PRO,H&S Officer, Trips /Events Officerand Green Campus Liaison.While there are outlinedcommittee member positions asrequired by the C&S guidelines,this is certainly not an over rulingsetup; all society members areencouraged to lead projects theyare passionate about, and therelevant committee member willassist them.Weekly meetings are held onMonday evenings at 6pm.
Water & Waste SoUL Week launch at the SU Courtyard Permanently on display at Red Raisins RestaurantUL WaterConservationProjectsIn 2016 our EnvironmentalSociety designed andconstructed a Plastic BottleCollector unique to UL. This fungroup project was developed toraise awareness about the hugequantity of waste bottles beingthrown away on campus weekly.The collector was displayedagain in the Courtyard as partof SoUL week 2017.The piecehas since been permanentlyon display in the Red RaisinsRestaurant, the biggest eatinghall on campus.
Plastic Bottle Collector ondisplay outside the UL Library
Water & WasteAs a result of the UL BottleCollector campaign to reduce theamount of plastic bottles thrownaway in UL, the student’s uniondecided to fit two state of the artwater dispensers.Both stations have a counterwhich counts how many bottleshave been filled, effectivelyshowing all users how manyplastic bottles have beenavoided! Water fountain located in the Students Union. The counter increases by the hundreds weekly!
Water & WasteFollowing the success of theUL Bottle Collector, otheruniversities have decided todevelop similar bespoke bottlecollectors to encourage realchange on their campuses! Maynooth’s finished Bottle Collector!
Smarter TravelUL Cycle ToursOrganised in collaborationwith UL Smarter Travel and theInternational Society, we run aseries of fun campus group cycleseach semester. These trips canvary from a cycle tour of LimerickCity (given by experienced tourguide), to a picnic by the river inlocal village, Castelconnel, or tothe waterfalls of Clare Glenns.
Society TripSustainabilityTrip toCopenhagenUL Environmental Society visitedDenmark and Sweden in Octoberwhere they visited variousenvironmental related sites inCopenhagen and Malmo. The citiesof Copenhagen and Malmö areexemplary examples of how wecan incorporate sustainability intoour modern cities and lives. Bothcities offered excellent sites tosee which related to sustainabilityin many different and interestingways, from sustainable food tosustainable shipping to socialsustainability.
Copenhagen & MalmöSouls SustainableRestaurantSouls offer locally sourced, plant visited Souls on the first eveningbased food for people who not of the trip and enjoyed a reallyonly care about their health but delicious meal, totally guilt-freealso about the footprint their food from an environmental point ofleaves on the planet. Our group view!
Copenhagen & MalmöNordhavnNordhavn is a former industrial portwhich is being transformed into amodern residential and businessquarter with a special focus onsustainability. We received aguided tour of the visitors centre aswell as the town on the very windysecond day of our trip. We learnedabout the interesting economicand architectural strategies in thedevelopment of the town whichfocus on social inclusivity andsustainability.
Copenhagen & Malmö visited included sustainable energy installations, anGreen Bike Tour incinerator, green roofs, natural flood prevention mechanismsIn the afternoon on the second day and even Tivoli theme park whichof our trip we were guided on a three uses many clever measures tohour tour of Copenhagen by Green reduce its carbon footprint!Bike Tours. We were shown examplesof the various efforts which togethermake up Copenhagen’s attemptto become the world’s first carbonneutral capital city. The sites we
Copenhagen & MalmöMalmö WesternHarbour and PortOn the third day of our trip On the morning of the final daywe visited Malmö’s Western of our trip we were treated toHarbour, a residential area a presentation by one of thewhich has piloted different managers of Malmö port onwaste seperation systems, uses the many measures the portlocal green space to promote authorities use in order to promotebiodiversity and incorporates an sustainability in the areas of water,eco-friendly transport system. noise, waste, energy, soil and air
EducationalUL Silver ApplesCrèche VisitWhile based on campus, the SilverApples Crèche was identified by thesociety as a location that was notpreviously involved in, or exposedto, any previous EnvironmentalSociety related initiatives. Aftermaking contact with the crèche,it was agreed that a number ofsociety members were welcometo visit the crèche monthly torun half hour workshops whichcovered important topics such asrecycling, nature, road safety,and simple ideas how to better theenvironment. The workshops wererun through the form of fun gamesand sing alongs. You can neverstart too early with these things!
Smarter TravelLight Up Your LifeCampaignThe UL Environmental Societyin collaboration with the ULSmarter Travel team manned anumber of our main entrancesas part of the Smarter TravelCampus Light Up Your LifeCampaign. Hundreds of free LEDlights were given to passingcyclists over the course of manyevenings during the wintermonths to promote road safety.
Waste & RecyclingUL Recycling BinCampaignAs part of the waste segregationproject being rolled out acrossthe university by UL GreenCampus, the UL EnvironmentalSociety organised to reviewthe segregation strategy andthe associated bin designs.Following this group feedback,this influenced improvements toboth the strategy and final binsignage.
WastePaper CollectionTraysThis project focused on reducingpaper waste in the GlucksmanLibrary. Simple paper collectiontrays for unused sheets of paperwere placed in the print roomsso that disused paper can becollected and reused, massivelyreducing the amount of paperwaste!
WasteUL Happy MarketAnother hugely popular event wasthe UL Happy Market. This marketwas set up towards the end of bothsemesters to facilitate studentsand staff to sell their unwantedclothes, extending their life spanin stead of throwing them away.We sold over 140 items overall andhelped a few students make a fewextra euro!
Smarter TravelStudent Multi-Media AwardsAs part of the National SmarterTravel Multimedia Awards 2018,our PRO, Becky Van Rhee, and herfriends came together to create avideo to try and make people moreaware of their carbon footprint.Entitled ‘Ditch The Seat, Use YourFeet’, the group highlighted yourco2 emissions by comparingdifferent modes of transport i.etaking the bus, car sharing anddriving on your own. Scan the QR Code to see the Video!
The video was inspired by a past Daily CO2project developed a year ago bythe society to convey how much Emitted by UL Student Driverscarbon an average person mayemit daily. Carbon is somethingwe all emit in some form oranother. However, carbon can besomething that is very difficult toimagine or represent due to it’sgaseous invisibility. Reduce Yours; Travel Smart Brought to you by UL Environmental Society [email protected] The UL Environmental Society
At the national awardsceremony, Becky and herteam won 1st place inthe Video and Animationcategory with their video‘Ditch The Seat, Use YourFeet’. 1st Place National Award
Smarter TravelMarchathon2018The Marchathon Step Challenge occursannually across the country for themonth of March and is run by theNational Transport Authority. Thischallenge aims to encourage all staffstudents to get out and get walking forhealth, for the commute and for fun.In collaboration with the UL SmarterTravel team, we helped to promote andencourage participation by setting upvarious sign-up stalls across campusin the lead up to the challenge andhelping out with lunch-time walks! Over130 of people from UL participated andmany were successful prize winnersnationally. A UL team ‘The WhiteWalkers’ came first in the ‘St. Patrick’sDay Photo Competition’ and were alsorunner ups in the Marchathon ‘TeamPhoto Competition”
Waste, Water & BiodiversityRiverbank CleanupThe UL riverbank clean up was an anything at the waters edge andevent organised by the society in deeper. Paul O’Connell, member of thecollaboration with the UL Kayak Club UL Buildings & Estates team, collectedand the UL Environmental committee all rubbish bags along the route usingas part of the annual Team Limerick one of the B&E grounds vehicles. All ofClean Up events. Groups on foot set the days waste was collected at theout at 10am from the UL Boathouse boat house which in turn filled over anpicking up and collecting waste all entire skip. After a very productive fewalong the river edge and the adjacent hours, the team gathered back at thedrains. Members of the UL Kayak Club UL Boathouse where there was plenty ofwere in the water helping collecting tea and tasty sandwiches.
Scan the QR Codeto see the video!
SBtioadritveYrosuitryOwn GardenClassTo encourage and help members class was then followed by aof our campus community to grow gardening workshop at the ULplants and vegetables in their own rooftop garden where membershomes, one our team members, got to put what they learnedKerri Mueller, gave a class on into action!the basics of how to start yourown garden! This well attended UL GARDENING BASICS FOR BEGINNERS Tuesday 20th March Beginners introductory class on how to start your own garden with Kerri Mueller 6pm in room AM-067a (Main Building, Block A) Thursday 22nd March Come along to UL’s Rooftop Garden to get some lunchtime practical gardening experience. 1pm (Main Building, Block D, Level 1 corridor) Brought to you by:
In these gardening classes, thesociety’s members learned aboutvarious types of gardening skills,such as growing kale, potatoes andpeas.
BiodiversityBirdhouse WorkshopsOne of our most successfulprojects this year was the ULBirdhouse workshops. Theworkshops were broken down intothree separate workshops.The first workshop consisted of alecture by Gordon Young, a localbird watching expert, identifyingall of the different birds andwildlife that can be found allacross campus.
The second workshop was a ULCampus Nature Walk, again ledby Gordon Young. While on route,Gordon pointed out variousspecies of bird, where they may bepredominantly found on campusand also advised which locationswould be good locations to buildnests.
The third and final workshop These nestboxes would cater forconsisted the building of Blue Tits, Great Tits, Tree SparrowsBirdhouses to be erected and House Sparrows, with theacross campus! Using simple main difference between eachassembly instructions found on nestbox simply being the size ofthe Birdwatch Ireland website, the entrance hole to suit each birdtwelve beautiful birdhouses were type.constructed by our very ownsociety members and erected All of the wood and supplies andalong the Mill Race tow path. the final erection of the nestboxesEach birdhouse was personalised by a tree surgeon were kindlywith a pyro pen which allowed donated to the society by the ULsimple drawings and messages to Green Campus.be engraved onto the timber.
Images ofBirdhouseserected aroundthe UL campus!
Albert Nolan, a writer for theLimerick Leader county newspapercame along for the three workshopsand featured us in one of hisarticles!
Renewable FashionThrift ShopCrawlOne of the biggest issues that wediscussed again this year was theeffects of the fashion industries.One of our projects was a thriftshop crawl around Limerick Cityvisiting second hand shops andbuying anything that caught oureye!The reason behind this projectwas to try and encourage morepeople to buy second hand andextend the life of clothes!
WasteGreen GuidesAn important project which wasdiscussed by society memberswas the development of a UL GreenGuide. The Green Guide is intendedto illustrate a number of simplebut key important environmentaltips and facilities found acrosscampus with the aim of ‘Helpingyou, help the environment!’.This 100% recyclable leaflet wasdeveloped by our very own societymembers and 4500 copies will beincluded in all new undergraduateand international student welcomepacks come September 2018.
Waste & RecyclingGreen Is The New BlackFashion ShowOn Wednesday April 4th has on the environment. All of themembers of the society clothing modeled was provided byorganised the ‘Green is The New local charity stores, Enable Ireland,Black’ fashion show, promoting The Edge Clothing Limerick, SVP andsecond hand clothing as an Lucky Lane Limerick.The event wasattractive and viable option to a fantastic success with a great turnthe general UL public. We had out, lots of publicity and many offashion blogger Aoife McNamara items displayed being sold with profitscome along and talk to us about returning to the charity stores!the impact the fashion industry
MediaSocial MediaPresenceOur society runs a comprehensive people! Over the past year oursocial media campaign over various Facebook page has increased byplatforms. We use Facebook, over 100 likes with some postsTwitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and reaching nearly 10,000 people! Ourwe also regularly post on the UL instagram account now has overGreen Campus blog. Facebook is 150 followers and the UL Greenour main output for social media as Campus blog is visited by staff andit is the platform with the biggest student everyday!audience, reaching over 400 Facebook Green Campus Blog
MediaULES WebsiteTo make sure that the societyis kept up to date we createda new website for ULES. Thewebsite consists of a home pagedescribing why we were set up,a news tab to keep up to datewith whats happening in thesociety, a ‘Meet the Team’ pagethat introduces the committeemembers and a tab that allowsnew members to join the team! Check out our website! https://sites.google.com/view/ules/home
An FocalThroughout the year ULES hashad various articles featuredin the universities studentnewspaper ‘An Focal’. With thenewspaper discussing hot-topicslike the coffee-cup epidemic andIreland’s pollution crisis. Thearticles can be found on the “AnFocal” website.
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