Each year in February, students put themselves forward to run for a full-time, paid position as a Student Leader. They campaign for votes and every Essex student will have an equal chance to 'vote like a student' and choose who they want to be elected into each of the 6 roles. This is the SU Leadership Election.

Manifesto

Candidate for the position of Sustainability Representatives (col)

KAITLIN CAMPBELL

Hi all!

I am currently a first year Life Sciences student studying Global Sustainability. I thought it was quite fitting that I run for Sustainability Rep due to the nature of my course. I believe that this would be a great opportunity for me to broaden my outlook on environmentalism. Even before coming to university, I have been actively involved in many sustainability projects. I received my Silver and Bronze Awards in Girl Scouts by creating a video on recycling and informing others about how to appreciate the natural world. Examples demonstrating my sense of responsibility and self-discipline include receiving my Gold Award, requiring over 80 hours of independent work, and my current role as a student representative.

Recycling

As an international student, I have been able to get inspiration from many different places and have seen first-hand how things such as recycling are handled. Even from visiting other universities, I believe that our university can do so much better in terms of becoming more environmentally conscious. There is already a diverse selection of recycling and general waste bins across campus however it is debatable whether they are being used effectively.

Litter Picking

It would be beneficial to explore what the general mindset towards recycling and sustainability is on campus and to see how this can be approached. While there have been one-off litter picks run by Vteam and the Marine Conservation society, if students were interested, I would aim to set up a Vteam regular weekly project for litter picking on campus.

Green Spaces

There are so many perks to our university being a campus university, with many beautiful green spaces and opportunities to be around nature. I would like to encourage more involvement with the surrounding nature since there are many local nature routes as well as a frisbee golf track.

Food on Campus

From what I have observed, the containers in which food is served in the different university food outlets contributes to a lot of the waste. In Essex Food venues across campus, there is already a discount of 25p on drinks when one brings their own mug. This is a great idea and I think it can be expanded to food. While it may be challenging to implement in the short term, it would be advantageous to start a deposit system or to encourage the use of reusable food containers.

Thank you for taking the time to read (or skim) over my manifesto. If there are any issues anyone would like to bring up from a sustainability standpoint, I am always happy to listen :)