Following the success of the Student Footprints pilot project a proposal for an extension was accepted by the Scottish Funding Council.
Simply called ‘The Second Phase’ the second 6 month project aimed to continue supporting NUS Scotland members in developing community bridges and volunteers’ transferable skills whilst tackling the ever growing issue of sustainable development.
With a full training event on carbon management, common areas of bad practice, key recommendations and how to calculate energy in quantities of £’s and CO2 levels, the second phase saw 30 volunteers develop their knowledge of the topic and begin to make positive steps within their communities.
On top of this, a handful of students became Senior Carbon Ambassadors by taking part in the Advanced Carbon Auditing course and took on a management role to oversee that audits were carried out to a high standard.
We are currently in the evaluation stage so check back for more details on how both business participants and volunteers found the project.
Students’ Associations
3 college students’ associations participated in the second phase of the project:
You can find more information about volunteer commitments on the pilot project phase page and more information about how you can take action now on the Student Footprints homepage.
Student Footprints partnership with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO)
SCVO has been supporting its membership to reduce their carbon footprints and to ‘green’ voluntary organisations. Student Footprints partnered with SCVO to run a pilot project in Aberdeen. Student Footprints volunteers carried out carbon audits on local voluntary organisations, helping them to identify how to reduce their energy consumption, as well as introducing the SCVO’s online CarbonLink tool [http://www.scvo.org.uk/scvo/GreenAgenda/HowToCountYourCarbon.aspx?g=ga] that allows organisations to monitor their wider carbon footprint.
4 volunteers from Aberdeen University took part in the secondary project, auditing 3 organisations and reducing a potential of 10.372 tonnes of CO2 and saving the equivalent of £2168.91 in energy bills.
Feedback from Aberdeen Council of Voluntary Organisations (ACVO) and the audited organisations and has been extremely positive and all involved hope to see similar opportunities offered in the future.