Sustainability Zone (27th January 2016)

Sam welcomed everyone to the meeting. Sebastian Odell, Mike Allwright, Julia Kendal (University of Southampton Sustainability Action Officer) and Chris Small (Policy and Volunteer Manager) were also in attendance.

The minutes from the previous meeting were approved.

There were no candidates.

LGBT History Month over February, with film screenings from the University and Hampshire Pride in Winchester. Caitlin also spoke about the Rainbow Laces campaign, a collaboration project happening with sports teams. Sam also said that there would be a subtitled screening of Deadpool at UnionFilms.

There are still a few positions vacant on the E&E Committee. They are looking at a food growing project, getting students to pilot a smaller version. The Committee also discussed the E&E Policy, which needs more of a strategy and will be discussed at the next E&E Committee.

Change Your World Week – bringing together different areas of Sustainability, to showcase what already is done as well as holding events run by E&E, E&D and also asking societies to run events.

Inspiring Women – set for Monday 7^th.

Bottled water – discussion at Union Council and the general feeling was not to ban bottled water, but to encourage the reuse of bottles.

There was no update.

Mike introduced Invest Positive as a bespoke Southampton version of Fossil Free, lobbying the University to committing to a higher ethical standard to the investment of their endowment fund. They had passed a policy at Union Council and have set up a working group to communicate with the University.

Sam said that the University have said that they do have a policy on tobacco, which isn’t publically available and will ask about other issues in his meeting with Sarah Pook.

Amy spoke about the Carbon Management Group who seemed positive about the project. Sam said that it’s really good to market the project as positive to the University.

The Committee discussed the following issues:

• Mentoring projects with alumni.
• Training for volunteers, in particular formal training that could be used for describing skills when applying for jobs.
• Specific training for Student Leaders in project management so that they can begin their roles from day 1 and achieve more.
• Links with people who have been in the same role, to introduce them to potential careers.
• More frequent and structured Student Leader Conferences.
• Follow up training for Student Leaders based on their experiences so far.
• Documenting and passing on experiences and lessons learned to future roles and Committees.
• Accreditation and a reference for job applications.
• Collecting information at events (e.g. number of people attending) that can be used by volunteers applying for jobs.

Business Ethics Policy – the Committee agreed to lapse this policy with a view to incorporating the important issues in the new E&E policy.

Valuing Diversity Policy – the Committee agreed that Sam, Caitlin and Anjit should meet to agree modifications that would then be brought back for approval.

Global Athletes - Sam explained that Global Athletes is a national project looking into getting sports teams involved in sustainability with incentives for teams and that they are currently looking to recruit a support staff member to help with the project.

Shift Your Stuff - Sam said that they have recruited an Excel Intern to help on the Shift Your Stuff project. Amy said that there is also a Masters student under Ian Williams who is going to analyse the data from the project and looking at the impact on the environment.

As there was no other business, the meeting was closed at 14:13.