Green news

Stationery Amnesty - Monday 9 March

Green Impact were out in force on Monday 9th March to save the day!  We held our first Stationery Amnesty, ridding hoarders of all their duplicate pens and pencils (board markers were a particular favourite, by all accounts!), spare folders and polypockets. As a small incentive, the first ten contributors were rewarded with a bar of scrumptious Divine chocolate.  The event was a lot of fun but, more importantly, it demonstrated just how easy it is to think green and make a difference.  This is definitely something we'll be doing again, in the future.

Organic & Local Food Event in Maths - Friday 13 February

On Friday 13th February, the department's Green Impact team organised a very successful organic & local food event, at which members of the department could meet their Green Impact team and ask them all sorts of questions about Green Impact, and sustainability. With organic food from London (bread, brownies, biscuits, muffins and falafel), organic cheeses from Sussex, organic apples from Kent, Fairtrade chocolate made in Surrey, and some Kew Brewery beers, as well as plenty of other organic or Fairtrade goodies, not to mention the department's own organic and Fairtrade tea, coffee and milk, it was quite the celebration of sustainable food...

January 2015 - Happy Green New Year

Departmental colleagues in Maths have been wished a Happy Green New Year, and asked to submit their energy saving ideas to the Green Impact team - see picture. Come on everyone, what's your Green New Year's resolution? Let us know...

 

December 2014: Happy Holidays!

This year, we got our wonderful PhD students involved in designing a Christmas e-card for us to send to colleagues and friends of the Department.  Barnaby Roberts, with assistance from Ahmad Abu-Khazneh, created a card of snowflake fractals to give our card a mathematically Christmas vibe!  More information can be found here. November 2014:

Inspiring our Department

Being a Mathematics Department, our team members work on white boards a great deal of the time.  This gives us the perfect canvas to share an inspirational Green Impact quote, every once in a while, encouraging colleagues to think green.  Here's a couple of examples of recent words of wisdom:

December 2013: Big Green Competition Winners!

We are pleased to announce the winners of last academic year’s Big Green Competitions and to launch this year’s competitions! Last year students were given the opportunity to submit ideas for how some of the mathematics learnt might connect with an environmental or ‘green’ idea or concept, and to explain this in a short competition entry. Where possible, these ideas would be built into future examples in mathematics and statistics courses and work on this has started. The competition entries were judged by members of the Mathematics Green Impact Team and academic members of staff responsible for the courses and the prizes were awarded as follows:

MA107

• 1st prize Mark Farragher “Maximum Sustainable Yield”
• 2nd prize Margaux Wehr “The cobweb model and how it could be applied to carbon credits”

ST102

• 1st prize Tom Harry "Determining conditional probabilities of household recycling"
• 2nd prize Rishabh Kathotia "Environmentally friendly and cost-efficient printing at LSE"
• 3rd prize  Louis Pape "Paper usage: Landscape v. portrait orientation"

ST107

• 1st prize Hedy Man "Global warming, extreme events and the Normal distribution". 
• 2nd prize  Jonathan Vijayan  "Mappiness"

January 2013: Green Impact - Excellence project 2012-13

In 2012-13, the Mathematics Department Green Impact team was awarded funds to undertake a special project instead of completing the usual comprehensive Green Impact workbook. All teams who have won a Gold Award twice so far in the programme have been encouraged to take this route, which involves, alongside the project, the completion of simply the Bronze criteria in the workbook. It's being called 'Green Impact Excellence'. Our project is in two parts: a more substantial project to introduce environmental sustainability to the curriculum; and a smaller project to establish whether a kettler or a boiler unit is more environmentally sound (for us). To see some more details about the main project, please take a look at our bid to LSE's Sustainable Projects Fund

Green Impact - Gold Award for Mathematics in 2012!

We're very pleased to announce that the Mathematics Department achieved a Gold Award in the Green Impact project at LSE in 2011-12. Thanks to everyone in the department, and particularly the Green Impact team, for all their work on this. For more information, click here. We'll be taking part again in 2012-13....

Some background on Green Impact: the Mathematics Department again took part in the Green Impact project at LSE in 2011-12 - our third year of involvement. Green Impact started life as part of the DEFRA-funded 'Degrees Cooler Programme'. It is now run by the NUS and EAUC, and you can find out much more about this UK-wide scheme by clicking here. More than 45 universities and colleges are signed up! In short, Green Impact is described as, "an accreditation programme with a competitive streak that supports university departments to improve their environmental performance."

In the 2009-10 we achieved a Gold Award, and then in 2010-11, with newer higher standards and more teams to compete against, we achieved a Silver Award. In 2011-12, to achieve the Gold standard we needed to complete all Bronze and Silver criteria, and score at least 500 points in total, with many of these coming from the Bonus criteria. To see these criteria are, click on the following links:

Bronze Criteria  |  Silver Criteria  |  Bonus Criteria

June 2012: Green impact/sustainability event

On Thursday 7 June 2012, the department held a fun  Green Impact/Sustainability Event - and organic food showcase. To find out more, click here. 

As you’ll have seen in last week’s LSE News, it’s Fairtrade Fortnight! A good excuse to enjoy the Fairtrade and organic tea and coffee the department provides! LSE Catering will be promoting Fairtrade products around the campus. If you’re lucky, we may even bring in a few Fairtrade goodies for us all one day. You can find out more information on the Fairtrade website.

February 2013: Go Green Week at LSE

It's Go Green week at LSE, week commencing Monday 11th February 2013.  Get involved!

December 2012: Sponsor Dave - running as Santa for Greenpeace - a thank you!

David Scott, Departmental Manager in Mathematics, ran a 10K race in Greenwich Park on Sunday 9th December 2012 dressed as Santa, for Greenpeace. Dave was very surprised and grateful for the amazing response he received to his request for sponsorship, and in the end managed to raise over £1,200 for Greenpeace, once the Gift Aid was taken into account. He would like to thank everyone who sponsored him for their great support. To see some silly pictures of Dave at the event, please click on the link: http://www.justgiving.com/David-Anthony-Scott.  

21-27 May 2012: National Vegetarian Week

This week aimed to promote inspirational vegetarian food and the benefits of a meat-free lifestyle. LSE Catering promoted this campaign in all its outlets. They say, "we’re not going completely meat-free, but will be offering an increased choice of healthy, well balanced, vegetarian options, which will not only benefit your health but also the environment and animal welfare. In addition, the 4th Floor Restaurant will be promoting a 'Feel Good Food Day on Wednesday 23 May. We aim to offer a selection of dishes using less meat, dairy and egg-based produce whilst promoting healthier ingredients, seasonal vegetables and sustainable sourced fish. Come along and join us for a wonderful range of nutritious, healthy food choices."