Sustainable Behaviour Assistant

IMPORTANT:  This Advertiser has requested that applicants MUST be National Residents / Valid Work Permit-holders.  Other applicants need not apply.

 

Background

Manchester Metropolitan University is a major economic contributor to the North West, with 34,000 students, 4,300 staff, on 6 sites across Manchester and Cheshire.

MMU places environmental sustainability alongside graduate employability as our two key priorities. As the University for World-Class Professionals, MMU believes that environmental sustainability provides the foundation to wider economic and social sustainability and is an integral part of good institutional practice. As such, we’re looking for passionate individuals to support us on our journey to becoming a sustainable university by engaging our communities in a cultural behaviour change programme. We’re taking part in Green Impact for the fourth year, and require that the successful applicant strives to widen participation through our communities to make this staff and student behaviour change programme the most successful yet.

MMU is currently undertaking a major campus rationalisation, which involves the construction of new buildings and the refurbishment of existing ones. Alongside the completion of our new sustainably constructed Business School and Student Hub which has a range of leading environmental technologies,  our new Art and Design building and Birley Fields campus will help us achieve our aim of zero water, zero waste and zero carbon buildings by ensuring that environmental technologies are built into our designs. We recognise that environmental technologies alone will not complete our journey, and that enabling sustainable behaviour and practice through education and knowledge sharing are pivotal to reaching our goal of becoming a sustainable university.

 

The Green Impact Programme (http://www.green-impact.org.uk/) is a national behaviour change initiative headed by the National Union of Students (NUS) to promote and coordinate positive environmental behaviour change in university and college staff departments throughout the UK. Previously called ‘Green Impact Assistants’, Sustainable Behaviour Assistants will work with an institution’s Sustainability/ Environment Team to drive forward the Green Impact programme with the support of the NUS, SSO (Student Switch Off) and Change Agents UK.

 

About Green Impact

Green impact is an environmental accreditation scheme that encourages pro-environmental behaviours by staff. It empowers sustainability champions within their workplace, helping them gain recognition for their environmental efforts, whilst playing on the competitive spirit of staff working in teams. It provides people and their departments with a tangible framework for improving their environmental performance, breaking down complex environmental issues into more manageable bite-sized chunks.

Green Impact forms part of the NUS’s wider strategy to support students’ unions by supporting them to green their own operations, their institutions and the wider community. All NUS environmental programmes seek to generate sustainable income for students’ unions by paying them to get involved in local delivery of our central projects. The environmental programmes are also committed to providing volunteering opportunities for students that will help with their employability, especially through skills that support the transition to a low carbon economy.

The scheme is all about practical actions that tackle common bad practice. A number of departments are audited to determine what common bad practices exist across an institution, and then a list of practical actions is developed to address them. These actions are carefully chosen so that any member of staff can do them on behalf of their team or department. From recycling, to investing in more efficient equipment, to encouraging biodiversity, or Fairtrade, the scheme covers a broad range of issues under the sustainability umbrella, all tailored to an individual institution to cover local policy and process.

For more information on Green Impact please go to:

http://www.eauc.org.uk/green_impact

http://www.nus.org.uk/greenimpactpledge

http://www.changeagents.org.uk/current-projects/green-impact

 

Objective

This post will involve a coordinating and supportive role to ensure the effective implementation and impact of Green Impact and Student Switch Off in order to achieve an increase in the pro-environmental behaviours of students and staff within the university and union.

The Sustainable Behaviour Assistant will provide added capacity to enable successful delivery of the university’s Green Impact project by the specified completion dates.

This is a 12 month Full time (35 hours/week) post that will deliver the Green Impact objectives but also enhance the capacity and impact of the sustainability team across Manchester Metropolitan University as a whole.

 

For further information and to apply: www.changeagents.org.uk/Graduates/GradVacDetails.asp?ProjNo=2067