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Current projects:

The College team is currently working on a number of projects, including:

• College meetings: We are arranging meetings at all Colleges with JCR/MCR Green Officers, Bursars, Masters and other relevant staff. The purpose of these meetings is to raise awareness about the Go Greener! campaign, to provide information on how Colleges can achieve the goals of the campaign and to share best practice between the Colleges.
• College Seminar: We are organising a meeting to bring together staff from the Colleges with experts in environmental management, emissions reduction etc. in order to provide practical advice on how the goals of the campaign can be achieved, and to demonstrate how possible this is!
• College League Table: We are working with CUECS (Cambridge University Environmental Consulting Society) to re-vamp the College league table, building its well-earned reputation and influence to make it a more accurate representation of Colleges' environmental performance.

Successes:

The Go Greener! campaign has achieved a major success in its efforts to encourage the Colleges to address environmental issues. The Bursars' Committee has created an Environment and Planning Sub-Committee, which is directly fed into by the Ethical Affairs team, so that student views are represented and taken to the discussion. We hope it will provide a central forum for Colleges to share resources and best practice, and to look into ways in which the Colleges can move tackle the shared problems they face in reducing their carbon emissions and implementing sound environmental management systems.

We call on all Colleges to commit to:

1. Signing the Cambridge Climate Change Charter
   The Cambridge Climate Change Charter is a voluntary pledge to address climate change by developing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It has already been signed by the Cambridge University and Anglia Ruskin University.
2. Establishing environmental committees, policies and officers
   Currently only a small number of Colleges have environmental committees or policies. Yet they are essential to the development of effective environmental strategies, allowing coordination and a clear allocation of responsibility. Committees should work from an environmental policy, and should have student and staff representation. We urge the Colleges to consider employing environmental officers, perhaps shared between a number of Colleges.
3. An energy audit
   All Colleges should have a free energy audit to establish a baseline of emissions.
4. Ambitious emissions reduction targets
   We call on the Colleges to match the University's commitment to a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over five years, and to commit to a 30% reduction by 2020, and up to 80% by 2050. As with the University, the Colleges may not be able, in the long term, to deliver the necessary cuts alone, and we call on them to join the University in pushing for stronger national and international policies to enable these cuts.
5. Developing comprehensive plans to achieve these targets
   Environmental committees should be tasked with developing annual plans for reducing their environmental impacts, and for achieving their energy reduction targets. These should be comprehensive and include energy efficiency, renewable energy, food procurement, waste management, new buildings etc.