GUEST Go Green Week

The Glasgow University Environmental Sustainability team (GUEST) has announced that its popular Glasgow Goes Green week will be running again this year. The week will consist of a series of events planned to run across Glasgow between 12-16 February. The events will focus on promoting an environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyle.

The main event of the week is the Glasgow Goes Green festival taking place on 16 February at The Art School. The event will bring together the different universities in Glasgow as it will be jointly run by GUEST, Sustainable Strathclyde and Sustainability at GSA. The event promises to have a mix of different university societies and social enterprises engaging in activities that will give insight into living a more fulfilling local life.

Among the groups attending the event are Wood Recycling Glasgow and Glasgow University’s Bike Hub, with more to be announced. Besides this, there will also be plenty of artists; from dancers to painters and musicians. The Free Vegan Cookout will also be giving out free vegan food and providing information on how going vegan can help reduce your carbon footprint.

In addition to the main festival, there will also be other events running throughout the week. On 12 February students will be able to listen to an evening of speakers discussing the work they are doing with food in Glasgow. The Food Makes Glasgow event will be hosted at The Crypt Café. The event was planned in response to issues surrounding access to food in Glasgow with recent rises in homelessness, zero-hours contracts, benefits changes and environmental changes. This event will be showcasing the radical food projects that are taking place within Glasgow that seek to help tackle some of these issues.

Also participating will be a handful of student groups showing what students around Glasgow have been doing to combat issues surrounding food waste. The speakers include: Bottle of Ginger, Food Fight, Slow Food Youth Network Scotland, Woodlands Community Café, Throwaway Gourmet, and Strath Food sharing. Another event taking place is Dr Bike at the GSA. This will be taking place on 13 February and provides an opportunity to get your bike checked for free.

These events coincide with a recent environmental audit of the library and the announcement of a new Sustainability Strategy for the University. As part of the new strategy, the University will aim to increase recycling across campus, and phase out the use of plastic straws.

Ann Allen, Executive Director of Estates and Commercial Services at the University of Glasgow has said, “The University of Glasgow is strongly committed to doing all that we can to reduce waste and help the environment. We have recently established a Sustainability Working Group that is pressing ahead with a range of initiatives including greater recycling and cutting back on the use of plastics.”

“As part of this, we are phasing out the use of plastic straws across all of our outlets in campus and will be using more environmentally friendly alternatives.”

The Glasgow Goes Green week 2018 still has events to be announced and you can get your tickets for the Glasgow Goes Green festival on Eventbrite-www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/glasgow-goes-green-tickets-42052942483?aff=efbeventtix