News

October Update: We have embarked on the Wilder Kent Award this year to aid our Green Impact Student Union accreditation. Kent Wildlife Trust hosts this sustainability scheme and since it runs from January - January, I have been able to add to what has already been achieved throughout 2025! Here’s what CCCU and CCSU has accomplished so far:

Last year, the Greenhouse Society was very active, running lots of events for students to get involved with and maintaining our greenhouses on campus. They grew a range of vegetables for students to have for free to help support the cost of living crisis. They even featured on BBC news Kent. In partnership with the weekly ‘Potter and Prune’ sessions held by the Academy for sustainable futures, there have been plenty of opportunities for students to get green! The Students Union also held a few sustainability events such as paint and pot as well as the trip to Kent Wildwood during ‘One World Week’.

Since June, when Emma started and became the Sustainability lead, we have turned full focus to our sustainable work. Our smaller wins include successful ‘Give it a Go’ sessions where students made sustainable bird feeders and came on litter picks around campus. We also revived ‘Chooseday Chills’ with the Well-being team. This is a weekly, evening event, held in the SU where students can come to relax and chat with the wellbeing team. There is a different craft to participate in each week which is supplied through donations and recycled materials. Joe and Imogen made terrariums with recycled jars and moss/twigs/dirt collected from campus.

We have worked closely with the Academy for Sustainable Futures, using their expertise to see the gaps in our day to day functionalities and understanding how we can improve. Since moving back onto campus into our new building in 2023, our kitchenette allows us to encourage students to use reusable cutlery/crockery and our coffee machine is free to those with a reusable cup! Small changes make a big difference in the long run!

November Update: A big focus this month for Emma has been the Medway Shuttle bus campaign which looks at the way in which students travel between our two campuses. The University of Kent already has a shuttle bus that runs from Canterbury to Medway and we are trying to get our students allowed onto this service so they do not have to use other means of transport. This service is underused by University of Kent students, so this campaign will make the existing service more worthwhile and reduce emissions. Emma ran a survey to navigate the demand for a shuttle bus and is working on a business case to secure funding to allow our students to travel on the bus opposed to commuting in personal vehicles.

Emma, alongside Molly and Joe, also undertook Carbon Literacy training. This was an eye opening (and very fun) day. We are waiting to receive our official certificates.

December: After collecting all the necessary data and research, we have written the business case for the shuttle bus! This has to go through some university teams first before hopefully being sent to the University of Kent in January!

We have also gathered the necessary resources to create bird houses and bug hotels! We are hoping to install these in the greenhouse area behind Johnson during January!