Vote Caomhan #1 For Environmental Officer. Engaging, Energetic and a Passionate Environmentalist. Approachable & Friendly. Fighting For Implementation of The SU's 'Green New Deal'! Make Caomhan #1 For Your New Student's Union Environmental Officer.
Who am I?
Hey! My name is Caomhan (key-van) and I am running to be your Environmental Officer for 2020-2021. I currently study Mathematics with Finance and I'm the Events Coordinator and Committee Member of the Green's at Queen's Society. Furthermore, I am a member of the Student's Union Climate Action Group, which is the group behind the successful referendum on the 'Green New Deal', which achieved a 93% 'yes' vote this January.
As your Environmental Officer, what will be my main priorities?
- Obtaining additional funding for the QUB Green Fund. The Green Fund has only £20,000 allocated to it, thus restricting the number of environmental initiatives at QUB. An increase in funding would allow more ideas to be brought forward by students and staff alike, hence allowing more projects, with greater scale and scope, to achieve small but meaningful environmental change at Queen's!
- Saving you money and time while reducing industrial paper usage. How? Lobbying the univerity to replace all books and journals with additional online versions, thus reducing the number of books you need to purchase, cutting your costs and giving your wallet some breathing space!
- An innovative new 'official' university-wide 'textbook' re-sale scheme, where previous years students, who purchased the required textbooks for their course/module can pass these books down, at a much-reduced cost to new/year below students. Resulting in expensive 'textbooks' being reused rather than students buying brand new ones!
- Challenging the university to replace and upgrade the current water fountains on campus, while also increasing the number currently present to ensure greater accessibility for all students. These improvements will allow you to fill up your reusable bottle more conveniently.
- Increasing participation of students in SU activities/QUB schemes. How?
- By running 'Environmental Workshops'.
- Guest Speaker talks on Climate Change.
- Public transport usage talks/yLink card sign-up days.
- Raising awareness of existing Queen's programs relating to the environment, e.g the Environmental Leadership Program, which can increase a student's employability and skill set.
- Supporting and promoting events run by individual societies of the SU, e.g beach cleans by the Green's at Queen's Society.
- Getting Queen's to provide new and current students with free, QUB branded re-reusable water bottles and coffee cups, which must be ethically produced and sourced locally. This initiative will help cut plastic/paper waste on campus and assist us in phasing out single-use plastics. Additionally, I will engage with local coffee shops/chains to ensure students will be allowed to use these reusable cups for their coffee/tea, instead of being given unsustainable paper takeaway cups.
- Replacement and introduction of new, fluorescent colour-coded recycling bins across campus.
- Continuing the 'environmental initiatives' of the current SU Officers, ensuring their ambitions/ideas are not forgotten or left incomplete when their term ends! E.g. guaranteeing that the new Student's Union building is sustainable in every sense.
I believe that I am the right person to bring about these improvements because I am not afraid to fight on your behalf. So...
Do you want a greener, cleaner more sustainable Queen’s? Then on the 24th and 25th February, vote Caomhan #1 for QUBSU Environmental Officer.
Want to reach out to me? No problem, I can be contacted below: