Date Passed: 18th February
Speaker: Hannah Khan
1. That UWE has developed a new Sustainability Plan for 2013-2020 that has been signed off by the Board of Governors.
2. That as part of our partnership with UWE, we as the Students’ Union must also sign off and adopt this plan.
3. That we currently have representation on the University Sustainability Board in the form of one full time sabbatical officer (currently the Vice President Societies and Communications), two full time members of staff (currently the Trading Services Manager and the Green Leader Co-Ordinator) and a full time student (currently the President of People and Planet).
4. That the current position on the board elected by the whole student body is a full time officer, nominated internally for this job and elected by the students for primarily different responsibilities.
5. That we are in the process of creating a new structure within our Union dedicated purely towards recruiting and training students to lead on green campaigns and initiatives, hold the university to account on its implementation of the sustainability plan and instigate change at on environmental issues that matter to students, both within the university and in the local community.
6. That current structures of Union activity, e.g. sports, networks and societies, are represented by one full time and one part time elected position and these positions are accountable to the whole student body and the Union executive.
1. That sustainability is becoming an increasingly important issue to both the university and the students.
2. That the development of the university Sustainability Plan 2013-2020 has not been as transparent to the student body as it could have been.
3. That the student representation on the Sustainability Board should be elected by the student body specifically for this purpose.
4. That the whole student body should be able to have a say on who represents them on sustainability board.
5. That driving the sustainability plan forward and achieving the strongest form of representation on green issues at UWE is not currently achievable when representational responsibilities are incorporated into one of the current full time officer roles due to time constraints and a lack of specialist knowledge.
6. That the Green Leaders should be open and accountable to the whole student body via a part-time officer in order to increase engagement and representation on green issues.
7. That there is interest within the current student body to take on a part-time, voluntary rol of Sustainability Officer.
1. To introduce the part-time, voluntary role of Sustainability Officer to the UWESU Executive.
2. To make the sustainability officer role available to run for in March 2014 elections, for the successful candidate to take office from July 2014.
3. Sustainability officer to link with halls reps to ensure proper representation across all campuses.
4. To amend the Bye Law accordingly.