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In 2007, People and Planet released the first Green University League Tables – and found LSE to be the greenest university in London. LSE received a 2:1 – “Good But Must Do Better” – and green campaigning is now an integral part of the SU’s activism. This was reflected in the SU gaining a Bronze Award in the NUS Sound Impact Award on sustainability. But there is still a long way to go making LSE a truly sustainable institution. To get involved, check out the information below and email Aled Dilwyn Fisher, the LSESU Environment and Ethics Officer, via su.environment@lse.ac.uk.

 

LSESU Green Societies

 

People and Planet Society

 

Student campaigning led by the People and Planet Society led the school to employ a Sustainability Officer, Victoria Hands, who now works full-time to make LSE greener. The LSE SU has adopted many tenets of the People and Planet Go Green Campaign, and has a constructive relationship with the school on which it cooperates on many new initiatives, such as recycling, energy efficiency, water fountains and many more.

 

Geography and Environment Society

 

The LSE’s prestigious Geography and Environment Department has a knowledgable set of students who have formed a Geography and Environment Society (formerly Gaia Society) to facilitate debate and social events. All LSE students can join and get involved with this long-standing group! If you are interested, email su.soc.gaia@lse.ac.uk for more information!

 

Oikos London Society

 

Oikos is an international student sustainability project, and LSE is the most prominent Oikos chapter in the UK. The society focuses on issues of sustainability for businesses and other institutions. They have played a leading role at LSE through the Sustainable Future Student Consulting Group – LSE’s first officially recognised and consulted student consulting group, which has been paid by LSE to undertaken environmental projects, including an environmental audit of LSE’s operations.

 

Sustainable Future recruits new members every year to form a 20-person group that handles different aspects of sustainable management in liasion with the school administration. To get more involved with Oikos and Sustainable Future, contact the society’s Chair, Olivier Darmouni, on su.soc.oikoslondon@lse.ac.uk.

 

National Student Green Campaigns

 

Students for Climate Justice

 

The LSE SU has policy to support the nationwide Students for Climate Justice Campaign, which supports the Contraction and Convergence Model for an international scheme for equitable global carbon emissions reductions.

 

Contraction and Convergence (C&C), pioneerd by the Global Commons Institute (GCI), envisages an effective, equitable international emissions treaty to replace the neutered Kyoto Protocols. The idea is simple – treat every human being as equal. The treaty would allocate carbon quotas to every country on a per capita basis. Currently, the Global North countries (which are materially richer and contributed to 80% of CO2 emissions over the last 200 or so years, despite having only 20% of the population) will need to buy quotas from the Global South (who are generally materially poorer, and have a much larger population that emits less CO2 than the Global North) because their populations emit more carbon per capita than a sustainable international level. Thus, C&C offers a way of redistributing the wealth needed to restructure societies to reverse climate change. The quotas would get smaller every year (Contraction), and the system would eventually lead to equality in global emissions (Convergence on equal per-capita emissions). This solution also overcomes the the chief sticking point encountered in the Kyoto Protocols – the notion of an historical debt owed by countries of the Global North who caused the problem in the first place.

 

C&C is already supported by a number of leading organisations, including the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), leading members of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the European Parliament, the African Union, the Non-Aligned Group of Nations, the Chinese and Indian government’s (as well as many other nations in Europe and across the world), the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies, the former Chair of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, 5 of the 7 main political parties in the UK, the UK Chartered Institute of Insurers, the Church of England and hundreds of international non-governmental organisations.

 

But what can students do about this? The answer is – an awful lot if we campaign together nationally! Students and their Students’ Unions across the countries are signing the C&C Pledge and campaigning to get the government to officially endorse the only workable, equitable program to avoid climate chaos. Motions will be brought to the National Union of Students’ (NUS) Conference to make sure the NUS publicly supports C&C.

 

Eco-Uni

 

The LSE SU will be working with campaigns like Eco-Uni to continue to provide radical alternatives to ecological destruction. Eco-Uni, a project set-up in 2006 at Sussex University (near Brighton), champions 10 immediate targets for universities to improve their ecological record, and then campaigns vigorously for their implementation. The aim of Eco-Uni is to improve the communication between green student campaigners so that even bigger victories can be won!

 

In 2007 to 2008, the LSESU will be working on its own environmental policy, incorporating some of the features of Eco-Uni, and working with other Eco-Unis to promote national ecological consciousness in the broader student movement!

 

Links

 

LSE’s Sustainability Website and Victoria Hands – www.lse.ac.uk

People and Planet – www.peopleandplanet.org

Oikos International –

Contraction and Convergence (C&C) – www.gci.org

Eco-Uni – www.eco-uni.org

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