About Sound Impact
The Students' Union movement has a proud history of ethical and environmental campaigning. At this point we are looking to the future, and have developed a new scheme which gives our members the opportunity to take immediate local action on global environmental issues.
Over the last three years NUS Services has carried out thirty detailed environmental audits at Students' Unions. At a rate of 10 audits per year, it would take us 23 years to audit everyone else, but we have decided that the time to act is now.
As is to be expected, these audits uncovered both good and common bad practice. Having proudly unearthed some highly innovative environmental initiatives, we have created a scheme which can support our members in correcting any bad practices.
From our audits we have calculated that the average Students' Union wastes 10% of the utilities they use, and this leads to an additional 62.4 tonnes of carbon being released into the atmosphere per union, per year.
With The Sound Impact Awards, an environmental accreditation scheme with an awards element, we can help all 233 of our member unions to collectively reduce their carbon emissions by up to 15,000 tonnes each year.
Reading's Performance
In 2006/07, Reading received the Bronze Award, recognising that we had made significant steps forward and still with far to go. In 2007/08 we maintained a strong position in the Bronze category, and we believe that this coming year our performance will increase significantly. Watch this space!
