Green Gown Awards 2016 – Continuous Improvement: Institutional Change – Durham University – Finalist

Green move out

Durham University’s Green Move Out Scheme collects students’ unwanted belongings at the end of the academic year and donates the items to local charities.

From a small one-college charity collection scheme in 2005, the Green Move Out Scheme has been developed into a 4-strong partnership which operates a large-scale, comprehensive initiative: it not only diverts tonnes of waste from going down the ‘general waste’ route every year, but also contributes hundreds of pounds worth of resources to local charities, has significantly improved University-community relations, and fosters a strong ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ ethos across the student community. There is also the option for students to purchase items in a resale event, further benefiting the charity as well as preventing new items being bought.

The scheme has continuously improved over the last 11 years to become the successful partnership scheme it is today.

Top 3 learnings

1 Build strong partnerships to enable the project to develop

2 Listen to feedback from all engaged with scheme to enable project to continually improve

3 Communicate effectively with all those involved at all levels of the project.

Videos

• Green move out (click to hide)