As COP26 unfolds, here’s the UWC Adriatic Green Week initiative led by the Student Sustainability Council.
COP26 is about to end in Glasgow and in Duino, our Green Week has just finished – a week of events and activities organized by the Sustainability Council (SUSCO). As Valentina and Klara, second-year students on the council told us: “at the College SUSCO it is no longer an acronym, but has become a name: a concept in itself to indicate everything that has to do with sustainability”.
This goes to show that the committee’s work has been effective, because their first goal was to put sustainability at the center of conversations at UWC Adriatic – so that students always keep it in mind and make it a central element on their personal agenda.
SUSCO members change every year as new students arrive and join the different student councils and new representatives are elected. This year SUSCO has decided to work on various levels, starting with College culture. Focusing on this goal means first of all keeping in mind the huge variety of experiences and backgrounds of the students at UWC Adriatic. It would not be possible to talk about sustainability whilst ignoring these differences. By keeping this well in perspective the student dialogue and discussions are able to raise awareness effectively and get everyone to engage with this matter.
“The College community is a small and tightly-knit group: it is important that these issues be a priority for each one of us, to ensure that once we leave Duino our action will not stop. On the contrary it can then become more incisive”.
This is another reason why the council worked very hard on last week’s preparations, to avoid the UN climate conference to just be taken as “noise” in the background. “Our Green Week came at a perfect time to talk about sustainability, but it also perfectly coincided with many school deadlines!”. Hence the group worked hard to set up a calendar made up of several initiatives capable of keeping everyone’s attention on the subject.
Plenty of interesting content was shared by email, a swap party was held to exchange pre-loved clothes and students also organised the screening of the film “The true cost” on the environmental and social costs of fast fashion. A beach clean-up was held in nearby Sistiana and several other student initiatives marked the 2021 Green Week at our College. For instance, students made labels with the words “second-hand” and wore them in order to indicate that they were wearing second-hand garments.
In a creative, fun but definitely not superficial way, SUSCO has succeeded in its first mission. Yet Valentina and Klara know that there is still a lot to be done: reimain active, be present and continue organising activities. “It can be difficult to approach this topic as individuals. As a community we are lucky to be able to do this together and reflect, make proposals and try to put them into practice. We think we have to take advantage of this opportunity here so that we can then do more when we leave the College. If you look around there is so much we can do about sustainability!”.
