Sound Impact Awards Launched their 2nd Year

The Sound Impact Awards are an environmental accreditation scheme with an awards element designed specifically for students' unions. Last year 51 students' unions took part with 30 reaching the minimum bronze standard. To gain the bronze standard, unions need to achieve the 20 Essential criteria in doing so delivering action on many of the key environmental impacts of a students' union.

There are also over 100 optional bonus criteria - the more of these the union gets the more likely it is to scoop a Silver or Gold award. Last year Loughborough University Students Union were our overall winner with a score of 318, collecting a recycled glass award from TV presenter Ray Mears at our Annual Dinner.

New for this year, raising the bar slightly, tightening up some of the wording and introducing another Essential criteria - see list below - all to foster continual improvement.

There are also three new awards:

- The Co-operative Bank Most Improved Union Award

- The Ecologist Sound Impact Community Challenge Award

- The Office Depot Green Innovation Award

The scheme is open to both FE and HE students unions that are shareholders NUS Services. Already 33 unions have signed up - see list below -, but there is a challenging target of 75. So please do encourage your Union to take part! Unions can register in the log-in members area of www.nussl.co.uk under Programmes. The deadline for sign up is 28 November 2007. There has been lots of positive feedback from last years entrants, with many unions using the scheme as a framework for greening, benchmarking and setting targets for improving.

The Sound Impact Awards is run by NUS Services, the commercial arm of the NUS. It is run in partnership with NUS, People & Planet, EAUC, HEEPI and The Ecologist magazine. The main sponsors are Office Depot and The Co-operative Bank.

Unions signed up so far this year…

Birmingham University Guild of Students
Buckinghamshire Chilterns Students' Union
Cardiff University Students' Union
City College Norwich Students' Union
De Montfort University Students' Union
Derby College Students' Union
Durham Students' Union
Heriot-Watt University Students' Association
Kent Union
Kingston University Students' Union
Lancaster University Students' Union
Leeds Metropolitan University Students' Union
Liverpool Guild of Students
National Union of Students
Northumbria Students' Union
Nottingham Trent Students' Union
Queen Mary Students' Union, University of London
Reading University Students' Union
School of Oriental and African Studies Students' Union (SOAS)
Sheffield Hallam University Union of Students
Swansea University Students' Union
The University of Manchester Students' Union
University College London Students' Union
University of Bath Students' Union
University of Bradford Students' Union
University of Central Lancashire Students' Union
University of Derby Students' Union
University of Hertfordshire Students' Union
University of Nottingham Students' Union
University of Sheffield Union of Students
University of Westminster Students' Union
University of York Students' Union
York St John Students' Union