Sustainability Zone (20th February 2017)

1. Apologies were received from James and Nikol.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.

David has spoken to VP Education.

David has organised a meeting to discuss disposable cutlery at the union. 

Funding was circulated and allocated.

The resource allocation document will be examined as a part of the upcoming sustainability audit of the union.

Environment and Ethics Officer  -

• Shift Your Stuff is on track for this year.
• There will be another Swapshop on Wednesday 8^th March as part of International Women’s Day with funds raised going to Oxfam.
• The date of Change Your World week was agreed to be on 24^th -28^th April, it will be a week of activities organised by Sustainability Zone societies and feature a sustainable cosmetics fayre.
• A Fairtrade stall is planned for 12^th May to coincide with Fairtrade day.
• Elle will be in attendance at EnviroRock at the Hobbit pub on Monda7 29^th

Equality and Diversity Officer - 

• First meeting of the diversity in elections group met in November and identified some groups to look at
• Another meeting is planned to examine the outcome of current spring elections
• Considerations will be made for current barriers PGT and PGR students that are currently in place.
• Frazer is also organising the next E+D action group and has found a new forum on E+D issues that he believes will be relevant to the committee

The University’s open data team have implemented a system which will enable students to crowdsource the location of water fountains on campus and map them on maps.soton.ac.uk. They are also looking to add this into the MySouthampton app. The same tools will also allow for the mapping of gender neutral toilets on campus.

Elle Davis was elected as the zone’s Senate Rep.

 It was agreed that Change Your World Week would be the week beginning 24^th April to avoid clashing with any other week that were planned by other Zones.

For International Women’s Day the Union will be running a poster campaign celebrating the work of some our female student leaders. There will also be the annual Inspiring Women event on the Wednesday 8^th March which is International Women’s day. One speaker is currently confirmed with more to come. There will also be an outreach event at West Quay organised by the University celebrating women in Southampton with the Union in attendance and providing logistical support.

Vegan paninis are now available in the Stag’s and VP Welfare is working with the new bars manager to provide a vegan pizza soon as well. Hopefully this success can be built upon and more vegan option can be provided in other outlets in the future.

VP Welfare conducted an indicative poll on twitter asking if people would be prepared to spend more money on water if it was more environmentally friendly and ethically sourced. There were over 200 responses to the poll with a majority in favour of more expensive but more ethical product.

The committee were keen that more consultation was carried out before further decisions were made as water is an essential to provide and that any action would benefit from being done in concert with the university. Access to water in the University also needs to increase before its possible to reduce consumption of bottled water.

The committee did vote to have a recyclable and reusable water bottle available in the student union shop.

The committee decided to name its award for the Excellence in Volunteering award as the "Sustainability Initiative of the year"

Ilaf from Medicin Sans Frontieres Society about a campaign being run by MSF which aims for Universities to allow factories to in developing countries to license drugs that they hold patents for to reduce the cost of medicine for people.