19 Jun 09

Aspire Defence’s fourth annual Sustainability Week was again a great success during its run from Monday 1 to Friday 5 June. As always, the event culminated in the United Nations World Environment Day on 5 June, where the theme this year was ‘Your Planet Needs You! UNite to combat climate change’.

In line with this year’s global theme the intention was to raise staff awareness of environmental issues with a focus on the impact of food and carbon footprinting. Throughout the week a sustainable menu was available each day at the ABC, and daily talks were held together with community liaison events, e-mails, flyers and giveaways addressing all manner of topics to help us understand more about sustainable living.

Daily Flyers, Competitions and Prizes

Each day a flyer was issued on a specific topic and included a daily competition to win a prize related to its theme. Over 120 responses were received and the answers to each of the questions plus the names of the lucky winners are shown below.

Monday introduced the week with a look at how we can all make greener lifestyle choices, including the food we consume. The question was ‘How many miles does a typical bag of apples travel from Chile to the UK?’. The correct answer is 7,200 miles, and Colin Young from the ABC won a year’s supply of sustainably sourced coffee donated courtesy of our catering partners, Sodexo. 150 pocket fish guides were also given away to help understanding of sustainable fish production.

Tuesday focussed on Energy Efficiency and Transport, and asked ’How many operational commercial wind turbines are there in the UK?’. The correct answer (as at 1 June) is 2,533. Click here to find out more about the British Wind Energy Association

Tuesday’s prize was a fantastic home energy monitoring kit, donated by Aspire Defence’s electrical distributors, ERF Electrical. The winners were Jordan Wang and Kevin Burgess from Aspire House, Ben Bedford from the Aldershot Project, Russell Orledge in Kannada House and Caroline Wolstenholme based in the Tidworth Stables. Some 250 free low energy lamps were also given away to staff, so thanks again to ERF for their generosity.

Wednesday looked at Waste and Recycling and asked, “How many tonnes of general waste were produced across all four garrisons in April ’09?”

The correct answer is 339 tonnes. The winners were Janice Aloof from Warminster, Stephen Potter from Tidworth and Becky Ansell at the ABC, all of whom win a home composting kit, courtesy of Hills Waste Solutions, Aspire Defence’s waste partner. On the waste and recycling theme, domestic printer cartridges were also given away together with mobile phone recycling bags.

Attention was turned on Thursday to Nature Conservation and bees. Bees and other pollinating insects are needed to produce 30% of our food and their populations are in a worrying decline. The question, “What is the cruising speed of a honey bee?” was posed. The answer is 15mph (7.5m/s) (or any answer within +/- 10%). Find out more at http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/bee_facts

The prize for Thursday was a hanging bee house, donated by Aspire Defence’s ecology consultants, Parsons Brinckerhoff. The winners were Larry Hallmark from Tidworth, Simon Versluys and Rozanne Searle from Aspire House, Jan McVie based at the ABC and Rebecca Jones from Warminster.

Finally, Water Efficiency was considered on Friday and posed the question, “How many millions of litres of waste water are treated in the UK each year?”. The answer is a staggering 11 billion litres, and the winners were Alan Kemp from Aldershot, Irene Colquhoun from Bulford and Stephen Grantham from Kannada House, each of whom win a water butt donated by Veolia Water. On the theme of water efficiency over 100 toilet cistern bags were also given away.

Community Events

A key part of sustainability relates to how we as an organisation, work with our local communities. This year, two schools’ events in Warminster and Aldershot were held.

On Tuesday, Aspire Defence’s third Schools’ Sustainable Design Challenge was held with students from Oak Farm and Wavell School from the Aldershot area. They were set the challenge to design an Army camp to include sustainable components and then present their ideas ‘Dragon’s Den’ style to a board of directors. The winning team, named ‘Indicus’, put forward their proposal for a well-designed soldiers village of the future, with transport, building design, energy supply and wildlife space firmly rooted in the plan; in similar vein to the sustainable village concept going ahead in reality.

On Thursday, 30 children from St George’s Primary school in Warminster were given bird boxes to paint. The children really enjoyed the event and took home their painted boxes to their families – a number of the boxes were also put up in trees around the school grounds.

Thanks go to Geordie Ward and the Warminster team for making the bird boxes which are from recycled timber as part of Aspire Defence’s Project Redstart. All proceeds from the sale of these wildlife boxes is being used to fund local conservation projects. So far, over 1,000 boxes have been sold with £5,000 donated. Prices range from £5 for blue tit box, £6 for robin box, £15 for a hedgehog box and £20 for a set of three bat boxes. If you are interested in buying one of these, please contact the environmental team on 01252 352678 or e-mail environmental.mailbox@aspiredefence.co.uk to place your order.

Lunchtime Sustainability Presentations

This year external speakers were invited to present on various sustainability topics. These were well attended with around 200 Aspire Defence and MoD staff joining at both Aldershot and Tidworth. Topics covered were low carbon technology, archaeology, protected species, the Charcoal Project and rainwater harvesting solutions. Thanks go to the presenters from Polypipe, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Forest Research, Wessex Archaeology and Mitsubishi Electric.

Finally at the ABC in Tidworth, Sodexo and Aspire Defence held a joint event to generate greater awareness on food miles throughout the week. Each day an informative flyer was produced focussing on a particular food item such as fruit, fish, milk, meat and cereal. Thanks go to Sodexo in supporting this initiative.

One Planet Living is a concept which aims to align our consumption with what can be sustainably produced by the planet. Studies looking at our lifestyle and consumption across Europe have concluded that in order to sustainably provide the same lifestyle for the global population we would need three planets, so there is a real imperative for us all to consider how we can achieve One Planet Living.

Finally we’d like to extend our thanks to our partners for supporting this year’s event by sponsoring the prizes and giving the presentations, but most of all thanks to all of you who participated by giving your support and enthusiasm to this worthwhile initiative.

You can download the Report here sustainability week 2009 round up [PDF, 1,218k]

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If you would like more information regarding Sustainability Week email: environmental.mailbox@aspiredefence.co.uk or contact Nick Kirwan, ADSL, on 0845 168 2982, or Peter Caddock, ADCW, on 07712 186423.

For more information on the news bulletin contact Julie Robertson, corporate communications manager on 07786 684 940 or email, julie.robertson@aspiredefence.co.uk.