Michael Smith Quad Living Campus Event

On 25 April the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health and the Environmental Sustainability Team held an event in the Michael Smith Building Quad for staff and postgraduate students.

The quad provides a place for staff and students to take a break and is used as a living lab by many subject disciplines, contributing towards the University’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy and the newly launched Living Campus Plan.

The event aimed to highlight environmental sustainability opportunities and to engage people with the living campus. One way to do this is for staff to become sustainability or living campus champions, helping to maintain the garden, encourage biodiversity and to use the space as a teaching, learning and wellbeing resource.

Activities on the day included a plant sale, gardening classes and competitions, a seed-swap, electric cargo bike demonstrations and refreshments.

Despite the unfavourable weather conditions the event produced a good turn out and a large number of people signed up to become sustainability and living campus champions. It also provided a platform for future events and for the reorganisation of the quad’s management in line with the new faculty.

The Environmental Sustainability Team is currently revising the Sustainability Champions network and will be holding staff consultations in June – for further information please contact es@manchester.ac.uk.

The next Smith Quad event is scheduled for 12 July and is open to all staff and postgraduate students.