By now you will have inevitably noticed that it’s ICU Leadership Elections time! You must have, of course, also seen the available positions for Liberation and Community Officers. So, who can apply, and what do they involve?
Simple answer: if you are a student (undergraduate or postgraduate) looking to gain and polish your leadership skills in a volunteering role leading a 4-people committee, and interested in becoming the delegated Union representative for a network, you should definitely run!
As the Ethics and Environment (E&E) Officer, I have been representing students as a voting member of Union Council, the Sustainability and Services Board, and the Community and Welfare Board, making me part of the wider community of student representatives that shape the Union. I have been collaborating with other societies to organise events around ethics and sustainability issues, as well as writing blog posts for the Union once a term.
The biggest responsibility of the year is kickstarting and coordinating the university wide Sustainability Week, involving the Union and College to raise awareness about sustainability at Imperial, the World-leading research that is being carried out, and updating the rest of the university about the progress on the Sustainability Strategy announced in 2019. This will involve daily panels and talks, as well as Union events organised by the E&E network, Environmental Society (ESoc) and other CSPs. Look out for this from the 21st-25th of March!
On top of this, I have been representing the Union in the Campus Going Greener group; this allows me to learn about the ins and outs of what the college is doing to become more sustainable in its various areas such as Catering, Estates, Sports and Halls. I am currently pushing for the switch to sustainable period products for the period poverty initiative that has been launched this year. I also got to attend fortnightly meetings for the Imperial at COP26 group, led by the Grantham Institute, where I followed the organisation of the events planned by the university on campus and at the conference.
I have been really enjoying taking up this responsibility this year; it is very rewarding and exciting to learn about all the forward steps that are being taken by the university to become more sustainable. If you are interested and would like to know more about the network, the role and the responsibilities it involves, please feel free to drop me a message! Find us at https://linktr.ee/icuethenv.