Graduate has a Sound Impact

While Anna was studying for her degree in International Business Management she was astounded by the amount of waste produced by the Students’ Union’s catering outlets. At the time the Students’ Union was serving their pizzas in disposable pizza boxes and the amount of waste this created concerned Anna greatly.

She set about campaigning against the use of the cardboard boxes and for the provision of recycling facilities on campus and she was successful, but this was only the beginning. “Because of my pizza box campaign, I was also asked to be the student rep on the Sustainability Theme team for the new City Campus East building to ensure that it was as environmentally friendly as possible.” This allowed Anna to work with the designers and architects of the new campus and give the student perspective on what they would like from a new “green” campus.

However this wasn’t the only thing to come out of her campaigning at Northumbria. Anna soon realised that the use of disposables wasn’t limited to Northumbria; it was a nationwide problem that needed to be addressed. With this in mind Anna devised a national environmental accreditation and awards scheme for Students’ Unions. She managed to get Zac Goldsmith’s magazine The Ecologist on board as a media partner, and the National Union of Students Services Ltd (purchasing and marketing arm of the NUS) to run the initiative.

The awards are now known as the Sound* Impact Awards and are in their third year and so far they have seen over 4 million students take part with over 80 Students’ Unions registering this year alone. The awards are hotly contested with each Students’ Union taking the accreditation very seriously, which as well as being great for the awards scheme; it means the Students’ Unions are having a positive impact on the environment.

As a result of her campaigning, Anna now writes the Ethical Lifestyle column and blog for the Journal newspaper and comments on environmental issues on the local BBC radio. She gives waste talks at schools and is often asked to host environmentally themed events such as Ethical Fashion shows by different organisations. In addition to this she work as an environmental, quality, health and safety consultant to business, having been made aware of this as a job option through sitting on the new-build team at Northumbria.

Anna’s tireless campaigning hasn’t gone un-noticed either. Two years ago saw her nominated and shortlisted for the award of Ethical Campaigner of the Year by The Observer. She narrowly missed out on the award and was just beaten by Al Gore former Vice President of the United States, which is something she says she’s "OK about”!

However this year she scooped the top spot, jointly winning the award with celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Anna’s green campaigning has gained the success and recognition she deserves, “I didn't just get a degree at Northumbria. All that has happened to me since has come out of that pizza box campaign during my time there!”

We certainly wish Anna lots of luck with her future campaigning and if you would like to keep up to date with the latest green issues make sure to click on to Anna’s blog on line at the Journal.