As the academic year draws to a close, each of the SGOs have been asked to reflect on our time in the Student green office, the highs, the lows and what we have learnt.

Before coming into the role of SGO, sustainability was something that I was aware of and had a brief understanding of. I had started to look at how to apply sustainability into my own life. One aspect of working for the SGO that I’ve enjoyed the most is the opportunity to learn in an active way. The way I’ve enjoyed doing this is through the use of blog posts.

I don’t consider myself a writer in the slightest. It was never one of my strong suits, however, I’ve found writing about the topic of sustainability exciting and enjoyable. When you have a passion and enjoyment in what you do it makes it so much more fun. One of my favourite blog posts that I have written this year was one that I wrote around Christmas time, called ‘Top 5 Tips for a Sustainable Christmas‘

I loved writing this blog post because Christmas is something that I don’t think twice so to be encouraged to look at the way we do things and how we could do these in a more sustainable way really excited me. There are simple changes we can make that lead to a more sustainable lifestyle.

In the vein of small changes that make a difference, an event that I enjoyed planning and carrying out was a fairtrade chocolate tasting. This was tied into Fairtrade Fortnight and the Student union’s One World Week.

Taking something that I really enjoy and looking at how to make it sustainable has been a skill that I have worked hard at improving this year and I feel that working for the SGO has definitely helped me to do this.

I loved being able to talk to students about the sustainability of the chocolate that they enjoy and explore the choices they could make to improve their sustainable impact.

Another aspect of the role that I wasn’t expecting was the use of social media within the role. Over the year I’ve been focussing mostly on the twitter-side of the socials and have been keeping it up to date with what we have been doing as a student green office, but also to shed light on the wider world of sustainability. This role, whilst unexpected, is something that I’ve really enjoyed a lot.

If you’ve read something in this that you are really interested in I would definitely look into joining the SGO in September.