The University of East London's sustainability team was recognised with a silver Green Apple award at the Houses of Parliament on Friday 11 November for their Green Impact programme.

UEL has run Green Impact for seven years now and, as one team member said, 'the sustainability team is just two so Green Impact helps to grow the crew!'

Upon receiving the award, Amy Butterworth-Fernandes and Anne Spira said:

'We were already proud of the achievements of our 23 Green Impact teams but the Green Apple award really provides third-party recognition of our efforts.'

The UEL sustainability team attribute their success in achieving the award to their focus on creating a unique theme for each year of the programme. For 2015-16, they awarded teams with a Duplo block for each action they completed. Then, at the awards ceremony, the team's collective Duplo blocks created a structure of the university - representing their collective achievement. The Duplo blocks were then donated to a childcare centre on campus. For 2016-17 the theme focuses in on health and wellbeing with teams earning a piece of fruit for each action completed!

'The award's application process encouraged us to reflect on how we should make Green Impact bespoke to UEL. We created our own criteria that were appropriate for our environmental priorities, we had a theme throughout the programme that meaningfully engaged staff and offered manageable milestones and positive reinforcement, which kept up enthusiasm and commitment to the activities we asked teams to participate in. Finally, our donations to local nurseries demonstrated our efforts at linking to the local community. It was creative, fun, inclusive and unique, and we think this is why we won an award.'

The award and certificate will be celebrated with Green Impact teams at their 2016-17 launch event on Friday 18 November and Amy and Anne hope 'this recognition will encourage more staff to become involved in the programme and feel genuinely motivated to get on board!'