FEB & FSS

The Green Office embassy of the FEB & FSS just recently adopted a more sound structure and is now composed of two committees: Events & Projects.

The largest project has been of our embassy has been going on for almost a year now (Start in July 2020), where the students Bennet, Finn and Jonas have, together with Martina from the Medicine Green Office embassy, created a student-led initiative called “Groningen On Ecosia”, petitioning for the implementation of Ecosia as the default search engine within the system of the RUG. This campaign has already been able to gather much attention from various student groups and other university stakeholders. More than 1,200 students of the University of Groningen have signed the petition in support of this project so far and see an urgent need for change. The University’s Green Office supports this initiative across all faculties and the Green Office ambassadors of the IT department are also highly enthusiastic. In the last months, they have seen increasing levels of engagement on social media channels and Ukrant has featured the campaign in one of their articles.

The campaign also strongly shaped the development of the FEB & FSS green office embassy, as Jonas took over the chair of the embassy with Bennet being in charge of the projects committee and Finn leading the events committee. Together we are trying, despite the challenges of Corona, to become a coherent embassy as it was previously lacking structure. Also due to the efforts of the event committee we have been able to make great progress towards accomplishing that, whilst having fun and initiating great sustainable events and projects.

Currently 6 students (Maddy, Malak, Max, Ivo, Caro and Marla) are working on different events to promote sustainability at the RUG. So far, they have organised a fun pub quiz night about different aspects of sustainability. In the next few weeks, they will host a movie night watching a movie about plastic and have a discussion afterwards. Further, they will host a fun challenge during the plastic week in april, where everyone is invited to join by saving some plastic and posting it on instagram.

The projects Committee has also been actively working on making the university a more sustainable and greener place! Here, Ila, Jacob, and Luca (2nd Years at the Faculty of Spatial Science) are working on a sustainability column with the student newspaper. With any luck, this should be out within a month! Communicating the brilliant things that the Green Office does to the outside world is really important for visibility and membership, so the column is both an advert and a guide. This is a long-term project and they expect this to continue, in various states, beyond their times at RUG. So far, although details are under wraps, they hope to talk about sustainable dining and shopping in the city, allotments, plastic, and all the great things the Green Office is doing to further the goals of sustainability and climate awareness.

Further, Julia, Ashish and Max are also currently starting a project where they would like to examine whether it is possible to integrate sustainability related courses in the uni curriculum and are looking ambitiously to start a sustainability related minor after conducting a student survey related to that. Further, they are likely to participate in the upcoming campaign for Ecosia where they will contribute in convincing students to download Ecosia to their devices.

Hoping that you got to know us a little better we would also really like to emphasize that we are open for new members from FEB & FSS.

Have a great day and let's be sustainable together!

Green Office Embassy FEB & FSS