Green Impact International Special Awards 2023

SOS International has supported the Green Impact program at 5 universities in Belgium and The Netherlands in 2021-2022:

Together, we nominated a student, a staff member and a faculty or department for each university. An independent jury selected the following winners for each award:

The jury included:

• Giulia Salvetti – Youth & Education Officer at UN Environment Programme
• Kelo Uchendu – Founder Gray2Green Movement and UNEP GEO-7 Fellow
• Mana Saza Director at SWiTCH Association of Sustainability

Watch what they had to say about their achievements in the videos below.

Student Leadership Award | Sustainability Hero Award | Team Innovation Award

Nominees for the Student Leadership Award

Nominee for Wageningen University & Research

We nominate Svenja Herrmann from Wageningen University and Research (The Netherlands) for the Student Leadership award. Svenja has been a dedicated GIPA for over 3 years. She supported her team in implementing quick wins and high impact actions from the toolkit, as well as running 1-year projects. For example, she was involved in the ‘sowing challenge’ from concept phase to evaluation. Moreover, she was keen to collaborate with other teams on their projects, such as on the smoke-free campus for which she co-delivered a Green Impact webinar. We believe Svenja’s enthusiastic involvement and valuable support make her a very deserving nominee for this award.

Nominee for KU Leuven

We nominate Liesa Vosch from KU Leuven (Belgium) for the Student Leadership award. Liesa is one of the university’s student representatives for sustainability. She goes above and beyond her mandate to raise awareness on environmental and socio-economic topics among the student population. Liesa was the first at KU Leuven to set up a student-only team, which got audited and won a Silver prize. One of her achievements was the weekly sustainability quiz on social media, engaging up to 100 students each week. We believe that Liesa definitely deserves the award for her activities as an exemplary frontrunner throughout the campaign, and her overall support to the program.

Nominee for University of Antwerp

We nominate Tom Vermeire from the University of Antwerp (Belgium) for the Student Leadership award. Tom joined the second edition of Green Impact which featured a separate toolkit tab with actions for co-housing students. As an enthusiastic team member, he supported his team “Paradise” to truly transform their house in an eco-friendly paradise. Tom became almost fully vegetarian in the process, and reports that he is now more aware of making sustainable choices. His ultimate goal is to make their co-housing community self-sufficient. Tom’s involvement in the program has been a excellent example of how students can act on sustainability within their own environment.

Nominee for Vrije Universiteit Brussel

We nominate Milan Calloens from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) for the Student Leadership award. Milan has been a highly active member of the student-led GreenTeam in the past two years, and was involved in the Green Impact program throughout all stages. He supported the admin team in the development of the toolkit, facilitated activities and participated in the audits. Besides his involvement for the university, Milan actively advocates for human rights and climate justice at a national level in his position as representative of the Flemish Youth Council and as ambassador of “The Warmest Week”, Belgium’s biggest charity event. We very much appreciate Milan’s work within and outside of the Green Impact framework.

Nominees for the Sustainability Hero Award

Nominee for Wageningen University & Research

Janneke Elzinga from Team ASFG at Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands) is an outstanding ambassador for sustainable labs and the Green Impact program in general. Janneke has been involved since the start, contributing to lab-based projects such as the plastic pilot and a range of innovative and creative ideas such as a Styrofoam party to raise awareness about the sheer amount of lab waste. Within WUR, she is pushing for greener labs by advocating participation in the LEAF project. As a collaborative spirit, she has reached out to other teams, Green Offices and SOS International to join forces. We think Janneke is the sustainability hero we all get inspired by, every day.

Nominee for KU Leuven

We nominate An Vandoren from Ecoteam Biology at KU Leuven (Belgium) for her enthusiastic contribution to last year’s Green Impact edition. An took multiple original and inspiring actions. Linked to the department’s core business, she invited colleagues for a bird counting weekend and created bee hotels on campus. An is also a strong communicator on social media. But her biggest achievement is the installation of a cork collection point. For this, she coordinated the pick-up with a recycling company, sensitized the university community on the potential of cork and lobbied for more collection points. An’s actions were a highlight for all involved, and we strongly believe she deserves an award for her engagement.

Nominee for University of Antwerp

Elke Nelen from Team FLW (Faculty of Arts) at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) has been the driving force to the team, by connecting different people that are passionate about sustainability themes and creating an environment in which they could share, exchange and inspire each other with tips and best practices. She has been a great motivator for the team to take concrete actions together in the workplace and individually at home, but also to realise some larger projects on campus. One of these is the creation and maintenance of indoor gardens, an important green asset in Antwerp city centre. Working closely with a team on the city campus, the team has been actively involved in conversations around softening, greening and sustainability in general across different faculties, and are planning to continue on this path in the future.

Nominee for Vrije Universiteit Brussel

We nominate Lies Hoebeek from team CAVA at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) for this award, as her consistent engagement has helped CAVA to grow into the most active Green Impact team at this university. Lies is the key contact for the team for multiple years now. She has implemented hundreds of diverse actions and supported many audits. Together with two other team members, Lies approaches Green Impact as an opportunity to informally communicate to colleagues about sustainability and make small and big changes in their work environment, an archive center. We think Lies is an inspiration for the VUB community and believe she is well-deserving of this award.

Nominee for LUCA School of Arts

We nominate Liselotte Dobbelaere from team Groene Zwartezusters (“the green black sisters”) at LUCA School of Arts (Belgium) for her work as a ‘leading lady’ in the first edition of Green Impact.  Liselotte went above and beyond her job requirements as coordinator for student services on campus Ghent to embed sustainable practices at LUCA. She was active in the taskforce leading up to the organization of Green Impact, as well as throughout the campaign itself. Together with her colleagues, she realized a large amount of actions that impacted staff and students alike and touched upon multiple topics, such as circular economy and catering. We applaud Liselotte’s efforts and wish to award her with this prize.

Nominees for the Team Innovation Award

Nominee for Wageningen University & Research

The Green ESG team (Environmental Sciences Group) at Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands) has done an outstanding job in tackling a complex sustainability issue in an innovative way. They realised that the smoke ban on campus resulted in an increased amount of litter. The project focused mainly on raising awareness among smokers about the correct disposal of cigarette butts, while at the same time investigating structural solutions for the prevention and clean-up of this type of litter. Initiated by changemaker Marjolijn Dannenburg, the team took action on the ground (scavenger hunts), mapped the litter hotspots, published a report in collaboration with researchers and facility services, and came up with ideas on how to sensitize the community. Doing so, they not only started an important conversation at WUR, but also inspired and informed other institutions.

Nominee for KU Leuven

We nominate Ecoteam Van Dale at KU Leuven (Belgium) for their innovative teamwork throughout Green Impact. The Van Dale college houses student services and hence a building where many staff and students pass by. This ecoteam is a motivated, action-oriented and communicative group that stands strong in its diversity. Colleagues from different services come together here and the actions were spread over all themes. Truly innovative is their layered engagement approach: they invented the concept “Friend of the ecoteam”, for people who prefer not to take on a long-term commitment but want to be involved through one-off actions. Many other teams are now keen to adopt the same approach. We want to award Ecoteam Van Dale for their inspirational teamwork and high level of engagement throughout the program.

Nominee for University of Antwerp

We nominate team Bibliotheek at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) for this award, as they made incredible efforts through Green Impact in making libraries across all campuses more sustainable. Being led by Jeroen Van Gorp, the team has not only made significant changes in their working space by taking up new habits with the team, such as switching to plant-based milk, reusing paper as drafts and buying Fairtrade products,… Apart from that, they have swapped bottled water for tap water during meetings. During events, they are now offering a larger variety of (and sometimes exclusively) vegetarian food. The team realised an enormous level of engagement from colleagues across campuses. We want to award the team for inspiring and activating colleagues from the different university libraries and their teams, and therefore really maximizing their impact.

Nominee for Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The CHIS team (Department of Chemical Engineering) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) is a recurring participant to the Green Impact team, and has realized an impressive amount of actions over the past year. Even more impressive is the fact that the team’s main and currently only force is Sarah Degreef, administrative staff at the department. Thanks to her consistent efforts, the team and by extension the department continues its journey towards more sustainability. Apart from influencing the work environment, the team has increased the willingness among co-workers to become more sustainable within their personal life, such as installing solar panels on the roof of their home, and switching to a more sustainable bank. We hope this award nomination will highlight the team’s efforts and serve as an inspiration for other teams.

Nominee for LUCA School of Arts

We nominate team Oscar at LUCA School of Arts (Belgium) for their inspiring, fun approach towards the Green Impact program. In its first edition, the team set out to connect colleagues at campus Brussels around the figure of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. A sticker of Oscar on the trash can reminds everyone to not be an Oscar and complain all the time, but take action to improve the situation. Team Oscar did this through a first series of quick wins, focused on their own service. One of their actions was to ‘junglify’ the work environment by asking colleagues to bring cuttings and plant these in recycled pots. We see that team Oscar has great potential, and want to put their promising teamwork in the spotlight through this award.

We want to congratulate all the nominees on their distinct efforts for the Green Impact program!

International Special Awards – 2022 Edition

You can find the detailed results of last year’s edition here.