#code green week

By Beth Grimmer, 2nd year MBBS University of Tasmania

From the 23rd-30th July, UTAS’s global health society IMPACT pioneered our first ever Code Green Week, aiming to raise students’ awareness of the way that climate change impacts human health as well as that of our environment.  

We wanted to focus on empowering each individual to make small manageable changes to their behaviour in order to reduce their overall carbon footprint, and did this through a number of educational displays and activities.

Throughout the week we had displays on the sustainability of different fashion choices and the interaction with these was great, with students comparing the brands each other was wearing to see who could have the lowest environmental impact.

With Hobart being a large regional city surrounded by such great agricultural land we’re spoilt for choice with fresh produce. We again used displays to push students to think more about their food choices and encourage them to make the most of our incredible location by buying locally and seasonally to reduce the food miles of their meals.

As always, the food related event proved popular – this time the focus was on the extra environmental burden that livestock prove to be on our limited resources – and we aimed to show just how not only palatable, but downright delicious a animal-product free lunch can be. Our veggie patties were a hit, with vegos and meat-lovers alike coming back for seconds!

The week finished off with our inaugural Green Party – green themed of course! As well as encouraging sustainable outfit choices and getting creative with the face paint, we continued our ‘food miles’ theme with ‘Beer Miles’ – pricing local brews to encourage party-goers to favour these over imported beers. It was a great night for all with ticket prices raising a grand total of $634 for the great charity OzHarvest that takes food waste and donates it to organisations that feed those who need it.

It was great to see the involvement of all the students, and was even better to follow up this hype with Code Green’s Social Media Week to give UTAS students even more of an opportunity to engage with, and educate themselves on the effects of climate change on health in a local and international context. We’re all excited to make Code Green Week even bigger next year and we’re looking forward to hearing more about what the other universities have got up to in their respective Green Weeks.