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Cambridge students have just completed a week of ‘environmental action’
in a drive to turn the university Green. A network of some 150 students
is urging colleges and departments to start recycling schemes, reduce energy
consumption and turn university land into a haven for wildlife.

Patrick Bateson, provost of King’s College, is ‘delighted, and wholeheartedly
behind the initiative’. The college is commissioning a formal ‘environmental
audit’, says Bateson. He suspects energy conservation in particular is likely
to need attention.

‘Colleges have no policy on energy: no time switches on lights, no directives
on when and where to turn the heating down,’ says Tom Wakeford, the coordinator
of the initiative and a science undergraduate at King’s. High-quality paper
is wasted as well, he says. ‘Every year a 200-page report goes out to everyone
ever associated with King’s from 1902 onwards.’

At the weekend, students bedecked King’s College with a banner proclaiming
‘No Time To Waste – Support Environmental Action Week’. At the students’
union this week Norman Moore, formerly chief advisory officer of the Nature
Conservancy Council, opened an environment information centre that bears
his name.