The School’s Green Campus Committee, launched at the beginning of the academic year, brings together colleagues and students responsible for organising the implementation of specific environmentally-friendly activities. Here is a round-up of the first projects produced by the committee.

​This academic year saw the creation of the NEOMA CSR Committee, bringing together colleagues from various different services as well as students. This committee is made up of two groups, Green Campus and Diversity, with the aim of making recommendations to the RSE Management Committee and monitoring the operational implementation of specific environmentally-friendly activities ands promoting diversity in terms of social open-mindedness, disability and gender equality.

After working together for several months, colleagues and students on the Green Campus Committee are pleased to present the various activities put in place this year to respond to the following two objectives: awareness-raising and waste management.

Starting Days

The new academic year seminar for the first years of the Master in Management focussed on research into innovative solutions and social entrepreneurship in the Normandy and Champagne regions. This seminar was awarded first prize in the ‘Territorial Anchorage’ category of the Responsible Campuses Trophy, which encourages institutions of higher education to include sustainable development in their programmes and in managing their infrastructure. “This prize marks the strong commitment of the School to its sustainable development approach, now an essential criterion to students making their choice of school and of business,” explains Magali Chautard, Personal Development Team Manager within Talent & Career, and organiser of the Starting Days.

Green Day

Organised by the Ethika Association and the CSR Committee, Green Day took place on 6 February 2020 on the Rouen Campus. “This day, entirely devoted to sustainable development, aimed to raise the awareness of everyone in the School of good practice in terms of the environment by means of various workshops and a round table on the manufacture of cosmetic products, waste management and food,” explains Ludivine Ratel, a Master in Management student and Chair of the CSR Committee on the Rouen campus.

Green Wednesdays

Set up in spring in the cafeteria on the Rouen Campus, these vegetarian menus have a triple benefit: for the planet (greenhouse gas, water, deforestation), for health (cancer, diabetes, heart disease) and for animal welfare. “This action was paused because of the campus closure and will start again when the cafeterias reopen,” states Virginie Milaire, Diversity & Green Campus Manager.

Detox mail challenges

The first stage of the operation Digital Clean up, ‘Detox Mail’, was launched in January 2020, starting from the observation that digital use has a considerable but little-known environmental impact. Over a period of 6 weeks, a weekly challenge was made to colleagues via the internal newsletter and to students via social media: to empty your inbox, to favour low-definition links and attachments, to discuss things by telephone, to unsubscribe from pointless newsletters, etc.

Mobility challenge

From 16 to 22 September 2019, NEOMA and the student associations of Ethika in Rouen and Oikos in Reims invited students and colleagues to take part, for the third consecutive year, in the Mobility Challenge, aimed at promoting alternative means of transport: cycling, walking, tram, bus, train, car sharing, etc.

SMEDAR visit

“Thanks to their visit to the centre responsible for providing waste treatment and recycling as well as for the associated transport, sorting and sorting operations in the Rouen conurbation, 14 students and colleagues from Facility Management were able to gain awareness of the huge mass represented by our waste and the urgency of implementing solutions aimed at processing, reducing and recycling it,” says Olivier Patenere, Head of Facility Management on the Rouen Campus.

Fag ends

Thanks to a partnership with Green Minded, an association hoping to refocus attention on a forgotten piece of waste, several fun ash-trays have been installed on the Rouen and Reims Campuses, enabling almost 15 kilos of cigarette ends to be collected, according to Florent Philippot, Head of Facility Management on the Reims Campus.

Sorting bins

Intended for paper, plastic and other waste, 17 sets of three bins have appeared on the Campuses in Paris, Reims and Rouen this year. They are very visible, being placed in heavily frequented locations so there is no excuse not to use them!

Bio-waste audit in the cafeterias

The audit of our consumption in the campus cafeterias, carried out in February 2020 by the organisation Terraléo, which specialises in recycling bio-waste, showed that with an average of 23 grammes of bio-waste per person and per meal, representing some 3 tonnes of bio-waste per year, we can aim to lower our food waste and to make use of this waste. A study on recycling the food waste produced on the campuses is currently under way.

Collecting coffee grounds

Since January 2020, employees and cafeterias on the Rouen campus have been helping recycle coffee grounds through a partnership with the organisation ‘Marc en terre’ with the aim of redistributing this black gold (fertiliser, pesticide, compost accelerator) to a family garden, a farmer and a vermicomposting start-up.

Operation Clean up Nature

At the end of September 2019, a group of students from the Reims Campus took part in this annual operation launched on the initiative of the Leclerc Movement, with the aim of encouraging waste collection in a given area. Very well done to our School’s colleagues and students involved in the Green Campus Committee of the NEOMA CSR Committee for setting up these practical actions.