The 2022-2023 academic year got off to a flying start for the Green Office. Following a competition organised by the UN the previous year, this driving force behind sustainable development at ULiège won the Coup de Coeur prize from the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie. This prize enabled us to present the commitment strategy at COP27 in Sharm el‑Sheikh in November 2022. «There was a real energy there, which was extremely exhilarating,» remembers Cécile Van de Weerdt, coordinator of the Green Office. «It enabled us to make a lot of contacts, and climate scientist and former IPCC vice-president Jean-Pascal van Ypersele even pledged to become an honorary patron of the UNI for Change programme. This clearly shows the importance of our work and the quality of the programme.» This importance was confirmed when the Green Office won the International Sustainable Campus Network’s 2022 Award of Excellence in the «Culture Change for Sustainability» category. In the same year, Green Office coordinator Cécile Van de Weerdt was also awarded the title of « Sustainability pioneer » by the Belgian Federation of Enterprises and Time4Society, and in 2023 she received the distinction of Honoured Citizen of the City of Liège for her commitment to sustainable development. A SERIES OF HIGHLIGHTS Throughout the year, the Green Office has developed various activities to liven up campus life. At the start of the new academic year, the Green Office team organised a screening of the film «Animal» and attended a debate with Cyril Dion and ULiège students on the Arlon campus. As part of the Biodiversity of the Anthropocene course, the Green Office invited students studying for a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences to design projects related to the themes of the film. «We are continuing to support two of these projects today,» explains Cécile Van de Weerdt. The number of student trainees and volunteers is rising all the time, showing that the drive is proving more and more successful. SUSTAINABLE WEEK At the end of March 2023, the Green Office’s Sustainable Development Week was a real highlight, providing the opportunity to carry out a wide range of activities. «Several national and international events take place at the same time, and we wanted to make it a real event on campus,» explains Laura Germain, Community Manager at the Green Office, «all through fun activities, with themes that make sense to everyone, so that we are not just preaching to the converted.» At the initiative of the Green Office, this Sustainable Week began with an activity to calculate environmental footprints, offered on various campuses in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation on 24th March 2023, the day on which the Belgian environmental footprint was exceeded. «Participants were able to calculate their footprint and choose actions to reduce it, and were given a number of challenges to complete in order to improve their result,» explains Laura Germain. 2.7 Green Office Actions Created in 2020, the Green Office has now become a key player in sustainable development at ULiège. Here’s a look back at a year rich in projects and positive energy. 20 | ACTIVITY REPORT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT ULIÈGE | 2022 – 2023
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