Green Gown Awards 2021: Student Engagement - The University of Northampton - Finalist

Up for the Cup

The University of Northampton joined forces with eight of the largest employers and most recognisable organisations across the town centre to secure funding for The Cup Fund – the UK’s largest grant fund to bolster coffee cup recycling – an initiative from environmental charity Hubbub, financed by Starbucks through their 5p charge on their single use coffee cups.

The project, called Up for the Cup officially launched in January 2020, the original task was to collect and recycle as many disposable paper cups as possible to reach a target of 160,000 over a 12-month period. Despite significant periods of closure for our partners as a result of COVID-19 the project has still collected and recycled approximately 50,000 cups.

Student engagement has been a significant element of the project with our 2nd year Digital Marketing Students working with our partners and a local marketing agency to design the branding for the project and social media awareness campaigns.

Top 3 learnings:

1. We learned the importance of placing the recycling bins in the right locations and next to a general waste bin to ensure they are easily accessible and prevent general waste being disposed of in the cup recycling bins.
2. We learned how important regular awareness campaigns are in changing habits of our students, staff, and the wider community.
3. We realised the benefits of student engagement in the project, both from an implementation perspective and the value the students can gain from applying their learning and skills to live projects. 

Videos

• Video #1 (click to hide)