Green Office Volunteer Applications Are Open!

We are thrilled to get the year started with our community of volunteers!

The UvA Green Office is a student-led platform and is part of a greater network of organizations that works in sustainability at the university. Our platform holds a special role in bridging the student body into this network. We have a board comprised of six students, four holding the role of team lead.

You have the exciting opportunity to be a part of our vibrant community through one of our four dynamic teams: Communications, Events and Community, Research and Education or Campus and Operations.

In this post, we've outlined a bit more about our dedicated teams in more detail, and the kinds of projects coming up that you can get involved in. We encourage anyone with a passion for sustainability to apply today!

Campus and Development

Do you want to turn sustainability ideas into real change on campus? Are you interested in project coordination, stakeholder collaboration, and sustainability policy? Then join the Campus Team!

The Campus and Development Team aims to create tangible improvements across UvA’s campuses through projects in education, food and catering, the waste system, and even student housing. We implement initiatives through research, policy writing, and assessment. In doing so, we strengthen the Green Office network with new partnerships, encourage critical perspectives on sustainability among students, staff, and external organizations, and assess if the university follows its sustainability ambitions as outlined in the White Paper.

Ongoing Campus projects:

1. Scaling up the furniture waste pilot project:

Each year, during student move-outs, usable furniture is discarded, contributing to increased street clutter and municipal waste. Building on last year’s pilot at Science Park, we will expand item markets to more student housing in partnership with DUWO, AUAS International Student Housing, the municipality of Amsterdam, and De Lokatie. This gives incoming students access to free items, keeps streets cleaner, and lengthens the lifecycle of furniture.

2. Extending De Nieuwe Mensa to other campuses:

De Nieuwe Mensa is a grassroots initiative that turned into a sustainable food stall at REC. It provides affordable, plant-based meals with a low carbon footprint. This year, we will explore bringing it to more UvA campuses in collaboration with Facility Services and the board running the stall. The project shows how student activism can create lasting change, while broadening access to healthy, sustainable food across the university, a concept that we would like to apply at more campuses.

3. Improving the UvA waste & recycling system:

Recycling at UvA is often confusing, and mistakes can cause whole bins to be incinerated. Battery and electronics receptacles are missing, and reusable cups are often piling up at home, when they could instead be processed by the university via a return system. We aim to work with Facility Services and student councils to make waste management more effective and accessible, while raising awareness among students. Better recycling practices will reduce contamination, lower waste, and help UvA reach its sustainability goals.

4. Sustainability assessment and education at UvA:

While UvA has ambitious sustainability plans, there is little accountability, and it is very difficult to assess how close we are to achieving our institutional sustainability goals. Furthermore, the concept of critical sustainability should be introduced into education in a more holistic manner. Course options are difficult to find, and UvA ranks low in the SustainaBul assessment. This project brings together students, councils, and staff to create an assessment & accountability system for the university’s White Paper goals and to highlight critical sustainability in education. The aim is to move from ambition on paper to action, responsibility, and broader student engagement.

For any questions, you can reach Cristian via email at: c.tomus@uva.nl / greenoffice.campus-bb@uva.nl.

Communciations

The Comms Team lets you find creative ways to relay our message of sustainability. We’re the ones behind the posts, the newsletters, and the campaigns that bring the Green Office to life. This year, we want to build a stronger and more visible presence at UvA so even more students can know who we are and how they can join in.

What’s happening this year?:

Beyond just keeping up appearances, we aim to build a strategy to make our communications smarter and stronger. Some of the projects we’ll be working on include:

• Branching out our social media presence → Instagram is our home base, but we’re also diving deeper into TikTok and LinkedIn with platform-specific content.

• Reviving the Green Office podcast → Bringing new life to the Green Office podcast by finding new ways to keep it engaging and self-sufficient.

• Promotional campaigns → Designing visuals, flyers, and videos that bring in interest from students on- and offline.

• Newsletters → Providing updates, recommendations, and stories worth opening your inbox for and that encourage more participation.

• Blog content → Sharing reflections, interviews, and big ideas from the Green Office community.

Feel free to email Ciaran at communications.uvagreenoffice@gmail.com with any questions you might have.

Research & Education

Greetings from R&E lead Shane! Our focus is on interdisciplinary collaboration, educational material, and sustainability research, all while building an active research community. Do you want to integrate sustainability into curricula? And promotes theory-based approaches at the University of Amsterdam? Then R and E is for you!

We have multiple, super fun projects that we will work on this year:

1. Critical Sustainabilities Lecture Series

This year, we will continue our well-received green talks, with a twist: a focus on critical approaches to sustainable thinking, that question the status quo. The lecture series will aim to create a critical, communitarian space in the university whereby dominant approaches to sustainability can be questioned.

2. The Green Office Magazine

In line with our critical approach this year, the Green Office magazine (name, tbc) will launch, with a specific emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to questions of sustainability and ecology. The aim of the magazine is to give students a platform to contribute to ecological thinking in a variety of ways, many of which are not conventionally academic.

3. Reading groups

In collaboration with events and community, our reading group will launch this year! The aim of the reading group is to challenge this limited academic approach through bringing students together for discussions over approaches to sustainability from different perspectives and disciplines.

Besides these three, R and E will also collaborate with the other groups on a host of other events and initiatives! Interested? Volunteer positions will be responsible for attending weekly meetings, co-organising monthly events, and communicating and working with a team of fellow volunteers! It will take an average of 3–5 hours per week, with occasional additional hours during busy events!

As a group passionate about research and education, we are looking for creative people with an interest in learning about sustainability, and working as part of a team! NOTE: For the magazine position, we are also eager for applications interested in design, editorial work, and journalism! Feel free to email Shane at greenoffice.research-bb@uva.nl with any questions!

Events and Community

Events & Community Team of the UvA Green Office is responsible for planning events and providing opportunities for community building around sustainability. We focus on events centering critical and alternative approaches to sustainability and forming platforms for community engagement where students can come together to learn from each other and socialize through common values. For this aim, the team works on establishing connections and collaborations across UvA campuses and different organisations throughout Amsterdam, to ensure an interdisciplinary and intersectional community of students discussing and mobilizing for critical sustainability. The Events & Community Team is critical in moving the Green Office towards our mycelium networks goal in which we aim for an interconnected and mutually nurturing community of critical sustainability. 

Some Events & Community projects this year are: 

1. Reading Groups

Aiming to challenge the limited academic approach of the university to sustainability, Reading Groups organized in collaboration with Research & Education, bring students together monthly to discuss texts of a diverse variety. Each month we read a text relating critical sustainability to a different field of study or perspective and discuss our thoughts. By bringing together students from diverse backgrounds and fields, we can build upon our own conceptions of sustainability and explore its expansive applications. 

2. Monthly Volunteering Days

Each month, we work with a different ecologically concerned organisation in Amsterdam to bring a group of interested UvA students and learn the ropes of their volunteering activities. This aims to show the many different dimensions of ecological volunteering around Amsterdam and how students can contribute to a greener city. The volunteering activities range from park cleanups to wasteless dinners, from harvesting to fixing electronics and clothes. 

3. The Sustainability Brochure 

The Sustainability Brochure is a written material published both online and in print to inform students about the many different aspects of sustainability they can explore and implement within their lives. Its contents range from sustainable eating around Amsterdam to volunteering opportunities and university policies, as well as how to influence them. The brochure is updated regularly with current information and expanding on previous points, therefore it is an ongoing project throughout the year. 

If you have any further questions do not hesitate to contact Eren, the Events & Community Team Lead at greenoffice.community-bb@uva.nl

Want to get involved?

Interested? Then we'd love to hear from you! Go to our volunteer form to learn more and apply today.

We will have a system of rolling admissions, so you will hear back from the relevant team lead before the application closes.

Please note that these vacancies work on a voluntary basis and are therefore not accompanied by a salary. The deadline for applications is the 27th of September.