WUR aims to provide its staff and students with good, sustainable surroundings so that they can excel in their studies and work. Sometimes the changes needed to achieve this are immediate, but others take ages. While WUR advocates for an inclusive process, offering its constituents opportunities to contribute ideas, suggestions and criticisms, in practice the process is full of bureaucratic hardliners.
A good example is the coffee vending machines. Unlike in the office buildings, there are different coffee vending machines in the education buildings dispensing coffee and other beverages of varying quality in single-use plastic cups. Over five years ago, during my tenure in the Student Council, S&I and the Green Office had a continuous campaign to reduce single-use plastic on campus. The vending machines are among the main sources of single-use plastic waste, and the campaign aimed at having the same machines in all WUR buildings.
The process for getting good quality, sustainable coffee shouldn’t take ages due to unnecessary bureaucracy
The campaign involved engaging staff from different departments and units. The process was tedious and filled with hardliners. Often, supplier contracts were cited as the barrier in changing the vending machines. Suppliers were equally reluctant to provide data on the amount of single-use plastic cups supplied in education buildings, asking questions like ‘What do you need these data for?’
The worst was being barred from a working committee because it would have been a struggle for the committee to shift from Dutch to English. At the end of my council year, the only promise that was made was that changes in the contract would be considered in the following year. Unfortunately, this never happened, and it has taken five years to hear good news about the new coffee vending machines. While this effort took too long, we can still celebrate the rapid introduction of the Billie Cup that evolved from the KeepCup campaign, and an extensive single-use plastic survey that saw over 700 responses, with the majority in favour of eliminating single-use plastic on campus. This was thanks to the WUR Sustainability Committee, made up of individuals who are actively committed to a sustainable campus.
We can all agree that everyone needs good coffee or their own choice of beverage to refresh or re-energize. However, the process for getting good quality, sustainable coffee — or changes to ensure a fair and inclusive WUR — shouldn’t take ages due to unnecessary bureaucracy or hardliners.
Joshua Wambugu (40), from Kenya, is a PhD candidate in the Marine Animal Ecology and Environmental Policy groups. He is a Social Safety Guide with the DARE Project and a member of the project’s coordinating team. He loves cooking, hiking and birdwatching.
