These are national environment awards organised by the National Union of Students to reward Union’s for limiting their impact on the environment.

UCLan SU scored 365 points to finished in fourth place out of 70, just missing out on a gold award by 8 points, but were up by 49 points from last year’s score.

Students’ Union president, Chris Lowden, said: “This award was achieved with a lot of hard work from everyone in the Union but special thanks must go to Pete Fisher-Godwin, Danny Weir and Peter Hill.

“This will be my last year working with this Union towards this award and I am very proud with what we have accomplished, I hope that we will keep on entering this award and improving ourselves.

“Students now recognise the importance of the environment and I feel that having this award shows that we as a Union are committed to reducing our environmental impact.”

Len Lewis, executive director of operations at UCLan, said: “This award show that our Students’ Union is a national beacon of good practice when it comes to environmental issues.

“Their pioneering work reflects the range of environmental projects currently taking place across the University including our plans to install a solar panel roof on 53 Degrees.”

The Students’ Union environment representative, Sarah Burnham, was pleased with the result.

The 20-year-old public relations and business student said: “I am very pleased we have maintained such a high standard; it is a testament to the hard work and dedication that the Union commits to its environmental performance.

“As we keep pushing ourselves to do better other unions are doing the same, prompting continued improvement across all participating unions. The Sound Impact awards make sure environmental issues remain a primary concern and I hope we continue to push our Union forward and go for gold next year.”

The University of Central Lancashire’s health and safety advisor, Peter Hill, who worked with the Union on entering the awards praised the Union’s commitment to the environment.

He said: “This is another great achievement by the SU and a just reward for all the hard work the team has put in over the last year.

“We knew it was always going to be difficult to emulate or exceed last year’s performance in the awards, and while the ultimate goal is always to continually improve environmental performance, in practice it is not always so easy.

“It is fantastic to see environmental initiatives being so firmly entrenched in the SU’s policies, procedures and day to day activities, we increased our score significantly over last year and it’s a shame we so narrowly missed out on a gold award, lets hope its third time lucky next year!”

To enter the award the Union had to complete a workbook that covered all areas of the Union, including recycling management, carbon efficiency and initiatives to involve students.

Anna Heywood, Project Founder and Sound Impact Awards auditor, said: “Given a bit of fun competition, the evidence shows that SU’s have really striven to improve and out-do each other this year, which was one of the original aims of the scheme.

“Those at the working towards level are starting to get to grips with the issue. I am very proud of the progress all Unions are making.”