Forge asked all candidates for the role of Sustainability & Development officer to introduce themselves and their campaign, and to delve deeper into their manifestos.
Tim Meyer is standing for the role, and told us that he thinks sustainability should also refer to economic sustainability, but also environmental sustainability.
“Sustainability is really important to everyone, whether they realise it or not”
He says that he believes that development is the SU’s internal commercial development, and that is really important and that he sees this through his work in Foundry.
“I’ve been involved in both the sustainability and development sides of campus, and it’s a really big part of my life.”
Forge then asked why Tim thought that the role he was applying for was important.
He said “Development is really important because that’s how the SU makes money, basically- that’s how the SU support it’s societies and that’s how the SU supports the advice centre.
Sustainability is really important because we all need a planet to live on, and we need to play our part in environmental sustainability and maintaining what we have here.”
From a development side, I think the SU needs to look at it’s development to support student services.”
Tim then explained that he believed Graves should reopen in a different purpose than Interval, as well as Uni Central, which has functional kitchens but is lying dormant and not currently earning any money.
“The SU needs to look at it’s assets and essentially make money to support its students.
“No one wants the SU to be commercialised, but if you want to have that non-profitable part, such as societies funding, which people do, looking at your assets is good.
On sustainability, Tim said that a key policy was looking at protecting student bus fares and promoting sustainable transport.
“I want to really represent students, not just in the SU but in the university and local community – that includes trying to protect student bus fares, because I know that’s a big part, sustainable transport, and they’ve gone up massively since I started uni.”
“I want to work with [Sheffield] City Council to extend the SC1 city centre route bus from West Street to campus – I think that would really improve sustainable transport.”
Tim also explained how he would campaign to give all student HMOs more recycling bins to encourage them to not put excess waste in the rubbish bin.
On a final point, Tim said, “The SU really needs to look at development to support itself, and that £700,000 in an £8/£9m organisation is a lot of money, and serious action needs to be taken.
“I know what serious action needs to be take, and can do that while keeping environmental sustainability.”
