The Institute of Ophthalmology (IoO) has again achieved gold for Green Impact and LEAF and additionally received an award from the ECL Small grants Scheme. The team led by Jill Cowing have worked hard to improve the local environment, reduce waste and minimise the Institute’s carbon footprint but still has a long way to go. Jill reflects on recent green initiatives at the IoO.

Some things we have focused on in 2022 are to revive the IoO garden and set up a cycle club.

The IoO had a small area of land around some lecture cabins which had been neglected for many years. Around five years ago some members of staff got together decided to create a garden where we could sit outside to have lunch and even the odd meeting.

We used old items from labs and repurposed them as planters. One of these was a racking system in which we planted lots of herbs. All was going well until COVID struck and IoO closed down for all but essential work. As a result of this many of the plants in the garden were no longer cared for and died. We have now replaced many of the plants and with a generous award from the ECL Small grants Scheme, and purchased lots of new herbs. In particular, we have several varieties of mint including spearmint, apple mint, chocolate mint and garden mint. Some of the other herbs we bought were borage, thyme, sage, parsley, camomile and chives.

The idea of the herb garden is to provide fresh herbs for anyone wanting to take a little home to put in their cooking but they also attract insects and smell wonderful when you brush past them, particularly the lavender. We now have a small team who are once again looking after the garden and watering regularly so hopefully this time everything will continue to grow and flourish once again.