4TH OCT 2024

Introducing... New Course Cards

Gloucestershire College, Gloscat, Gloucestershire School of Arts and Technology, or North Gloucestershire Technical College. By whatever name you’ve known our college over the decades, we’ve had a prospectus since the 1920s!

After more than 100 years, we’ve said goodbye to the college prospectus as we know it.

As part of our ambitious GC Zero project, we’ve adapted and have produced a new take on the traditional college prospectus. We’re proud to introduce our new series of course cards, including Welcome Cards and a set of subject-specific course cards that list our qualifications for school leavers.

These cards minimise our printed paper waste. They give prospectus students the opportunity to be specific and ‘pick and mix’ the information they need, without taking home additional print for information they don’t need.

Through this project we’ve greatly reduced our environmental impact. 10 years ago, we printed nearly 8 tonnes of paper annually to produce our college prospectus. Even 5 years ago, we printed nearly 5 tonnes of paper annually, creating over 4 tonnes of carbon emissions in the process.

Today, we’re pleased to have reduced that to under 150kg, creating only around 0.14 tonnes of carbon emissions in the process! Compared to our previous print quantities and processes, we’ve greatly reduced our environmental impact:

We’ve saved 7400kg in paper annually. That’s more than a large African elephant, which can weigh up to 6000kg!
We’ve saved 743 boxes. It’s now less than 10.
We’ve saved 1,737,430 pages from being printed. That’s around 170 trees!
We’ve saved 7.35 tonnes of CO2. You’d create the same carbon footprint by flying from London to Australia back twice.
Our new printing process uses water-based pigment ink and uses around 70% less energy, as the process doesn’t rely on heat.
We deliver the course cards to schools in electric vehicles
We even use eco-friendly tape to secure the boxes!

This new approach is designed to quickly cover key information about life at Gloucestershire College and showcase a huge range of courses that we offer, including apprenticeships and university level courses.

The Welcome Card includes an overview of our courses and apprenticeships, as well as our great range of student support and key events for prospective students. The subject-specific course cards detail our qualifications for school leavers in 13 different FE areas and 7 different university level areas.