On Wednesday the 29th of May, Megan, our Graduate Sustainability Communications & Engagement Officer and Elena, our Sustainability Communications and Campaigns Intern from the Sustainability Office attended the annual SOS-UK Student Sustainability Summit. They attended alongside two students Oliver and Deborah from the newly formed UoS Sustainability & Environment Society.
Deborah, Chair of the UoS Sustainability & Environment Society said:
“It was inspiring to spend the day at the SOS-UK Student Sustainability Summit at Lancaster University. There were so many interesting sessions and speakers. I particularly enjoyed learning more about the importance of biodiversity net gain (BNG), where human activity not only strives for net zero carbon but seeks to improve ecosystem biodiversity too.”
Oliver, Treasurer of the UoS Sustainability & Environment Society said:
“During the SOS-UK Sustainability Summit, I was really interested in the exploration of tackling new oil, gas, and coal projects by tackling the insurance of these new projects. It was particularly interesting for being a unique way to prevent oil and gas projects developing by not directly targeting the insurers with targeted messaging. It proved to highlight there are other, less direct ways to reduce the prevalence of these projects and this can be used worldwide.”
This year’s summit was hosted by Lancaster University’s Students’ Union in their Management School building. The day gave us lots of opportunities to network with sustainability representatives from universities and students unions from across the UK. Here is a roundup of some of our highlights:
1. Inspiring Youth-Led Climate Action:
Delivered by students from ‘Teach the Teacher’ the session explored how to engage with audiences when talking about sustainability, and considered when to use facts, versus when to use storytelling. The session also explored the importance of intersectionality, and how different peoples lived experiences will create unique perceptions. Finally, we learnt about movement ecology, a concept that explores how we work within movements and considering whether we are part of the Inside Game (civil servants, university staff etc), the Outside Game (protest organisers, community organisers etc) or Alternatives (working against capitalism).
2. Eating within a climate and nature emergency: what food should be served on your campus?
Delivered by SOS-UK’s Food and Farming Team this workshop introduced the basics and fundamentals of food sustainability and outlined actions that students can take on their university campus to feed students in a way that finds a balance between nature, wellbeing and justice. It explored three main areas:
- Why is agroecology important?
- What is sustainable food?
- How can students initiate behavior change around sustainable food?
3.Circular economy and community repair strategies: deep dive!
This session was run by Green Lancaster and also Pascale Hall from the Restart Project, it was an interactive session exploring Green Lancaster’s ‘Don’t Ditch It, Donate It’ circular economy initiative. It explored waste hierarchies, their connections to the SDGs and also allowed for participants to share their ideas on implementing circular economy campaigns and ideas into your own University Campus. Pascale from the Restart Project also went through a live disassembly of a phone to show the vast amount of precious metals and minerals that are within just a single phone.
4.Running a ‘Warmer Winter’ Campaign on your campus
Ran by Tom Robinson, the Wellbeing Officer at Keele University’s Student Union. Tom highlighted that the three key parts of creating a Warmer Winter Campaign are practical support, educating students and lobbying landlords. The key themes that students needed help to address as a part of this campaign were:
- Cost of living
- Climate Change/Sustainability
- Housing
5.Protecting nature and biodiversity at our universities
This session covered a range of nature and biodiversity initiatives from across the UK, this included hearing all about the work that Chester University’s Hedgehog Friendly Campus Team are undertaking and all about the initiative called Nature Positive Universities. There was an interactive activity where we reimagined our campus spaces and thought about how we can encourage more species onto campus and what services, infrastructures or policies could support a nature positive future.
Overall, we all left feeling very empowered by these sessions. Hearing all of the work that so many people are getting involved with to ensure that sustainability is at the centre of the work they do, was extremely motivating. For more pictures of what we got up to, check out our social medias! Also if you are a student and interested in sustainability, don’t forget to check out the UoS Sustainability & Environment Society’s Instagram!
Written by Elena Fox, Sustainability Campaigns/Communications Intern and Megan Hubbard, Graduate Sustainability Communications and Engagement Officer