This blog post was written by Lavinia Allen, King’s Sustainability Projects Assistant. You can read the news story on King’s central pages here.
On Monday 18th July 2022, students and staff came together at the King’s Sustainability Awards to celebrate the efforts and achievements of everyone who has worked tirelessly this year to make King’s a more sustainable place.
The ceremony took place in the Great Hall on Strand Campus. This was the first in-person awards ceremony since 2019, making it extra special. During the core of the ceremony, we celebrated the hard work of the 500+ staff Sustainability Champions who completed 2,800 actions on sustainability this year.
Group photo of Sustainability Award attendees and Senior Leaders.
61 Sustainability Champions teams were awarded:
- 1 Working Towards Sustainability Dozen
- 13 Sustainability Dozen
- 7 Bronze
- 1 Working Towards Silver
- 5 Silver
- 34 Gold
Office and Residence Teams:
| Sustainability Dozen | Bronze | Silver | Gold |
| Clinical Pharmacology | James Black Centre Offices | Arts & Humanities Cluster Offices (Working Towards) | Entrepreneurship Institute |
| Deans Office | Research Management and Innovation Directorate | Vascular Biology & Inflammation | Estates and Facilities, Lavington Street |
| Denmark Hill Estates and Facilities | Geography | ||
| Global Mobility Office (Working Towards) | Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience | ||
| Guys & Waterloo Chaplaincies | King’s Sport | ||
| International Development | School of Global Affairs | ||
| King’s Online/KPED | Service Centre | ||
| Libraries & Collections, Franklin-Wilkins Library | Social Mobility & Widening Participation | ||
| Libraries & Collections, IoPPN Library | Strand Estates and Facilities | ||
| Libraries & Collections, Maughan Library | The Dickson Poon School of Law | ||
| Libraries & Collections, New Hunts’ House Library | Wolfson House Residence | ||
| Libraries & Collections, St Thomas’ House Library | |||
| Libraries & Collections, Weston Education Centre Library |
Lab Teams:
| Bronze | Silver | Gold |
| Biological Services | Centre for Developmental Neurobiology | Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences – DNA analysis |
| Centre for Inflammation Biology and Cancer Immunology | Engineering | Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences – Drug Control Centre |
| Division of Women & Children’s Health (Hodgkin) | Institute of Hepatology | Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences – Genetic and Environmental Toxicology |
| Human & Applied Physiological Sciences | Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences – King’s Forensics | |
| Physics Research Labs (Nanophotonics Suite) | Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences – Lab 4.134 | |
| Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics | Basic and Clinical Neuroscience | |
| Cardiovascular Research | ||
| Centre for Gene Therapy & Regenerative Medicine | ||
| Chemistry Research | ||
| Chemistry Teaching | ||
| Diabetes Research Group | ||
| Dissecting Room | ||
| Division of Women & Children’s Health (St Thomas’) | ||
| Geography | ||
| Guy’s Multi Disciplinary Labs | ||
| Innovation Hub, Guy’s Cancer Centre | ||
| James Black Centre: Cardiovascular Sciences | ||
| Nutrition Sciences | ||
| School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences | ||
| SGDP Centre, Molecular Genetics Lab | ||
| Twin Research (The Rayne Institute) | ||
| Vascular Biology & Inflammation | ||
| Wolfson Centre for Age-related Diseases |
Director of Sustainability, Kat Thorne, hosting the awards ceremony.
We also had a Special Awards category where we recognised and celebrated the hard work of individuals and groups who took part in sustainability initiatives, projects, and programmes this year.
Members of staff in this category included:
- Dola Akanmu
- Glyn Jones
- Kautuk Chaddha
- IoPPN offices
Other wider groups:
- 84 students who completed the KEATS Sustainability & Climate Module (between March-June)
- 6 students who took part in the Sustainable Development Goal Curriculum Mapping project
- 6 students and staff from the King’s Climate Action Network
- 5 students and alumni who co-hosted and co-produced the Spotlight on Sustainability Podcast
- School of Global Affairs communications team
- Damely Akizhanova for their work on the Sustainability Residence Committees
- The King’s Procurement Team
A variety of celebratory cakes.
THANK YOU!
A massive thank you to everyone who has contributed to our successes at King’s this year. The combined efforts of everyone involved have a significant impact and aid in achieving our university sustainability goals.
Achievements this year include:
- King’s has reduced its carbon emissions by more than half (51%) since 2005/06 baseline
- King’s has divested from all fossil fuels – one year ahead of schedule
- King’s ranked in top 5 UK universities for environmental & social impact in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, as well as second in the UK in the People & Planet League table this year.
- 500+ people taking part in the Sustainability Champions programme and 350+ members of the Climate Action Network (CAN)
- Between September 2021 and July 2022, over 1,400 attendees came together across 87 events and training opportunities ran by the King’s Sustainability Team
- The development of the KEATS Sustainability & Climate module, which had over 600 students and staff enrol and over 180 complete the full module and receive sustainability awards
- Over 1000 modules mapped against the Sustainable Development Goals, carried out with the help of over 60 trained students and staff
- All King’s suppliers must now sign up to the Sustainability Supply Chain Code of Conduct. This is a huge step to reducing our carbon emissions, as our supply chain is the biggest source of carbon (scope 3)
- King’s Food & Venues choice menus are now 70% vegetation and vegan
- King’s has recently been awarded the highest rating of three stars by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) rating, as well as being re-accredited as a Fairtrade university.
Join us! There are lots of projects and ways to get involved in sustainability at King’s:
- If you would like to find out more about becoming a Sustainability Champion, please register via this form and contact the Sustainability Team at sustainability@kcl.ac.uk.
- If you would like to join the Climate Action Network, register here.
- If you would like to enrol on the KEATS Sustainability & Climate module (to be re-launched in October ‘22), register here. If you would like to join the Take Action team of students and staff developing this module – please email sustainability@kcl.ac.uk.
- If you are a student living in a hall of residence and would like to get involved in shaping the Sustainability Living Communities programme, get in touch.
King’s Sustainability Team. From left to right: Rachel Harrington-Abrams, Emily Read, Tasnia Yasmin, Kat Thorne, Alexandra Hepple, Jone De Roode Jauregui, Lavinia Allen, Nicola Hogan.
