Author: Jone De Roode Jauregi (Page 2 of 11)

Reflections on the King’s Cycling Tour with Swapfiets

June 30, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This blog post was written by Kathryn Mercedes Cassidy Pachon – King’s student and President and Treasurer of the King’s Cycling Club – and Lukas Popp – a third-year International Relations student and Cycling Project Coordinator for King’s Climate Action Network.

London’s finest gray skies gracefully appeared for the King’s Cycling Tour with Swapfiets, where a dozen or so of King’s bike enthusiasts came together to share the experience of cycling in the heart of the city. It offered an opportunity for more experienced cyclists to explore sneak routes and access options to King’s campuses, but especially for those unaccustomed to the hustle and bustle of city life, it was meant to allay the fear of this and showcase the joy and convenience of cycling in London. Members of the King’s Cycling Club (KCC) committee guided the group from the Swapfiets store in Spitalfields West through the back streets of the Barbican, down to the magnificent Strand campus, south across the river and then through the infamous Stamford Street directly to Guy’s campus and back to Swapfiets: A truly sustainable trip around the great King’s College campuses dotted all over the city.

The mission of this collaboration between the King’s Sustainability Team and the King’s Cycling Club was to eradicate the fear of cycling among the big “boys,” the trucks, the cabs, the buses, as well as jaywalkers, unpredictable Deliveroo drivers, and electric scooters; in other words, the plethora of potentially disheartening factors that might prevent students and faculty alike from cycling in and around the city. Prior to our adventure, the group gathered for a team meeting discussing the rules and guidelines on how to cycle safely in the city, ensuring that everyone was up to speed on cycling etiquette, obeying the rules of the road, and instilling confidence in cyclists that they have a right to ride on the road. And off they went. The Swapfiets city bikes rolled smoothly and adapted perfectly to the riders’ abilities. To adhere to the traffic-friendly rules established, the group was split into two, with one rider following shortly behind the other on their bike. When arriving back at the store, the group was in high spirits. It seemed like everyone was more confident in their abilities as urban cyclists, and even those who had less experience with biking seemed undeterred, rather encouraged to bike more. This Sustainability Event thus embodied the KCC’s beliefs that the best way to get around the city is by bicycle, not least for reasons of accessibility and sustainability, and that this opportunity should not be hindered by the challenge of cycling in one of the world’s busiest cities, but rather inspired to cycle appropriately and safely.

Cycling is a fantastic way to get active and get around London. As a collaborative event, the King’s Experience Ride forms part of the wider King’s Climate Action Network and its King’s Cycling Project. The latter works mainly on three goals. Firstly, through communication with King’s Residences and Campus Operation Teams, abandoned bicycles are located, assessed and donated to charities, as well as returned to the King’s community in order to make personal transport more climate neutral. Each year, more than 50 bicycles are left on campus and at King’s residences. This has led to a review of cycling at King’s, and the redistribution of these bikes is thus a major focus of the project. Further, it seeks to raise awareness of King’s facilities to educate staff and students who wish to bike on how to access and implement this option for them. Finally, and as the broader framework in which the event explained above also sits, the goal is to promote bicycling as a carbon-neutral, enjoyable, and independent active transportation option for students, staff, and visitors at King’s.

Lukas, a third-year International Relations student and Cycling Project Coordinator for King’s Climate Action Network, said, “It’s sad to think of how many bikes are left abandoned on our campuses when, at the same time, we realize that there are plenty of students who would love to cycle but can’t afford to do so. This is why I’m excited about our King’s Cycling Project, which not only allows us to offer students the opportunity to experience cycling in London and breathe new life into old bikes, but also helps to make individual transport more accessible, sustainable and independent.” 

If you would like to get involved with the King’s Climate Action Network, visit the website to find out more. 

King’s Climate Action Network: Education for Sustainability project

June 26, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This blog post was written by Sophie Ball.

One of the King’s Climate Action Network (CAN) projects this year aims to develop an Education for Sustainability (EfS) strategy that addresses the barriers in place to embedding EfS into the curriculum at King’s. My name is Sophie Ball and in addition to being a first-year international relations student at King’s, I am the project team coordinator for this project. In this role, I have the opportunity to work with students, staff, and academics at King’s to help shape the direction of Education for Sustainability (EfS) in the university and work on developing various resources for it. As a student with a long-term interest in sustainability, I have seen how enriching knowledge of sustainability has been in many of my academic pursuits. In a world where unsustainable actions are negatively impacting every area of people’s lives, it is vital that every student has the ability to understand and help combat this complex issue. By joining this project, I hoped to help all students at King’s, regardless of their field of study or their capacity to seek it out on their own, gain a solid understanding of sustainability to apply throughout their lives.

To encourage dialogue, collaboration, and participation in this project, the Education for Sustainability (EfS) project conducts monthly meetings where academics who are currently implementing ESD in their curriculum are invited to pitch their ideas and discuss them with the meeting participants, including students and other academics. Additionally, a brand-new series of networking events led by King’s Climate & Sustainability brings together researchers, staff and students engaged in the climate and sustainability field to share knowledge and foster connections. On 6 April, the event featured pitches from the King’s community including King’s Sustainability Team, the Institute for Responsible Business, the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society, Enactus (KCLSU), and King’s start-ups. The second event on 24 May had a special focus on sustainable healthcare innovations.

Furthermore, to support the development of resources for EfS, the CAN EfS project team is gathering case studies of best practice examples of ESD at King’s to be shared publicly on the sustainability blog. Along with this, King’s Academy has been conducting a comprehensive Advance HE literature review about (Higher) Education for Sustainable Development, led by Mira Vogel and Maria O’Hara.

Finally, the EfS project adopts a community organising approach and the team is working on training materials to empower students to conduct 121 conversations with their academics to identify examples of and barriers to EfS implementation at the university. Using the information gathered from the 121s, the toolkits to assist academics in EfS implementation will be better tailored to their specific subject needs. Furthermore, the project is gathering survey information from students on the current state of EfS at the university to identify where the biggest gaps lie. By engaging students, the project aims to bring together bottom-up and top-down EfS efforts and give students a bigger say in shaping their sustainable curriculum.

King’s as a Living Lab: Sustainability in Practice module

June 23, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

The ‘Sustainability in Practice’ module was launched to third-year undergraduates and postgraduate students in September 2020, led by Dr. Emma Tebbs and Dr. Helen Adams from the Department of Geography. Following its big success, it ran for the second time in September 2022 led by Dr Emma Tebbs and Dr Rowan Gard.

The module uses an interdisciplinary approach to help students learn how they can combine their knowledge to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through problem-based learning and a ‘Living Lab’ approach, students address challenges around sustainability at King’s and are encouraged to reflect on sustainability as a concept along with broader global sustainability issues. The students interacted with the Sustainability Team at King’s as well as other King’s entities and partners such as Transport for London and the Westminster City Council on sustainability-themed projects. Nicola Hogan, the Sustainability Manager for Operations at King’s, was heavily involved as a Project Host.

Projects from the 2022/23 academic year included the following:

The benefits of street trees on pedestrian shading and cooling
What vegetation/tree species/provenance should we plant on our network – with consideration for climate change
Expansion of biodiversity action plan- New garden impacts
Promotion of active travel at stakeholder universities (KCL, LSE and Westminster University) at the Strand/Aldwych as an aid to tackling air pollution
Delivering maximum biodiversity impacts at the Strand Aldwych site through strategic urban greening to provide shading and mitigate the effects of urban heating
Making the King’s online procurement catalogue more sustainable
Sustainable travel at King’s post-covid
Impact of extreme weather on travel for vulnerable groups
Reducing the carbon footprint of food at King’s
Urban Greenery in the Strand and Aldwych area as a means of reducing urban heat islands and urban air pollution

Students presented their project findings to the project hosts and developed a report outlining their proposed solution.

Student feedback on the module has been positive, with students agreeing particularly that the module helped develop their understanding and reflection on practical solutions for sustainability, knowledge of sustainability and the UN SDGs, critical perspectives on sustainability, and more practical skills like teamwork and interdisciplinary working.

Students audit the Sustainability Champions teams

June 21, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

Last month, students from a variety of degree backgrounds volunteered as Student Sustainability Auditors. They received IEMA approved training on sustainability auditing, which they then used to audit teams of Sustainability Champions at King’s across two days. Find out more about the Sustainability Champions programme here.

We asked one of the students how they found the experience:

As a Student Sustainability Auditor, I learned ways how Universities can adopt Eco-Friendly ways to make themselves sustainable. I am delighted to be part of the team that audited certain departments in KCL to understand activities undertaken by them in the year. It also helped me to understand innovative approaches which any university can adopt. As we worked with students from different departments, we also came across a wider perspective and made new friends as well. We helped each other to fill in knowledge gaps on sustainability. Since the audit was conducted by the students themselves, it provided a good opportunity to give our feedback as well. I hope this is continued at regular intervals.

– Jaydeep Bansal

Vintage, Vintage, Vintage?

May 16, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This blog post was written by Molly Nuttall, student at King’s Business School and founder of Robbin Hood UK.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Brick Lane started selling COVID test kits and calling them vintage.

Oh, how we love vintage clothes. They are chic and can be quite affordable. But where is the best place to buy? In my opinion, in charity shops as there is nothing better than a good hunt for a bargain and cherishing the clothing items while giving back to a cause such as Age UK.

Where you should not buy is online ‘vintage’ and be cautious when in areas such as Brick Lane.

Online vintage stores have mastered the word ‘re-worked’ which basically means that they buy a plain pair of black trousers from Alibaba and stick a Carhartt label on them. This happens a lot more often than you think, so be wary.

Brick Lane, however, is a larger problem. I love some items of clothes that I have bought, but that is because I have researched the clothing labels and materials that should be called Vintage. Additionally, I do know that a lot of the clothes being sold are sourced from charity shops, bought at as little as £1 and resold for £40. My problem with this is that £39 goes to the business and only £1 goes to charity.

Clothes donated to charity shops are done because of a good cause, however, ‘vintage’ shops make deals with charity shops to find items of clothing before it even hits the shop floor, this then means that the worker and the business are profiting but not the charity, in my eyes it’s immoral.

So I started a social enterprise called @robbinhooduk on Instagram. I pick up donated clothes and sort them out into two categories: 1) straight to donations (clothes such as plain shirts and comfy clothes) therefore they cannot be sold on and go to people that really need them; 2) the more colourful clothes that you might see on Brick Lane we sell them on Vinted and to independent vetted businesses, donating all the profit to chosen charities by the donees. No sneaky deals, just transparent transactions and getting the real price for clothes not inflated just because they are on Brick Lane or a swanky website.

Do your research and love pre-loved clothing.

Listening at The Big One and reflections from a King’s student

May 16, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This blog post was written by Wendy Whittall, studying the Climate Change – Environment, Science & Policy MSc at King’s.

I was watching the Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir on the main stage. The Choir had not made the stage, maybe not even the UK, so we (a melange of protesters, environmentalists, protectors and activists at The Big One) watched hypnotised by the Revered Billy with his Elvis-style white shock of hair, dog collar and shiny, bright pink suit who had arrived from NY to give us an impassioned talk about the Earth which was interspersed with him singing enthusiastically…. Earth-a-lujah, Earth-a-lujah.

Earlier in the day, it was trying to rain when I had met up at the COVID memorial wall, the heart-covered wall on the Westminster side of the bridge, with members of the King’s Climate Action Network and South London Citizens to carry out a Listening Project on the first day, Friday 21st April, of The Big One, the four-day marathon XR event which had attracted over 200 organisations. The event was a change of tactics to be family-friendly, educational and fun with the hope of creating momentum to end all new government fossil-fuel licences.

I joined up with Paulina and Jone to chat with several people to find out their reasons for coming to The Big One. Our first conversation was with a worker who, with her large board, had taken the day off to protest against the government’s inability to push through the Buildings Bill which, if passed, would reduce dramatically the 50mt of carbon emission by the UK construction industry.

We then spoke to two lovely well-dressed ladies, one had graffitied the back of her expensive coat and re-engineered a green umbrella for the occasion, who had never been to an XR event beforehand and were motivated to attend as they understood it would be peaceful. They had arrived to support XR’s initiative to keep a future for their grandchildren. We also spoke to a couple of new sustainable businesses and long-time activists from Brighton.

Whilst we were watching the XR parade which included lots of drummers and spooky-looking people dressed head-to-toe in lipstick red floaty dresses, we met a young family from London whose boys had made their own banners, one stating “Don’t Wreck our Future” and the other “Don’t Throw it Away”.

After we had all gathered for a debrief of the project and left to go our separate ways, I continued down the length of Milbank dotted with many pop-up marquees à la festival including activists from Climate Justice, Greenpeace and Doctors and Psychologists were represented plus different forms of art activities. I was interested in talking to the Climate Fresk promoters, a collaborative workshop teaching the science of climate change based on the IPCC reports motivating a wider understanding of the problem.

To my delight I met, at the Climate Fresk stand, some environmentalists who had arrived from several different countries in Europe, Sweden, Germany & Belgium to name a few, to attend all four days. I spoke to a doctor from Germany who had arrived by coach with 50 other passionate environmentalists. He had in the past organised climate-related events and was at The Big One to understand the positives and negatives of the event to create a similar event in Germany. His motivation was the experience of heat exposure during the summer months, and how the media does not talk about the number of deaths in the elderly, the young and the vulnerable, over 8,000 in 2022. He said that Germany had already passed the 1.5C IPCC bar and that the summers are longer and hotter. He also spoke about adequate wind farm energy for the entire country but due to an archaic law, whereby, if there is surplus energy being produced the energy is reduced by ‘switching off’ the newest (renewable) energy, thereby leaving coal as the burning, polluting energy source. He also acknowledged that the Greens, in the coalition German government, had sold out politically.

And it was about then when the Reverend Billy entered on stage. It had stopped raining, the sun was out, and there was the heavy scent of patchouli and the faint whiff of weed in the air. After the final and rousing Earth-a-lujah, Earth-a-lujah, I wended my way back down Milbank to Westminster tube.

I hadn’t gone far when I met up with the Mothers’ Climate Action Network with one of the mums dressed in an eye-catching French blue sequinned trouser-suit together with a turquoise bobbed wig all framed by a massive globe that she wore like a giant circular wing.

Just a bit further on I met two lovely ladies carrying a gorgeous-smelling wreath made that morning in one of their workshops. Each flower and stick of herb that had been added to the wreath had a prayer attached and the following day, Earth Day, they were going to hold a service by the Thames and return the wreath to the Earth by floating it on the Thames and releasing all the prayers to the world.

Over the weekend, I attended a couple (6 hours worth) of Climate Fresk workshops in Canada Water where I met Ruth, who had been an XR Steward. I offered to return her aprons to The Big One on Sunday, and while doing so, I was persuaded to stay for a 10-minute Climate Justice comedy session by Kate Smurthwaite (www.linktr.ee/katesmurthwaite). Big shout out.

The Big One was an interesting and wonderful event that brought people together, those that have voiced on our behalf for years and those who would not have normally attended an event, speaking for our future. There were the loud and passionate Earth-a-lujahs to the quiet and spiritual wreath laying of our prayers. All of us whether loud, angry, hopeful, funny, spiritual or sad were all there for the same aim. It was a mess of emotions in a world of business as usual on a warming planet.

This listening exercise was carried out as part of a climate listening campaign being carried out by King’s Climate Action Network in collaboration with South London Citizens. The campaign brings together community members through a community organising approach and invites them to talk about issues related to climate change they care about and reflect on why they are important to them. By listening to and connecting with people, the campaign aims to build our collective power and create a local climate movement that puts our communities’ concerns first.

Fairtrade Fortnight 2023 at King’s

March 24, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This guest blog post was written by George Hill, Library Assistant (Frontline Services) in Libraries and Collections at King’s.

Every year the Fairtrade Foundation organises Fairtrade Fortnight. This celebration of all things fairtrade seeks to raise awareness around key issues like workers’ rights, sustainability, and climate action; alongside encouraging people to swap Fairtrade-certified products. It also offers an opportunity for introspection and reflection, offering a chance for sustainability advocates and organisers to reflect on the successes of the fairtrade movement whilst looking at where we can improve.

As part of this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight, King’s hosted a talk on Ethical and Fairtrade Consumption. Our two excellent speakers included Ruth Strange from Ethical Consumer – a multi-stakeholder co-operative consumer magazine – alongside Lisa Connellan from King’s Food. Each had the opportunity to share what their respective organisations have been doing to encourage more sustainable and equitable consumer behaviour, as well as discuss what the next steps for achieving a more sustainable future might be.

Ruth kicked off her talk with a quick explanation of the excellent work done by Ethical Consumer in the field of sustainability advocacy and consumer choice. She explained how the magazine, founded in 1989, aims to offer consumers a clear and accessible way to compare how equitable and sustainable different brands and products are. The magazine scores particular brands and products out of 20 for sustainability and then ranks them against alternatives. It also offers a range of interesting ‘deep dives’ into everything from palm oil to tea to travel booking companies – helping to raise consciousness around issues like worker exploitation and climate degradation.

The main body of Ruth’s talk was an explanation and evaluation of the work of Fairtrade International and the Fairtrade Foundation. She framed this talk around five key issues: the meaning of Fairtrade, the importance of Fairtrade, its limits, and the accessibility (or lack thereof) of Fairtrade products. We learned how Fairtrade certification helps give consumers the information they need to help foster better consumer habits, in turn helping small producers – especially those producing products that were traditionally colonial cash crops for the west – to gain inroads into markets traditionally dominated by extractive and exploitative business interests. We also learned how Fairtrade promotes producers who guarantee fair wages for their employees; promotes worker democracy through collective bargaining agreements and trade union rights; and protects their workforce through minimum health and safety standards.

As well as emphasising the importance of Fairtrade and the good work that the Fairtrade Foundation does, Ruth also addressed some of the limits of Fairtrade certification. This includes the ongoing fairtrade certification of products produced by companies implicated in human rights abuses, as well as the problem of the affordability of some Fairtrade products. She nonetheless identified fairtrade as the ‘best option for continuous improvement’ – reminding the audience that it is best to not let ‘the perfect be the enemy of the good’.

Next up was King’s Food Manager Lisa Connellan, who offered an insight into some of the progress King’s Food have been making in implementing sustainable practices, whilst building on their varied and delicious range of food.

First on the menu was a look into King’s increasingly varied range of plant-based food. We learned that 65% of all food offered at King’s 20 outlets is now plant-based, with vegetarian and vegan options now served as default. This includes all kinds of different items, including ice cream, pies, croissants, and vegan sausage rolls (which I highly recommend). The university also no longer serves beef, rarely serves lamb and only sources from farmers committed to high levels of environmental stewardship. The progress King’s has made in reducing the amount of meat and dairy served means the university is now listed as one of PETAs top 10 vegan unis. It has also been awarded 3/3 stars by the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

Lisa also outlined King’s ongoing commitment to ethically sourced ingredients and to using fairtrade certified products throughout the supply chain. This includes King’s continued promotion of Fairtrade products, experiments with ‘reverse menu engineering’, and diligence in looking for the best and most ethical suppliers.

Looking to the future, Lisa said that King’s has a lot of plans for the coming months and years to help build on the university’s commitment to sustainable and ethical practices. This includes working towards getting a three-star Fairtrade University Award, looking into carbon taxing on products, further collaborating with students and researchers specialising in sustainability, and working with King’s Fairtrade and Sustainable Food Steering Group on how to implement policy.

Special thanks to all the wonderful organisers who made the talk possible, and to the King’s Sustainability team for all the work they do in promoting this important topic.

Relevant links:

Event recording: https://media.kcl.ac.uk/media/Ethical+and+Fairtrade+consumption/1_4vb28e3j
More about Fairtrade Fortnight 2023: https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get-involved/Current-campaigns/Fairtrade-Fortnight-/
Fairtrade at King’s: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/climate-sustainability/operations-policies/fairtrade
Ethical Consumer: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/

Student volunteering story: co-creating the KEATS Sustainability and Climate Module

March 9, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This guest blog post was written by student and KEATS TakeAction team member Oliver Yu Hurst.

Hello! My name is Oliver Yu Hurst and I’m in the final year of my part-time MSc Climate Change: Environment, Science and Policy at King’s. I’m a Nature-lover, passionate about transdisciplinary approaches to tackling social, environmental and multispecies justice and sustainability issues.

I had loads of spare time during the summer holidays in my first year and wanted to use it wisely. I came across the Keats Sustainability and Climate pilot module via King’s Sustainability newsletter and will never regret enrolling on this fabulous module.

Why I loved volunteering? Aside from the engaging webinars and learning about topics that don’t receive much attention (e.g., digital sustainability and the multitude of stuff King’s is doing regarding sustainability), after completing the module, I gained the opportunity to volunteer with the Sustainability team on improving it for this academic year. Working with this very welcoming team and other students, I led on the What is Sustainability, Climate Crisis, and Social Sustainability sections, contributing at least 12,000 words of content. I also gained experience in creating podcasts and organising different in-person/online events to complement the module. It was a pleasure to apply what I’ve learnt so far at KCL and my BSc Geography with Business Management (Queen Mary University of London), to diversify perspectives of sustainability because this is often framed from a Western-anthropocentric worldview.

Why should you volunteer? Making the most of extra-curricular activities on offer at King’s is one of the best ways to expand your skill/experience-set, network, and ultimately make a difference that lasts. This opportunity (and I’m sure others) also helped me feel ‘closer’ to the university, meeting/working with the staff ‘behind the scenes’ – something which I think all students should get the chance to do.

Want to volunteer, but don’t know how? Sign up to the Sustainability newsletter; browse King’s Volunteering, King’s Edge, and KCL Student Union websites; and ask classmates, teaching and/or professional services staff!

Want to learn more? You can enrol on the KEATS Sustainability & Climate module here and gain a Sustainability Award by completing it before the 8^th of June.

Energy from Waste Tour: A Visit to Riverside Resource Recovery Plant in Belvedere, East London

March 7, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This guest blog post was written by Hermione Dadone, Events Officer in the Fundraising & Supporter Development Office at King’s.

On a crisp November morning, a group of King’s College London staff and students set off for a tour of the Riverside Resource Recovery plant in Belvedere, East London. The visit was organised by Energy from Waste, a student-led group dedicated to promoting sustainable waste management practices and raising awareness of the importance of waste reduction and recycling. The group was told ‘just follow the big chimney’ and sure enough, it wasn’t too difficult to find our way, as a very tall silver chimney soon loomed in the distance as we walked from the station.

The Riverside Resource Recovery plant, commissioned in 2011 and opened in 2012, is an innovative facility that uses advanced technology to convert non-recyclable waste into electricity and heat. The plant collects waste from 90 vehicles across London and processes 850,000 tonnes of household and commercial waste per year, producing enough energy to power 180,000 homes. The plant operates Monday to Friday, with 200 container boxes unloaded every single weekday.

The tour started with a brief presentation on the history of the plant and the technology behind it. The group then donned high-visibility vests and hard hats before being taken on a guided tour of the facility by a member of Cory Group. The first stop was a view of the barge pier. Waste is transported to the plant via river barges, pulled by tug boats which run on vegetable oil, and can carry 60 containers at a time, equivalent to 22 lorries. The group watched a barge being unloaded and its yellow box cargo being brought up the pier runway via specially designed waste trucks. Next stop is the tipping hall, where the waste trucks tip their loads directly into the waste bunker from an 18-meter height, where the waste is stored before being fed into the furnace. In the waste bunker a colossal-sized round crane, like something out of War of the Worlds, is used push waste to the back of the bunker. There is an oxidizer system that sprays perfume to neutralize odours, and infrared cameras scan the waste to detect any hotspots and manage fire risk. If a hotspot is detected as reaching 60 degrees then the waste hotspot is picked up with the crane and removed straight into the fire chamber. If temperature in the waste bunker ever rises dangerously high then it is instantly cooled by water cannons that come on automatically if the temperature reaches 100 degrees.

The plant also has a system to deal with contamination in the waste. Waste inspections are carried out to identify and correct any contamination, and charcoal is used as a neutraliser for heavy metals, while lime is added to neutralise acids. The lime comes from Lancashire. The group learned that it is four times more expensive to process ‘dirty’ waste eg metals and other materials that shouldn’t be in general waste.

The heart of the plant is the energy recovery facility, where the waste is burned at high temperatures to produce steam. The steam is then used to power turbines, which generate electricity that is fed into the national grid. The biggest challenge for the plant is feeding the waste to keep the fire burning at a consistent level, which is directly affected by weather and how much moisture the waste contains.

Once the waste material has been burned, the plant recovers metals from the ash, which are then recycled for use in construction and other industries. The ash itself is used in making breezeblocks, capping for landfill, or in tarmac for roads.

The group was impressed by the scale and efficiency of the operation, as well as the advanced air pollution control systems that minimise the environmental impact of the plant, turning APCR (Air Pollution Control Residues) material into calcium carbonate pellets.

After the tour, the group had a chance to ask questions and discuss the plant’s role in sustainable waste management. The group learned that an additional neighbouring facility is currently being built that will allow the plant to operate on weekends, and will have a box shape design so that solar panels can be installed. With the addition of this new facility, the plant’s capacity will increase to processing 1.5 million tonnes of waste per year, making it the largest in Europe.

The visit to the Riverside Resource Recovery plant was an eye-opening experience for the King’s College London staff and students. It highlighted the importance of sustainable waste management and the role that innovative technologies can play in reducing our environmental impact. Physically seeing all that waste piling up at such scale should certainly encourage us as a community to be conscious of reducing our waste and always remembering our reusable coffee cup!

Find out more about waste management at King’s here and in King’s Climate & Sustainability Action Plan.

Student experience volunteering at the London Student Sustainability Conference 2023

February 27, 2023 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This guest blog post was written by Elisabeth Möhlenkamp, first-year English Law and German Law student at King’s College London and volunteer at LSSC23.

LSSC23 student volunteers from various universities.

This year’s annual London Student Sustainability Conference (LSSC) was a collaboration between ten of London’s universities, offering a space for student-led talks, workshops, conversations, and presentations centered around the UN Sustainable Development Goals. As one of many volunteers helping ensure the day ran smoothly, I was intrigued to see how the conference would effectuate convergence between the differing ideas and perspectives on sustainability.

I am a first-year English Law and German Law student at King’s College London, and up until my final year, where I can choose to specialize in a particular area of law, I do not think my course will cover climate justice and the law in any great depth (although I will have to see). z. However, I have a profound personal interest in climate justice (which was one of my main motivations to apply to law school in the first place). As a result, I aim to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible to engage with people who work in sustainability, who can teach me about new developments, who can demonstrate how sustainability is incorporated into various fields of study, research, and jobs. I volunteered at the LSSC conference to meet coordinators and students who shared my interest in climate justice and sustainability more broadly. I wanted to listen to the talks and projects that were presented, and also knew that it would be valuable to participate in a conference where everyone, despite their area of study, had an interest in how we can make the UN Sustainable Development Goals a reality.

I left the conference with a few general observations: Firstly, the featured projects were tailored to speak to people with varying degrees of knowledge. Some projects required basic prior knowledge in the respective field to fully understand the studies: One student presented innovative chemical manufacturing processes of an alternative material to plastic. Someone else had creatively designed a card game to indicate a food’s wastefulness, climate-friendliness, and seasonality to consumers. Thereby, sustainability was presented as a broadly applicable topic, from everyday life to specialized scientific research.

Secondly, the conference undoubtedly mirrored that Sustainability hits a nerve with each and every attendee, and it stimulates dedication and interest in an unparalleled fashion.

The closing event, which reunited attendees for a networking session, clarified that sustainability is near to people’s hearts: rarely have I observed and engaged in this many animated conversations, nor have I experienced proactivity and willingness to collaborate to this extent.

At the end, I noted that my perception of sustainability had changed. I find that in a university environment, sustainability as an idea is often closely connected to a certain career path rather than an end in itself: In an academic environment, sustainability is often mentioned in relation to ESG or Sustainable Finance. Surely, this phenomenon indicates increased awareness to the topic, but it causes loss of sight of all the issues that sustainability truly encompasses. Food Insecurity, socioeconomic status, physical and mental health issues, and the intersection of sustainability and humanitarian needs were discussed in the conference. The diversified content reinforced the need for interdisciplinary exchange to maintain an overall perspective.

I am sure speakers left the conference feeling buoyed by the unanimously positive feedback. Two students contently reported that attendees responded to their respective talks with inquisitive feedback and compliments on the exciting insights. Indeed, a successful event such as this acts as a propelling stimulation for those considering dedicating themselves to a sustainability-related project. To me, the conference meant newly acquired knowledge, exciting ideas, illuminating conversations, and several thrilling book recommendations, which all touch on sustainability, in all ways imaginable.

Elisabeth Möhlenkamp volunteered at LSSC on 20 February 2023. Whilst the conference has now taken place, you can still view the poster submissions for the event here. The conference will take place again in February 2024.