Author: Jone De Roode Jauregi (Page 4 of 11)

Tips for a more sustainable Christmas

December 19, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

If you are celebrating Christmas this year, then it is important to be conscious about the impact of different activities and how you can make them more sustainable – while remaining equally enjoyable (or even more enjoyable knowing that you’re making a difference!). If you do not celebrate Christmas, then these are still relevant points to consider outside of these traditions.

Gifts

For many people, Christmas and gifts go hand in hand. However, we know that overconsumption can be an issue for the finite resources on our planet. Our key tip is not necessarily to skip giving gifts altogether, but rather to think carefully about what you buy or give.

Buy from businesses that put sustainability and ethics at the forefront

Ethical Consumer is an amazing website and magazine which helps to cut out the noise and gives you information on which businesses have been naughty or nice this year. They cover everything from high street clothing retailers, bookshops, health and beauty products, to which are the most ethical supermarkets. The Living Wage Foundation has also compiled a great Living Wage Gift Guide for 2021.

The pandemic has had a devastating effect on small businesses. Therefore, if you can, it is more important than ever to support your small, local businesses. You could also consider buying from charities, and do not forget the impact of deliveries if you are planning to shop online.

Do you need more inspiration? Then check out this blog post with tips for gifts for foodies, gifts around health and wellbeing, homemade gifts, sustainable tools… Read more about sustainable and ethical Christmas shopping here.

Non-physical gifts

If you want to cut the consumerism of Christmas back – why not use the money you would have spent on presents for a day out with your loved ones instead? Or offering your amazing babysitting skills to a sibling with young children, might be their favourite present yet!

For a gift that makes a difference, you could also consider giving to charity in someone’s name.

Wrapping paper

Gifts bring us to the next topic: wrapping paper. Wrapping paper can often not be recycled, and we throw away over 100 million rolls every Christmas!

If you do have a physical gift to wrap, consider ditching non-recyclable shiny wrapping paper for more environmentally-friendly options. This can be wrapping paper made from recycled materials such as ‘ReWrapped‘, a box you can re-use, or something homemade. Even if you are not the most talented crafter out there, websites like Pinterest have hundreds of ideas for DIY gift wrap. Gift bags such as this one are also great – as they can continuously be reused and save you lots of wrapping up time! If you receive a large gift – save the wrapping paper from it and use it for next year when you’re wrapping up future gifts.

Food

One of people’s favourite elements around Christmas is food. There is a lot you can do to have the most delicious meals during this festive season while being eco-friendly.

Vegan/vegetarian

This includes trying some vegan or vegetarian dishes. 51% of global greenhouse gases come from animal agriculture, therefore going plant-based is a powerful action we can take to reduce our contribution to climate change.

This recipe video by Bosh! makes a vegan Christmas dinner including a portobello mushroom wellington, maple roasted veggies, balsamic sprouts, wholegrain mustard mash and the perfect roast potatoes, which show that going meat-free doesn’t mean missing out on a tasty dinner.

Avante Garde Vegan has an alternative wellington recipe here. While also providing a bounty of other plant-based recipes, such as Christmas pudding, Yorkshire puddings and spiced hot chocolate.

Buy your products carefully

Besides, think about buying local, seasonal, and organic products, and avoiding products with unsustainable palm oil… Try purchasing your products packaging-free to reduce waste as well! Read more about Christmas & sustainable food here.

Cut down on food waste

That brings us to the topic of food waste, which is responsible for about 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Good planning is the first step, but leftovers are often unavoidable. Think about freezing your delicious meals to enjoy at a later date. Or put them on Olio: it’s a great way to make sure your food doesn’t go to waste because plenty of other people might be keen to have it.

Travel

Although travelling continues to be more complicated this year, the festive season is known for travelling – whether it’s on a trip or to go back home. You’ve probably already made your plans for this year, but think about how you’re travelling and if you could opt for a more sustainable option. Good to keep in mind for your next travels too!

Flying significantly increases your carbon footprint. Flying economy class to Cape Town or the Dominican Republic emits over 3 tonnes of CO2 – which is the same amount emitted by felling 4 acres of rainforest. If you’re travelling to Europe, try using the train. Or experience the UK Christmas traditions one year!

The tree

What is more sustainable: an artificial or real tree? If you can get a second hand one, fake. You can find these from sites such as eBay, Gumtree or Freecycle. However, according to the Carbon Trust, a 6.5ft artificial tree is responsible for about 40kg of greenhouse gas emissions – which means you need to reuse it for about 10 Christmases to keep its environmental impact lower than buying a real tree every year, depending on the materials used in the fake tree. Therefore, if a second-hand artificial tree is not an option, real trees are the more sustainable option.

If you’re buying a real tree, make sure yours is grown using sustainable practices. For example, try to get a tree that is registered with the British Christmas Tree Growers’ Association, where trees are grown according to strict guidelines (for example, being required to use sustainable seeds to protect local wildlife). Read more about how to pick your tree here.

Once Christmas is over, you can contact the council who can collect your tree in January and shred it into chipping or use it for compost. Check your council pick-up dates here.

Energy

Remember to switch off for the Christmas period: turn off all lights and non-essential equipment at the plug if you are the last one to leave your office/residence. It’s important to turn appliances off at the plug as even when they are switched off, some devices will continue to use electricity while they are plugged in, known as ‘vampire power’. A common culprit is mobile phone chargers – they will continue to use energy when plugged in, even if there is no phone connected to them.

Check out what to think about when switching off here.

Another tip is to try to keep your thermostat low. Rather than putting your heating on high during the colder winter months, lower your temperature gauge and use it as an excuse to wear a Christmas jumper instead.

We hope these tips give you some inspiration on how to make Christmas more sustainable!

Check out some past blog post on this topic here:

This blog post was first published in December 2021.

Start 2023 as a Sustainability Champion at King’s

December 16, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

Want to embed sustainability into your role but not sure where to start? The Sustainability Champions programme could be for you. By joining the network, you will learn more about sustainability and gain sustainability accreditation.

King’s Sustainability are looking to expand the network of 500+ Sustainability Champions who work on campus and in our residences to make King’s a more sustainable place.

You can be a Champion for any office, lab or department – whatever size of area you feel is appropriate – and will have the full support of the Sustainability Team and access to an array of resources.

Sustainability Champions work on implementing projects and actions to gain a Bronze, Silver or Gold Award at the end of the year. The programme has proven to be crucial in helping the Sustainability Team embed sustainability and efficiency throughout the university. You can read more about the 2022 Sustainability Awards here.

The network brings together King’s staff from the different campuses, departments and faculties, empowering them to make positive changes within and beyond their own work environments. The programme includes educational events, a special awards ceremony, and drop-in sessions for support.

Find out more and sign up here by mid-January.

King’s receives a first class award in the 2022 People & Planet University League

December 9, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

King’s has once again received a first class award in the People & Planet University League, ranking 12^th out of 153 UK universities. This league ranks UK universities for their environmental and ethical performance. The ranking reflects King’s continued commitment to embedding social and environmental sustainability across the university.

Across the 13 scoring areas, which include topics such as sustainable food, workers’ rights and ethical investment, King’s achieved an overall score of 69.5%. We achieved 100% for engaging students and staff on sustainability, sustainable food, and for our environmental management system.

Students and staff are actively engaged in sustainability initiatives at King’s, embedding sustainability into their departments through the Sustainability Champions programme, contributing to climate initiatives through the King’s Climate Action Network, and getting creative through the Culture Climate Collective. Sustainability Month is the highlight of student and staff engagement at King’s and takes place each year in February. King’s Food have continuously improved the sustainability of menus and achieved three stars in the Sustainable Restaurant Association’s ‘Food Made Good’ ranking in 2022.

In addition, King’s scored highly for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The Sustainability and Climate KEATS module has been co-created with students and gives all students and staff the opportunity to gain a meaningful understanding of sustainability, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how they can take action on sustainability. We also received high scores for being an accredited Living Wage employer, and for monitoring our ICT supply chain through our Electronics Watch affiliation as part of our London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC) membership.

The main areas to improve are Ethical Careers & Recruitment, Water Reduction, Carbon Reduction, Energy Sources, and Managing Carbon. Despite our progress, we acknowledge that there is much more to do.

Find the full details about King’s performance here.

We need you! Making lab-based research more sustainable

December 9, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This guest blog post was written by Greg Anderson – Associate Director of Research Infrastructure in the Research Management & Innovation Directorate at King’s College London.

It’s an uncomfortable truth that our lab-based research activity uses a lot of energy and so, unavoidably contributes to climate change. I think the societal impact of our research more than justifies this, but I suspect our community of researchers would agree to using less energy if we can.

In this vein, if you work in the Health Schools, there is a strong possibility that you can help us do exactly that in a very meaningful way. Ultra Low Temperature (ULT) or -80C freezers – whatever you call them – those Goliaths that sit purring in the corner and hurt our fingers each time we go in them, are one of the most important pieces of equipment we have in our labs. They keep our valuable samples safe and ensure the data we extract from them is reliable – hence the panic when they go silent or despair when you find one sitting in a puddle of its own making. They’re also one of the most energy-hungry pieces of equipment. Each one uses about the same amount of energy as the average 3-bedroom home, and many of the older models can use twice that amount. Not only do they draw a lot of power directly, but they also require a similar amount of energy to cool the space they occupy because they throw out so much heat to function. For the record – across our campuses at King’s we have over 550 of them!

As a user of these freezers, you may be aware that some contain – let’s call it – stuff, that is perhaps less valuable than the rest of it. Maybe you know what I mean!? That box of unlabelled Eppendorf tubes left in there 6 years ago; that bag of 50ml Falcon tubes with unidentifiable bits of tissue in; dare I say it – the samples that your soon-to-retire group leader still has in there from their PhD days. What we would love your help with, as things wind down for Christmas, is to grab a coffee with your group leader and nail down what contents can go! Perhaps muster support from colleagues, don some grotesque Christmas jumpers for extra thermal protection and Maria Kondo your ULT freezers together! Even better, organise the contents and make accurate records of the samples that need keeping so that they’re easy to find.

Now on its own, this is not going to solve anything; in fact, the more space you have in your freezer, the more air that can rush in and warm up your samples each time you open the door. This request is ultimately about consolidating the samples we keep and to make this work we need you to combine your efforts across research departments, and likely your local technical team, to have the greatest impact. The technical leads in your areas are already working hard to consolidate samples and may be able to help with shared space allocation between research groups in individual freezers. Which in turn means your teams can take advantage of a King’s wide freezer replacement scheme.

King’s has initiated a £1M scheme that offers departments the opportunity to trade in any two ULT freezers that are older than 10 years old and in exchange, receive a brand new, fully racked (to your specifications) market-leading, ultra-efficient model (CryoCube F570h). So, this is your chance to help get rid of those freezers in your department that no one wants to put their samples in because they’re on their last legs (and are coincidentally the most energy inefficient). Each freezer taken away either goes to UniGreen Scheme for resale, or SLS to be dismantled for useful parts or sustainably disposed of. The fate of every freezer is tracked as part of this project so that we can be confident that no wastage occurs.

How will this make a difference? If we can collectively reduce the contents of our ULT freezers by just 10%, we can remove 50 of our least energy-efficient freezers across King’s and replace them with 25 ultra-efficient new ones, saving over 273,750 kilowatt-hours over the course of a year — enough energy to power more than 83 average UK homes. That’s a lot of energy and valuable space saved!

If you want to find out more about the scheme and the wider aims of the project, please visit our SharePoint site, where you will also find tips and tricks on how to optimise sample density.

FoDOCS students learning about the SDGs, the importance of green spaces and similarities between caring and growing

November 25, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This blog post was written by Dr Flora Smyth Zahra, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinarity & Innovation Dental Education.

All two hundred of the new cohort of dental and hygiene therapy students at the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences (FoDOCS) are being introduced early on to sustainable education approaches including collaborating, creative problem solving, cross-disciplinary content and critical thinking.

Within their first Clinical Humanities & Wellbeing module ‘Object Research for Beginning & Belonging’ they ‘Demonstrate through participation in all module activities a willingness to engage with new ways of looking and thinking about education and oral health care delivery with reference to the UN 2030 sustainable development goals.’ They also, ‘Relate the importance of flourishing for university learning to a commitment to life-long learning and have explored different approaches to self-care for a sustainable and healthy working life.’ (Learning outcomes taken from the Module).

As such, alongside guest speaker sessions on global oral health, cultural competency, leadership and indeed gardening and sustainability, they are also framing their learning around the SDGs and considering what they each might contribute as future change agents. Curricular time has also been given to wellbeing with students posting photographs on their KEATS discussion fora of outings across London, walking in the parks and exploring green spaces. Learning about stewardship followed by the simple activity of growing and nurturing cress seeds on their window sills and residences has struck many as a real parallel with their future roles as care givers and clinicians.

This is the first module in a yearly series of sustainable health care education over the three and five year degree programmes that is core to all undergraduate students in FoDOCS.

Vishwa’s green space

Meghna's picture of sunset/sunrise by the lake

Meghna’s green space

Rita’s cress

Nina’s green space

Yiran’s cress

Hishaam’s green space

Hamayl's picture of information in nature

Hamayl and the Ada Salter gardens close to our Guy’s campus

Showcase your work at the London Student Sustainability Conference 2023

November 17, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

Calling all students at King’s College London!

Join this unique opportunity to showcase your sustainability work in front of an inter-university audience and to network with other like-minded students.

Group picture from LSSC 2022 showing people holding up SDG signs.

Group picture taken at LSSC 2022.

The London Student Sustainability Conference (LSSC) is back again in February 2023 for its fifth edition. This conference is a platform for any students at a London University to showcase their work related to the Sustainable Development Goals.

The event welcomes students, staff, professionals, and members of the public to listen and engage with student research and projects in the field of sustainability. During the event, students exhibit their research and projects through presentations, posters and workshops, followed by an early evening networking reception.

This year’s Conference is a collaboration between King’s and 9 other London universities: City, GCU, Imperial, Kingston, LSE, South Bank, UCL, Greenwich, and Westminster.

This is a great opportunity to share your work with a diverse audience, practice presentation skills and network with students, staff and professionals interested in sustainability from universities across London and beyond!

Find out how to apply here. Deadline: 4th of December.

Registrations for tickets to attend will open in January 2023. Stay tuned by subscribing to the King’s Sustainability newsletter and following King’s Sustainability on Instagram.

Read about LSSC 2022.

Weathervane: We Not I

November 7, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

Tuesday 15^th November, 17:00-19:30, Strand Campus Great Hall

On Tuesday 15^th November King’s Culture Climate Collective is presenting Weathervane: We Not I, a joyful evening of collective artmaking and a student-led call to action from the Great Hall on Strand Campus.

As COP27 approaches and millions of young people once again hold their breath for meaningful political action, how do we create space for King’s students to share their climate hopes and fears, their dreams for a just and sustainable future?

Weathervane answers that call, featuring a range of empowering activities including:

The creation of We Are A Sea, a live unfolding mass artwork led by artist Beccy McCray exploring our relationship to water through the mixing of plant dyes
A talk from youth social justice organiser Simmone Ahiaku about how to turn climate anxiety into hope, resistance, and change
A showcase of specially created climate justice posters created by King’s students
The creation of the Climate Action Network Collective Manifesto, The Wall of Hope, a sustainable crochet masterclass and more!

Refreshments will be provided. Open to all students and stuff, however space is limited. RSVP via Eventbrite.

We want to hear from you! Have your chance to win £500 cash

October 26, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

All students at King’s College London can be in with a chance of winning £500 by completing an online confidential survey about your time at university or college and the skills you develop for getting a job.

The short survey, which is being run in conjunction with SOS-UK, will take about 15 minutes to complete. The closing date is 13th November 2022 and students will be entered into a draw to win £500 or one of 10 £50 runner-up prizes.

To take part in the survey log on to https://online.snapsurveys.com/UniSkillsSurvey

Experience participating in a climate migration programme

October 21, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

This blog post was written by Leander Bischof, International Development student at King’s College London.

In this blog post, I am describing my experience with the Erasmus+ programme on climate migration and unaccompanied minors in Sevilla. The programme was delivered by the local partner organization INCOMA (International Consulting And Mobility Agency Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada).

I had a fantastic experience with the hosting organization and the facilities they used. In general, this trip was well organized from the start to the end. I first noticed this programme through an advertisement by King’s College London. Throughout the application process and afterwards, during the introduction and preparations for the training, the staff was very helpful and professional. The pick-up at the airport went smoothly and all other transportation was delivered reliably. Throughout the training, INCOMA staff members were always available to support us. The hotel accommodating us was of very high quality, which made this a very pleasant experience. Most importantly, the training was fully funded, flights, transportation, hotel, and food expenses were fully covered.

Additionally, the participants were well chosen, all were from extremely interesting backgrounds. One of my highlights during the training programme were the presentations of other training participants about their experience with climate migration since the chance to listen and have a talk with such people is usually very rare. It was particularly inspiring to listen to the participants from Laamiga, a London-based organization that supports and empowers migrant women in the UK. I am also thankful that the programme allowed me to make friends with such inspiring people and I hope to stay in contact with them. The training usually finished in the early afternoon and thus, we were given enough time to socialize and explore the city. I am sure there is excellent travel advice on the internet, so I will not go too much into detail about the location. However, I really recommend visiting the Plaza de Espana and the Alcazar, both very beautiful places. Luckily, we were provided with 25€ per day, which allowed us to visit these tourist attractions and try excellent Spanish food.

The programme itself consisted of 6 days of training. On the first day, we mostly received introductions into the training programme and the overall issue of climate migration. We talked about expectations we had for the programme and our reasons to join. The first day did not contain much training but was rather used to allow us time to familiarize ourselves with the other participants and the city of Sevilla.

On the second day we mainly focused on mental health and its importance for both migrants and people working with migrants. We learned how crucial a good mental health condition is to be able to support migrants in their struggles. The training provided many useful information on how to improve the mental wellbeing of yourself and others. Later, we listened to the presentations of other participants. The first presentation was by two social workers from Italy, the second was about volunteering experience in France and the third presentation was about immigration in the UK. My highlight of the day was surely the third presentation by one of the Laamiga members about their work and issues they and other organizations face due to UK politics.

The third day of training was about the inclusion of migrants into educational and vocational pathways. The presentations of that day focused on migration from Bangladesh and on national identities. An important learning outcome was that the domestic population often reacts very repellent and that much work needs to be done to deal with aggressions, fears, and stereotypes in the local population.

Day four included more information on mental health issues of refugees and how to help in overcoming traumas. We also heard a very impressive presentation from a Turkish reporter about illegal pushbacks by the Greek coastguard in the Mediterranean Sea. Her presentation included one of her documentaries, showing refugees on completely overcrowded rubber boats who where troubled by a large boat of the Greek coastguard. It showed the aggressive and endangering behaviour of the European Union to prevent refugees from entering their waters, which has led to so many tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea. In the afternoon, we were invited for an Erasmus+ evaluation session on the training programme.

The next day was my favourite day of the week. Since we could not visit a refugee centre in Sevilla due to Covid-19 outbreaks, we had the head of the refugee reception centres in Sevilla come to us. His presentation had a strong focus on the reception system in Spain and on the issue of climate migration. Afterwards, we listened to the presentation of a cultural mediator who works with unaccompanied minors in Italy. Hearing his presentation was very captivating and inspiring. The presenter himself came as an unaccompanied minor from Gambia to Italy, taking the backbreaking route to Europe which so many African migrants have taken, and which has costs so many lives. Through the deadly Sahara Desert to Libya, where kidnappers and modern slave traders are preying on migrants, to the Mediterranean Sea where people spend many days on overcrowded rubber boat and finally to Italy. It was very humbling to hear from such a first-hand experience about these hardships.

The programme of the final day consisted of a visit to the Bioalverde farm, an inclusion project for climate migrants in Sevilla. On this organic farm, migrants who were unable to find a job are given the chance to earn a living. Sustainability in every sense was the main maxim of the farm, greatly supported by the local population. This last day was a fantastic ending for this trip.

On the next day, early in the morning we were brought back to the airport and flew back to London. In total, I can say the training programme was an amazing experience, and I am highly recommending this to all interested students and staff members at my university.

Find out more about Kairos: http://kairoseurope.co.uk/

Find out more about the training opportunities: https://migrationresearchgroup.wordpress.com/

Join the King’s Climate Action Network Re-Launch (18th of October)

October 17, 2022 / Jone De Roode Jauregi

How can King’s take a leadership role in addressing the climate crisis? Join our King’s Climate Action Network (CAN) re-launch event to find out what the CAN is, what our plans are for this year, start discussing actions, and meet each other. This year, there will be paid and volunteering opportunities, and a range of trainings and workshops.

All King’s staff, students, and alumni are welcome to attend the re-launch event on the 18^th of October (4.30-6.30pm) in JCMB G. 16. Refreshments and snacks will be provided! Sign up to the CAN here, or email us if you have any questions.

The King’s CAN is an open, interdisciplinary forum which aims to bring together people from the King’s community who are passionate about sustainability and climate.

Throughout the next year, the CAN will implement actions from the co-created Sustainability & Climate Action Plan through dedicated Take Action teams. These teams will be led by trained and paid student project managers (~8 hours per month) and will cover topics from education to food.

The network is open to anyone at King’s – students, staff, alumni – as well as our key external partners. No prior knowledge is required. Climate action is an area the King’s community is increasingly passionate and concerned about, and we want to make sure that anyone who wants to contribute gets that chance. The next few years will be critical for climate action, and we have lots to do at King’s if we want to become net zero and ultimately absolute zero!

Join King’s climate action movement now.