Author: kcl sustainability (Page 2 of 12)

Sustainability Week Careers Event

March 19, 2018 /

This week’s guest blog comes courtesy of Zoe Long. Zoe  is a MA student studying Climate Change: History, Culture and Society at King’s.

(The views presented do not necessarily reflect those of King’s Sustainability.)

The Discover Careers in Sustainability event on Monday night kicked off the series of evening events part of King’s Sustainability Week. Full of useful information about future careers, the panel was formed of a range of professionals already working in the sector in various capacities. Sitting on the panel:

• Kat Thorne – Head of Sustainability for King’s College London
• Veda Karandikar – Senior Associate in the Sustainability and Climate Change consulting department at PwC
• David Lourie – Director of Good Business
• Iyesogie Igiehon – Associate in the Global Environmental and Regulatory Law Group at Allen & Overy

For those who could not attend the event, here is a summary of some of the best advice.

Was your first job you dream job?
The overwhelming response was no. Instead, the advice was to focus on the role and the skills it can help you to develop. Considering why the job does not suit you can help shape where you want to be next.

Each panel member has a very different background and route to sustainability, however, they were united by the fact that none of them actually intend to work in the sector. Instead, each person followed a career route led by their interests and networking!

How can you find jobs in smaller, harder to find companies? 
Recruitment consultants a good place to start; there are lots of niche recruitment firms, but Acre was mentioned specifically. Whilst they may not have specific graduate roles, a role may come up once in a while and by talking to recruiters you are putting your name out there. Escape the City was also brought up as a place to look for less traditional roles. Twitter, LinkedIn and any social media accounts are often sources of niche roles that may not be advertised elsewhere. When reading reports, check out who wrote the report and if the company is somewhere you would be interested in working. Finally, it is a cliché but networking counts! Get out there and talk to people, be interested in other people’s work and attend lots of events, London is the perfect place to do so.

How can you make your application stand out?
The panellists were very clear you should do your research to really understand what the company is about. You must demonstrate you know who you are applying to. Kat suggested saving your time applying to 100 companies in favour of spending time perfecting five or even one application that you really want. In this time it is important to show the skills you will be using in the role such as research and analysis. Demonstrate you know what the role involves, and how your skills fit the tasks involved.

If you haven’t got a formal education in the role you are applying to, show your interest through practical action or evidence such as volunteering or blogging.

What is the future of the sustainability industry?
There are no signs the sustainability sector growth is slowing. In fact, all signs point to it growing, as larger firms dedicate more resources and time to grow their sustainability departments leading. This will lead to a skills demand in the market. But the sector is changing. Terms like ‘sustainability’ and ‘CSR’ are being used less and less as sustainability becomes a good business practice rather than a side branch of this business.

As sustainability becomes integrated into businesses, jobs will be less advertised as pure sustainability roles and more about core business functions with an edge (or interest) in CSR and sustainability. This means it will be harder to find specific roles so you should focus on your interests and skills. David from Good Business mentioned that when hiring, his firm did not necessarily look for a background in sustainability but rather the skills (business or otherwise) that the candidate will bring to the firm. Secondary to this is a demonstrable interest in the company’s values. Think commercially; trends set to grow include Big Data, AI, and Block chain so start brushing up!

Nevertheless, this is definitely a growing sector, becoming important in every sector and job.

IT Sustainability Champions try the Iron Veggie Challange

March 16, 2018 /

This year for Sustainability Week our Sustainability Champions outdid themselves, hosting events, bake sales and litter picks, showing that no effort is too small to make a difference.

Our Sustainability Champion for IT at Drury Lane tells us all about what they did for Sustainability Week:

This week’s guest blog comes courtesy of Ioannis Golsouzidis. Ioannis is a Graduate Analyst for IT.

(The views presented do not necessarily reflect those of King’s Sustainability.)

Towards the end of November, the Head of Sustainability, Kat Thorne, joined the IT All Hands conference to encourage us all to sign up as Sustainability Champions. A group was formed shortly thereafter and we were keen to get underway in trying to achieve the Bronze award by May 2018 (in order to achieve the award, we have to meet the criteria set out in the Champions Workbook e.g. ‘actively promoting alternatives to the use of disposable water bottles.’)

Since forming the team, we have had our CIO sign our pledge, sent out communications to staff to power off non-essential equipment over Christmas, implemented waste paper trays in printing rooms around our department, changed some of our suppliers to more sustainable alternatives and, of course, planned some stuff for Sustainability Week amongst other things!

As part of the Sustainability Week, we organised several initiatives in order to help us reach our ambition of securing the Bronze award. After seeking some advice from the Sustainability team, we themed our week around vegetarianism (as eating less meat helps to reduce our carbon footprint) and here is how people got involved:

  1. InstaVeggie: All staff were encouraged to try eating a vegetarian/vegan lunch at least once during the week of 12th-16th February and send a picture of the dishes that had inspired them to do so. All participants got a small prize.
  2. Iron Veggie Challenge: Staff were challenged eat a vegetarian/vegan lunch for all 5 days and there were special prizes for those who sent in pictures.
  3. Sustainability Lunch: We organised a lunch at Sagar Covent Garden (a vegetarian restaurant) on the 15th February 2018 as a get together for staff across the department.

 

Here is what people thought of the initiatives:

“I really enjoyed the veggie week. I’d just completed veganuary so it was a great reason to keep up eating no meat.”

“I’d failed in my bid to do a dry Jan… so this was the next best thing!  It was easy to do and the people in my team were supportive”

Sustainability Week 2018

February 27, 2018 /

Every year we hold Sustainability Week in order to raise awareness and educate staff and students about sustainability at King’s. This year we worked with student groups, King’s departments and external partners to bring to you a week based around the theme of how you can ‘make a difference’. Here are some reflections on the week…

Sustainability Pop up: This year for Sustainability Week we hosted an interactive stall across King’s campuses. We gave you the chance to win a Keep Cup by correctly guessing how long it took everyday items to degrade (many people were shocked to find out that it can take a plastic bottle up to 450 years to degrade!), quizzed you about how to correctly recycle at King’s and played a game to see if staff and students know how to use or special coffee cup bins (remember, #fliptipslip!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VegFest: Studies show that a veganism can reduce the environmental impact that your diet has, and reducing the amount of milk and dairy we consume can positively affect climate change. In collaboration with EcoSoc we hosted a VegFest with free samples of vegan cheese (thanks to Bute Island Food who were also kind enough to donate last year). Students and staff brought delicious dishes for everyone to try, talked about the environmental impact of the food we eat and discussed the issues surrounding veganism.

Careers Events: Sustainability is more and more becoming an integral part of business and big organisations. King’s Careers and Employability hosted a successful event during Sustainability Week with guests from law firm Allen & Overy, Good Business and our Head of Sustainability Kat Thorne. The event was designed to help students understand how they can find internships and develop their career in sustainability. For more information please visit King’s Internships.

Cycling: In the Sustainability Team we do everything we can to promote cycling at King’s. Because of this we held four Dr Bike sessions. These sessions provided free bike checks to students and staff throughout the week. Mechanics changed bike pads, checked chains and for whatever they couldn’t fix, gave accurate quotes for how much it should cost to get repaired.

Geography Documentary Screening: The Geography Department Sustainability Champions and King’s Climate hosted a film screening of former US Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore’s latest film ‘An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power’. A panel beforehand made up to PhD students, lecturers and Dr George Adamson  discussed our response to climate change and the best ways to tackle the issue.

GoodGym: King’s GoodGym is a community of runners that combines getting fit with doing good. For this session the runners went to Oasis Farm Waterloo, and urban farm and community resource, to help to make planters for trees. King’s GoodGym is a great way to get fit and to also to help the local community. Read more about the Sustainability Week session on our blog.

Temple Gardening Club Winter Pruning: We teamed up with the Northbank BID to bring you this gardening session at Temple gardens. Staff and students braved the cold weather to prune rose bushes ready for regrowth in the spring.

SGDP Sustainable Labs Tour: Labs consume 3-10 times more energy per square metre than normal academic spaces like lecture theatres or offices. As a research university, King’s manages a variety of energy-intensive labs across its campuses, which is why it’s so important to make our labs as sustainable as possible. This tour of the laboratory at the Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre was led by Bernard Freeman, Lab Sustainability Champion. The SGDP lab has achieved a Gold Award at the 2017 King’s Sustainability Awards, and Bernard was a Finalist in the 2017 Green Gown Awards for his efforts in embedding sustainability into labs.

This year Sustainability Week was all about how you can make a difference, which you showed us you can do in so many ways! From volunteering, bringing in homemade vegan food to finding out how you can develop your career in sustainability, you showed us exactly what the King’s Community is capable of!

Sophia Courtney, Sustainability Projects Assistant

Thank you for a successful Sustainability Week and well done to our GoodGym participants

February 19, 2018 /

Thank you so much to everyone who helped us to put on events, chatted to us during our pop ups and helped us to spread the sustainability message throughout King’s. The success of Sustainability Week 2018 wouldn’t have been possible without you all and we in the Sustainability Team are grateful to everyone who participated. We will be bringing you blog posts about all of the different events from the week, and to start of we have a recap of the King’s GoodGym run to the Oasis Waterloo Farm.

The following guest blog comes courtesy of Alyx Murray-Jackman. Alyx is a Sport Participation Coordinator for King’s Sports.

(The views presented do not necessarily reflect those of King’s Sustainability.)

Tonight we visited Oasis Farm Waterloo, an urban farm and community resource in Waterloo, a hidden gem just moments from the Southbank, and the closest farm to Parliament. We also managed to run 4km and fit in a quick but tough circuits session.

Joining us for their first ever GoodGym group run, we had the amazing Rajmund, Anna, Georgia, Octavia and Theo (wow so many!) – give them a cheer for coming out in the cold and using their run to do some good. As well as welcoming these fab runners we also heard about the Long Run taking place in South London this weekend for anyone that’s about, and a little reminder of the Thursday running fitness session happening in Vauxhall this week.

As well as braving the cold, here at GoodGym King’s we also had to brave the busy Waterloo Bridge Commute as we couldn’t head out over Blackfriars Bridge as usual due to the location of the task. We practiced our dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge techniques and headed out. With everyone safely over the bridge, we made quick work of the rest of the journey down to the farm and met Roddy outside.

The task: The super organised Roddy split us up into groups when we arrived and showed us each to a planter – we needed to remove all the soil, take out all the bricks, move the planter, and then re-fill it with the bricks and soil – we had a tough 40 minutes ahead of us with a good arm workout! Between us we managed to fully move a couple of planters and make a great start on 2 or 3 more which some volunteers are going to finish off in the morning. I think the sounds of the animals settling down for sleep helped us work hard (especially the pigs from the Pig Palace!).

Roddy kindly let us use the farm’s new barn for our fitness session as it started to rain. We went through questions like “are you scared of spiders?”, “have you eaten any pancakes already today?” and “do you cycle to work?” – if you answered yes to the question you had a 40 second strength exercise to do, if you answered no then it was a 40 second cardio exercise.

After lots of squats, high knees and mountain climbers (great suggestion Sophie!), we were ready to head back to King’s. We waved goodbye to Roddy with promises of coming back soon to help with more tasks (hopefully in slightly warmer weather)! We ran back a slightly longer route, with slightly better views, over Westminster Bridge and did some stretches back at the base.

Credit to Gosia for the pun!

It’s Sustainability Week!

February 13, 2018 /

Welcome to Sustainability Week! Make sure you check out our full timetable here. 

It’s gotten off to a great success so far. Our vegan lunch on Monday gave staff and students the chance to learn more about a plant based diet, as well as try some free samples of sheese and vegan chocolate.

We’ve had careers advice from expert in their fields, including our Head of Sustainability, Kat Thorne, about the best way to develop your career path in sustainability.

Still to come we have a panel discussion and film screening of the Inconvenient Sequel with the King’s Geography department. There will be free bike maintenance sessions across campuses for cyclists, as well as a King’s Move challenge running throughout the week. Sustainability Week also aims to show that no action is too small to make a difference, with a talk on how to live ‘zero waste’ and opportunities to volunteer in local community gardens and pond conservation projects.

We will also be holding pop-up stalls at all campuses to give everyone the chance to find out what King’s is doing to be more sustainable, and win prizes by playing sustainability games.

All Sustainability Week events are free to attend, though some require booking. For more information, please visit kcl.ac.uk/sustainability, follow @KCLSustainable on Twitter, or like King’s Sustainability on Facebook.

Sophia Courtney, Sustainability Projects Assistant

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2017

October 17, 2017 /

One of the biggest issues affecting the goals around sustainable development is worldwide poverty.

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The call to end poverty runs throughout the UN’s Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, where the overarching theme is to achieve inclusive, people-centered and sustainable development, making sure that no one is left behind. The eradication of poverty and the desire to create sustainable development are closely linked. The UN actually says that tackling this global challenge is a crucial requirement for achieving sustainable development.

SDG-Poster

So why are poverty and sustainable development so closely linked? The World Bank predicts that the amount people in poverty will grow from 702 million worldwide to around a billion by 2030. On top of this, the impact of climate change has the ability to force an additional 100 million people back into poverty over the next 15 years. This is because climate change could cause crop yield losses as large as 5% in 2030 and 30% in 2080. The impact of this in places like Sub-Saharan Africa means that food prices could be around 12% higher, which could have a devastating impact on poorer households, who already spend around 60% of their income on food. With agriculture being a main driver of the economy in poorer countries, it’s essential to develop sustainable agricultural practices that will not only help to end extreme poverty, but also achieve food security and promote sustainable economic growth. This is why tackling poverty is integral to sustainable development. Helping to create more sustainable agricultural practices means we can help poorer communities out of poverty, and will ensure the well-being of rural communities and ecosystems.  Ultimately, helping to raise people around the world out of poverty will not only help make sure that they can live in dignity, but will help to protect the planet from degradation and foster peaceful, just and inclusive societies around the world.

In a week where we have celebrated both World Food Day, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and the International Day of the Rural Women, it’s more important than ever that we understand the connection between food, poverty and sustainable development.

Find some helpful tips and actions to make your life more sustainable here!

Sophia Courtney, Sustainability Projects Assistant

Welcome from King’s new Sustainability Projects Assistant

October 13, 2017 /

Hello!

I have recently joinedIMG-20171004-WA0000 (2) the King’s Sustainability Team as their new Sustainability Projects Assistant. The passion and drive in the team to make King’s as sustainable as possible is palpable, and I am excited to be part of a university that is dedicated to embedding the ethos of sustainability across all of its practices.

For the last year I have been studying for my masters in Environment, Politics and Globalisation at King’s. I decided to study environmental politics after spending 5 months backpacking around India. I saw a lot of environmental damage happening there and I realised that tackling these issues was not just about the physical impact on the planet, but was also a way to create a fairer, more just society that could benefit everyone. From studying how we frame climate change, to looking into the impact globalisation has on the environment, I have only become more passionate about these issues in the last year and I believe in the importance of all different parts of society working together to find a solution to these problems.

For my dissertation this summer I looked into air pollution policy in London, and the ways in which citizens are trying to take back control of these issues by monitoring air pollution levels in their local areas. What stood out for me during this project was the importance of democratising environmental knowledge; creating awareness, understanding what the problem is, and finding ways everyone can make a difference is key to empowering people to make positive change. This is one of the reasons that I think sustainability at King’s is so important. As a University we have a responsibility to make sure that staff and students understand the difference they can make on an individual level, as a part of the King’s community and also throughout our wider society.

This is why I am so excited to start working on the Sustainability Champions programme, which will be one of my main focuses this year. The programme helps to embed the ethos of sustainability across campuses, departments and faculties, and helps both staff and students to understand how they can be more sustainable in their work life and beyond. So if you’re interested in becoming a Sustainability Champion, please do get in touch!

I’m delighted to be able to continue my journey at King’s, and to help it become a more sustainable, environmentally friendly university. Most importantly, I look forward to meeting you all, hearing about your ideas and experiences, and working with you to make King’s as sustainable as possible!

Sophia

Sustainable Events Planning Opportunities

February 27, 2017 /

In a recent post about careers in Sustainability and CSR, we highlighted that speakers told the audience that relevant experience in the field was important, part of which could be working with societies at university. This is even more important as a number of companies are focusing more on the ‘soft’ skills of their potential employees than simply their degrees alone.  If you’re looking to gain experience in both sustainability, events planning, and working as a team, then a new opportunity with Ecosoc may be of interest.

EcoSoc is looking for passionate students to be part of an events planning team and organize environmental events this term. It will run separate from committee with the possibility of progression onto committee if desired. If you have an idea for a great environmental event, have an interest in learning about how events are run, or simply want to get more involved in EcoSoc, the Events planning team will an informal and fun way to make new friends and gain experience!

If you’d like to be invovled, you can sign up at here.

Fairtrade Fortnight 2017

February 23, 2017 /

Fairtrade Fortnight will be taking place between Monday 27th February and Sunday 12th March. This year’s theme is ‘take a break’, encouraging people to take some time out to have a Fairtrade tea or coffee together (perhaps with some Fairtrade chocolate for those with a sweet tooth!).

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The aim of the fortnight period is to raise awareness of the plight of farmers outside of the Fairtrade system, who may be exploited in growing, processing and selling their products. The Fairtrade process aims to ensure people get paid a fair price for what they sell, and that they have safe working conditions. You can test your knowledge and find out more about Fairtrade in this quiz.

Events and Promotions

At King’s we’re supporting Fairtrade Fortnight with special offers on food and drink – including a half price brownie with any hot drink and (for those looking for a healthy option) and a half price banana with any salad purchased. Medsin have organised what promises to be an interesting event “The Flipside of Pancakes: Big Food, Food Systems + Global Health” on 16th March, 6-8pm in the Gordon Museum, Guy’s Campus.

 

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Why is Fairtrade Important?

Low prices paid to farmers can mean:
• They can only afford to feed their families one meal a day. This can lead to health problems for their children such as stunting.
• They can’t afford medical care and put off treatment their families really need.
• They don’t have enough money to send their children to school. Lack of money also means pressure for children to work.
• They can’t afford to invest in better farming. That means they can’t improve the quality of their crops and charge a higher price for them.

Fairtrade exists to change this, but needs more people to know why choosing Fairtrade really matters. We want them to understand that Fairtrade means farmers get a better deal for what they grow. This leads to a better and more stable income, and can help them break the cycle of poverty they are trapped in. But many companies are only buying a fraction of their crops as Fairtrade, and even more companies aren’t buying any Fairtrade at all. Not enough companies are doing it, not enough people are buying it and not enough farmers are benefiting from it. By supporting Fairtrade, you’ll be helping to solve these problems and give farmers a better life for them and their families.

Learn more about Fairtrade here and we hope you enjoy some Fairtrade food and drink over the coming fortnight, and beyond!

Richard Milburn, Sustainability Projects Assistant

A Career in Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility

February 20, 2017 /

This year’s Sustainability Week saw two events organised by the Careers Department to provide students with information about how to get a career in Sustainability. A wide range of speakers, from the private, public and academic sectors, provided their insights to students on what a career in sustainability and corporate social responsibility is like, and how to go about getting a job in these sectors.

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As with any job, speakers highlighted the need to gain relevant experience while at university; from volunteering at environment-themed events, working with societies to run events and programmes, and choosing modules that provided knowledge of relevant issues. However, they also stressed that you don’t necessarily need a sustainability related degree (one of the speakers had studied English Literature) to get into the profession. Useful skills such as commercial awareness, knowledge of the law, and financial accounting, all provided important technical knowledge that was relevant to the field of sustainability. The jobs may not always be in the sectors you assume, either; Zoe from Marks and Spencer’s Plan A works on the sustainability of their buildings, since they are an often overlooked part of the sustainability puzzle where good design can significantly reduce energy use and carbon emissions, where as poor design can lock-in bad practise for the decades-long life of buildings.

You can make any job sustainable

One of the stand out pieces of advice the speakers at both events gave was not to limit yourself solely to jobs with ‘Sustainability’ in the title. Although the sector is growing and there are more jobs available, there are also a huge number of people applying for those jobs, making it a difficult sector to get into. Their advice was to find any job in a sector or organisation that you wish to work in, and work to integrate sustainability into that role and influence your colleagues.

This is sound advice, and something King’s itself practises. We have a hard-working team of Sustainability Champions; individuals from different departments around the university who work to make their departments more sustainable, to achieve bronze, silver or gold status. This massively increases the reach and impact of sustainability at King’s, and offers staff the opportunity to bring sustainability into whatever job they are doing.

If you want to find out more, audio recordings of the events are available on KEATS, and there is further information about careers in CSR and Sustainability on the careers website. Our Sustainability team also offers volunteering opportunities to gain experience in the sector, and paid internships each year. Sign up to our newsletter so you know when these opportunities come up.

So if you’re keen to get a career in sustainability and CSR, these events should have provided some valuable information on how to go about doing so. It may not be a straight forward journey, you may not get the job you wanted right away, and you may have to take a position outside the sector and bring sustainability to it to achieve your goal, but that is all part of roller-coaster of careers with purpose. Indeed, if you are ecologically minded, the best place for you may be at the most environmentally destructive companies – they are where change is most needed, and if you have the passion you could make a big impact.

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