King’s College London members spotlight climate and sustainability across February

Throughout February, King’s welcomed over 800 students, staff, and alumni to 39 social and educational events aiming to offer participants an opportunity to learn more about sustainability topics, collaborate and connect with others from across King’s, and take action around the Sustainable Development Goals. Organised by the King’s Sustainability team in collaboration with various departments and students at King’s, Climate & Sustainability Month was a true celebration of the breadth of sustainability and our community’s involvement in it.

Climate & Sustainability Month is an important mark in our calendars at King’s. I want to thank the students, staff and alumni who hosted the fantastic events throughout the month and the over 800 attendees who joined the celebrations. Thank you to our Sustainability Champions, Climate Action Network and sustainable student societies who took a particular lead this month, and who work tirelessly on sustainability year-round. You help to make King’s a better and more sustainable place.
– Professor Shitij Kapur, President & Principal of King’s
In the first week, students and staff learned about the challenges and opportunities of the renewable energy transition, they got inspired to drive behaviour change for sustainability, and they united around climate change at an event focused on breathwork.

At each event this month, I met someone new, reassuring me that none of us is alone in this fight for climate justice. Despite the world being full of gloom, this month filled me with hope. Hope that my voice and actions can create the change I want to see in the world, whether that be through continuing to plant more trees or continuing to actively engage in conversations about climate. There is power in hope and I can’t wait to see where it takes me after this amazing month.
– Tahsina Writer, BSc Biochemistry Student
During the second week, participants got a chance to discover careers in sustainability through panel discussions and networking events, and re-imagined space for sustainability in the Bush House courtyard with Lambeth Council and Peddle My Wheels.

Climate & sustainability month (15)At the SPACE event with Lambeth Council and Peddle My Wheels.
It is always a joy to witness the energy, enthusiasm and action which is spotlighted through Climate & Sustainability Month. The month is a celebration and a reminder of what we can achieve when we come together to make a change. From tree planting and seed bomb workshops to community organising training and the London Student Sustainability Conference, the month generates hope and agency on the issues which matter to us most, and a chance to connect with a like-minded community that can provide critical peer support. Thank you to everyone who got involved!
– Alexandra Hepple, Sustainability Officer
In the third week, participants joined workshops on interactive climate simulations, seed bomb making, mindfulness in nature, climate activism, and volunteering.

Week four featured the inter-university London Student Sustainability Conference hosted by King’s, a workshop to exorcise our climate anxieties through music, and a conference exploring climate change via foreign policy and security.

Anxiety about the climate crisis can be a really isolating experience, especially when it’s such a broad and overwhelming problem. Which is why it’s so important to me and my theatre company, Bradán, to create theatre that highlights how serious the current issues are but how we can get through it and take action as a collective. We brought King’s staff and students together through poetry and music in our workshop, and it was an insightful experience to see how students and staff alike relate to the climate crisis in their own personal way. They had an opportunity to voice their anxieties, describe them, share them, and even create what they sounded like as a group. I feel like we can tackle this giant task of making people aware of the climate emergency in these smaller more focused ways by allowing the scary feelings to exist and acknowledge them alongside a sense of hope for the future.
– Kate Bauer, International Alumni Manager
Climate & sustainability month (1)At the “sound of the climate crisis” workshop.
The final week of King’s Climate & Sustainability Month included a tree planting afternoon, a sustainability careers night, a climate action Q&A, and a community mobilisation workshop.

Throughout the Month, the ResiLife programme’s Community Facilitators also organised more than 50 events on sustainability for residents, which attracted over 300 student attendees. The events included sustainable film nights showcasing documentaries and films such as Life on Land and Wall-E and activities like repurposing trash for art and tie-dying t-shirts. In addition, some events focused on conversations around sustainability, including tea talks, debates, poetry, storytelling, and interactive quiz nights. In contrast, others taught residents sustainable meal prep and crochet or were involved in repurposing old crisp packets for the Crisp Packet Project to make blankets for the homeless.

If you missed an event, you can find some of the event recordings here.

Faced with global issues that often feel insurmountable including climate change and social inequality, it is ever more important to come together to learn about these topics, listen to different perspectives, and feel each other’s energy and passion. We are so happy to be able to offer and engage in this platform to remind ourselves that we are not alone and must face these challenges together.
– Jone de Roode Jauregi, Climate Action Assistant

Get involved in sustainability at King’s
Take the KEATS Sustainability & Climate module and gain a Sustainability Award. This open-access, interdisciplinary module on environmental, economic, and social sustainability has been co-created with students, staff, and alumni. Enrol via this link and complete the module by the 8th of June. A Sustainability Seminar Series covering the biggest topics in sustainability accompanies the module.

Join the King’s Climate Action Network (CAN) – an open, interdisciplinary forum that brings together people from the King’s community to co-create the university’s climate action journey.

Become a Staff Sustainability Champion – work on campus and in our residences to make King’s a more sustainable place.

Celebrate the King’s Global Day of Service by volunteering this March to contribute to our total volunteering hours and demonstrate the positive impact that the King’s community has in the world.

Climate & Sustainability Month Calendar (updated 17.2.23)
Climate and sustainability action at King’s
We are rapidly scaling our response to the climate emergency through transformative multidisciplinary research, by embedding sustainability into our teaching, partnerships and impact, and by ‘walking the talk’ in our operations and activities. King’s Climate & Sustainability Action Plan was developed by the university’s Sustainability team in consultation with students, staff, alumni and members of King’s Climate Action Network (King’s CAN). The plan outlines 13 key impact areas to guide the university’s approach to sustainability and climate change, informed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), which set targets for holistic and sustainable global development by 2030.

King’s success in delivering on the SDGs is demonstrated through our consistent performance in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, which uses the SDGs as a framework for measuring the broader social impact of universities. King’s was proud to place 5th in the UK, 5th in Europe and 24th in the world in the 2022 THE Impact Rankings, recognising the positive social, environmental and economic contributions we are making within our local, national and international communities. In 2022, King’s also once again received a 1st class award in the People & Planet University League.