Students on their first year of the Sustainable Built Environments, Energy and Resources BSc and MEng (SBEER) undertook the inaugural SBEER Sustainability Challenge in Spring 2024. Our Sustainability Challenge takes the skills and knowledge our undergraduate students gain in their first year on the course and apply them to a real-life independent research project to develop a deeper understanding of the sustainability challenges we face in this world.
Taking up projects supervised by members of the academic team, students tackled a broad range of problems, from the role of farmers’ markets in a sustainable food system, to the sustainability and embodied carbon of acoustic materials, presenting their work to an audience of their peers, academic staff, and external guests from industry.
Guest of honour Honeyksha Waghela, Environmental Performance Specialist at Kohn Pedersen Fox associates, awarded the prize for the Best Overall Project to Ahona Zaman, Inan Ahmed, and Krysten Zhu for their work exploring the impact of Covid-19 on the energy consumption in low-income housing in the UK. Meanwhile, winner of the Audience Choice Award voted on by attendees went to Rachel Cole and Maria Ahmed, for their investigation into the impact of air pollution on student wellbeing in London Schools. We also received a great presentation from Alejandro Zhou Wei, Elliana Roostalu, Evelina Koumi and Abbey Li on “The Built Environment: Are acoustic materials really sustainable? Determining the embodied carbon of “green” materials for sound absorption and insulation”.
It was a wonderful experience, and I was truly amazed by the exceptional work demonstrated by the first-year students. The level of creativity, dedication, and skill displayed by these students was nothing short of impressive. It’s remarkable to see such talent and innovation at this early stage in their academic journey. I can only imagine the incredible advancements and achievements they will bring forth in the future.”
We look forward to inviting even more students to participate in next year’s Sustainability Challenge.
Are you interested in studying the Sustainable Built Environments, Energy and Resources BSc or Meng?
Discover more about the courses and the career opportunities they could unlock by visiting the UCL prospectus.
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