Sustainable UCL: Get involved with Sustainable Opportunities at UCL & find your sustainable career

Written by Farzana Chowdhury, third year Education, Society and Culture student following the Starting a Sustainable Career UCL Careers Sector Insight Event, October 2024.

Read on to find out about opportunities available at UCL and key takeaways from a current student passionate about sustainability.

Sustainability careers:

There are many career opportunities in sustainability, due to increased societal awareness of causes, such as the environment, ecology and green issues. These career opportunities include social, environmental or economic job roles with sustainability as the main focus, though currently a minimal aspect of an organisations wider values. Competition for these roles can be fierce, so employers often look to students and graduates with relevant experience. Therefore, completing work experience or volunteering during your studies is a way to stand out, and help you build your professional network.

Sustainable UCL:

Sustainability UCL address all areas of sustainability here at UCL, from the buildings everyone studies and works in, to the teaching and opportunities for both students and staff.

Their work is arranged into three signature campaigns:

1. Wild Bloomsbury - increasing green space and biodiversity on both campuses.
2. Positive Climate - addressing the climate crisis and reducing carbon emissions.
3. The Loop - reducing waste and increasing reusing.

If you are interested in a Sustainable UCL, then head over to their website to find out how to make change possible.

Sustainability Opportunities to get involved with:

When applying for sustainability related jobs, you need the skills and experience demonstrating you have a genuine interest in the subject area. Therefore, voluntary work for UCL, or any other work is useful for this because in many sustainability jobs, they will focus more on skills than your knowledge of that subject area.

 

1. Sustainability Ambassador Programme

The sustainability ambassador programme is a volunteering programme for current students, either undergraduate or postgraduate, from any degree programme. This year, ambassadors are assigned into one of five project groups:

• Green impact
• Food
• Education strategy
• Circular economy and waste strategy
• Communications and engagement.

They offer exclusive training workshops and students receive a certificate of completion if they complete the minimum requirement. Students are also guaranteed a place on the Sustainability Leadership Conference later in the academic year and receive one-to-one career mentoring with their group’s project lead — a member of staff working in sustainability. This is a great chance to discuss career aspirations and receive advice to help towards that.

 

2. Student Sustainability Forums

The student sustainability forums are big open meetings, where you can have a say in UCL’s sustainability, vision policies or discuss important topics. It is an opportunity to come and make your voice heard and doesn’t require you to commit from the start of the year, apply or have any formal role to join. If there is an ongoing UCL project or policy which asks for student feedback, they will use the sustainability forums for this. These projects and policies, run by both Sustainable UCL and Students’ Union UCL, can have a positive impact on the people and planet, from a student perspective.

It will give you experience in reviewing and critiquing the viability of a sustainability project or initiative and comparing the potential success of other projects. This experience will help you

assess your future workplace on sustainability, allowing you to explore new ways to make your role sustainable and suggesting improvements to management.

 

3. Sustainability Leadership Conference

The sustainability leadership conference is a two day event conference at UCL East, with 120 student delegates, at undergraduate and postgraduate level and from different degree programmes. From broad topics, to more specialist deep-dives into sectors, there were more than 70 speakers from different organisations, including UCL alumni, such as Greenpeace, the LEGO Group, Deloitte and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development Green Alliance (WBCSD). As well as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the International Water Association (IWA), ITV, the United Nations (UN) and PwC.

The conference is an opportunity to hear from some of the most influential people in sustainability, in the UK and the potential routes into sustainability and ask questions directly to them. Also, providing the opportunity to network and make connections with stakeholders as well as with other students who you otherwise wouldn’t meet. At the conference, you learn about becoming a sustainability leader, enacting change and working within diverse organisations. You also learn to communicate sustainability to a variety of differing audiences and there was a workshop on how to become a sustainability communicator. The premise of the conference is to create change in a large organisation, transforming strategy, identifying key challenges and opportunities and then providing expert advice and utilising connections for collaboration and new opportunities.

Get involved with Student Action | Sustainable UCL, follow their social media @Sustainable UCL and sign up to their Student Newsletter, to hear everything related to Sustainability at UCL.

To summarise:

The event highlighted what sustainable opportunities are available at UCL and it sparked my interest in volunteering. I have since applied for and taken up a position as a Sustainability Ambassador, within the Green Impact Project Group. They focus on staff engagement at UCL and the role involves working with departments, libraries and residence teams to complete the sustainability toolkit on Green Impact, UCL’s sustainability engagement scheme. In the process, I will be gaining a range of sustainability experiences and skills, helping me for my future career.

Login into myUCLCareers and subscribe to the UCL Careers newsletter, to hear about upcoming events, opportunities, workshops and the latest vacancies.

Also, check out the UCL Careers guide to Sustainability on Career Discovery.