Sustainability & PALS

PALS is committed to sustainability, and was UCL’s greenest department for the ninth consecutive year in 2021-22.

We have an active Green Impact Team of c.90 individuals – a mix of academic staff, professional services staff and students, which drives our sustainability practices; a Safety & Environment Committee, which reports directly to the Divisional Staff Meeting; while sustainability is a standing item on many of our committees.  It is also a regular item on the Divisional Management Committee.

PALS have collaborated with the UCL Sustainability Unit on a number of issues and will aim to strengthen this close relationship further.  We have worked closely on launching several of our key initiatives, jointly running sustainability events, and in advising on behaviour change.

The Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change and the Divisional Head of Administration (HoA) both sit on the UCL Sustainability Committee while the HoA sits on UCL’s Energy Management Group whose remit is to reduce UCL’s energy usage.  The HoA also chairs the Faculty of Brain Sciences Sustainability Committee, the first of its kind in UCL and which includes membership from all FBS divisions and institutes. In addition, two staff and two students from PALS are members of the FBS Committee. PALS regularly advises and liaises with other UCL departments (and externally eg Psychology at Durham University) on their sustainability issues.

PALS runs a fun and informative annual Green Day, which highlights many sustainability issues in a fun and informative way while encouraging staff and students to be involved and aware of sustainability issues.  

To download the PALS Sustainability Annual Report 2022-23 and Plan 2023-24 click on the file below:

pals_sustainability_plan_2023-24.docx

pals_sustainability_plan_2023-24.docx

Achievements in 2022-23

During 2022-23, PALS set up the following excellence projects:

Highlighted Excellence Projects

Sustainable Travel Area

Our highlight campaign was the PALS Sustainable Travel Area (previously known as the PALS No-Fly Zone). From 1 January 2022, PALS ceased to fund academic air travel within mainland UK or nearby Eurostar destinations.  Rather all travel must be by rail or other sustainable means. It applies to travel funded by PALS for its staff, students and visitors.  It has since been adopted widely across the Faculty of Brain Sciences and other UCL departments.

Psychology of Climate Change

The Psychology of Climate Change module was introduced in 2022-23 which is equipping PALS students with the knowledge and skills they will need in their future careers to engage with the threat posed by the climate crisis. Students are taught about the causes and consequences of climate change including lectures on the physics of climate change and the emergence of the Anthropocene, as well as sessions using interactive simulations of climate change mitigation.  Students are especially benefitting from an interdisciplinary approach that has been supported by lectures and interaction with academic staff in other UCL departments, in particular Geography.  We were fortunate to receive an online lecture from Bill McKibben to discuss the psychology of destroying a planet. Bill is an internationally acclaimed environmentalist and climate activist who wrote The End of Nature considered the first general audience book on global warming. He also regularly writes for magazines such as the New Yorker and Rolling Stone, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize and Right Livelihood Award. He also helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign.  We were also fortunate to establish a Sustainability Career Development PhD studentship that was taken up by Jona Leka who plays a significant role in the running of this module. 

Stop Press

STOP PRESS! has been running for two years.  Over that period, PaLS Staff have given up 36 of their individual office printers to switch to using the communal Canon devices we have installed.  We have been actively promoting the reduction to all in close proximity to an existing communal device, those involved in office moves that brought them closer to an existing communal device and those running old printers that are no longer supportable.  This has seen a significant reduction leaving us with 16 non-communal devices to address. It was also featured in the May 2023 FBS Brain Teaser

PALS Green Day

PALS Green Day was run as an in-person event for the first time since 2019. It kicked off at 26 Bedford Way with exclusively vegetarian food being served throughout the day in the 3rd floor cafe. There was also the launch of the PALS Green Library while members of PALS were encouraged to spin the infamous Green Impact Wheel of Fortune which chose the green initiative they would be undertaking the following week.

Later in the Day over at Chandler House we had a joyous evening of where students and staff alike helped to plant up flowers for Chandler House garden. We even had chilli seeds to plant up and take away to grow with Hasan from the Bedford Way Cafe pledging to accept grown chillies for a cup of tea or coffee once they come into fruition! After all the hard work in the Garden, guests enjoyed vegetarian food washed down with vegan wine, sustainable soft drinks and Toast Ale made from leftover bread.

#GreenUCLPALS

The #GreenUCLPALS Social Media Campaign was initially launched to encourage a digital community to form around PALS green-related environmental-initiatives during the lockdown, specifically how nature had become more prominent. It was a great success with staff and students of all levels engaging with the campaign and posting their pictures of nature and wildlife. It has since been adapted to encourage greater involvement with nature as evidenced by the PALS Recommended Green Spaces initiative.

We were also proud to be invited to be the inaugural speakers at the Durham University Psychologists for Environmental Action (PEA) group.  We are planning a number of joint ventures and have already made contact with the British Psychological Society about setting up a nationwide environmental psychology network.