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What UCL does: Sustainable Education

UCL is taking a comprehensive approach to sustainable education including work on the curriculum, campus operations and community engagement.

Approach

Sustainable UCL and the UCL SDG Initiative team have created a steering group to define UCL's approach to sustainable education. This area of work is also known as 'Education for Sustainable Development' (ESD).

UCL's ESD Steering Group set out the following steps as part of UCL's approach to sustainable education:

  • Clarify our commitment in the UCL Sustainability Strategy that ‘every student will have the opportunity to study and be involved in sustainability;
  • Establish a baseline and monitoring protocol to measure progress against the commitment and identify gaps in the curriculum;
  • Plug gaps in sustainable education provisions through working with faculties and departments to create sustainability programmes and/or a sustainability-wide module;
  • Support academics to embed sustainability into the curriculum by creating toolkits, case studies, events, training and conferences;
  • Strengthen the sustainability content of UCL’s co-curricular activities, through sign-posting existing activities better, and developing existing programmes.

Photograph of Chemist at UCL, Andrea Sella

Progress

    • We have developed an ESD Plan to fulfill UCL's commitment to sustainable education, view the ESD Plan.
    • It has been integrated into UCL's Education Framework as part of the UCL Strategic Plan 2022-27.
    • Resources have been created to assist staff in incorporating sustainability into teaching and fostering connections. See our resources page.
    • UCL's SDGs Report monitors the inclusion of sustainable development in taught modules. Read the UCL SDGs Report 2021-22.

    The UCL-wide ESD Steering Group

    The Steering Group is chaired by Jane Holder, Professor of Environmental Law and members include academic and professional staff, students and Trade Union representatives. 

    The group reports to UCL’s Sustainable Development Goals Board and Sustainability Committee on a quarterly basis.

    Steering Group members

    Organisers and Chairs

    • Dr Kate Roach, Faculty of Engineering– Chair
    • Hannah Biggs, Sustainable UCL – Co-convenor
    • Simon Knowles, UCL SDGs Initiative – Co-convenor
    • Prof Jane Holder - Chair Working Group 1 (Strategy)
    • Anne Preston - Chair Working Group 2 (Measurement)
    • Dr Vicky Hilborne - Chair Working Group 3 (Supporting Academics)
    • Prof Emanuela Tilley - Chair Working Group 3 (Interdisciplinary module)
    • Prof Jane Holder - Chair Working Group 4 (Research Integrity)

    Students' Union UCL 

    • Hamza Ahmed, Students' Union UCL, Education Officer
    • Simon To, Students’ Union UCL
    • Joanna Socha, Students’ Union UCL

    Professional Services

    • Leo Havemann, VPESE
    • Anne Preston, VPESE/ UCL East
    • Amy Lourenco, Careers
    • Jason Clarke, Sustainable UCL

    Faculties

    • Dr Hans Demeyer, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
    • Dr Lorenzo Lotti, Bartlett
    • Dr Irina Lazar, Engineering
    • Paolo Taticchi, Engineering
    • Dr Alison Kitson, IOE
    • Prof Douglas Bourne, IOE
    • Prof Tristan McCowan, IOE
    • Dr Vasiliki Kioupi, IOE
    • Prof Andreas Schaefer, MAPS
    • Dr Witte Frank, Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences
    • Dr Adesh Sundaresan, Medical School