Education for Sustainable Development Lunch Byte

The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Lunch Bytes provide an informal and accessible learning opportunity for UCL members to learn more about ESD. They are also a platform for sharing knowledge, best practices, success stories and challenges related to sustainability. 

In this Lunch Byte, we are joined by Andrea Gauthier, Mina Vasalou, Ross Purves from IOE- Department of Culture, Communications and Media who will share their “Sustainability Skills Swap Shops”. These are open sessions led by staff or students on a voluntary basis that involve a demonstration of and/or hands-on participation in a sustainability skill.  

Since February 2023, there have been three sessions: 

(1) visible mending/darning, where we practised how to mend socks  

(2) home composting, where we learned the theory behind composting and built mini-composters to take home  

(3) plant-based meat alternatives, where we learned how to cook seitan and prepare other “meats” using common ingredients like tofu and nuts.  

In this Lunch Byte session, the speakers will talk about this initiative to recruit broader participation across UCL. They will present the initiative by discussing what we did for the first three sessions and then have a brainstorming session with the audience to come up with ideas for future swap shops.  

Education for Sustainable Development

At UCL, we work to ensure that sustainable education is embedded within the curriculum, campus, and community.  UCL's Sustainability Strategy makes the commitment that at UCL every student will have the opportunity to study and be involved in sustainability by 2024.   

As part of this work, the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) lunch bytes provide an informal and accessible learning opportunity for UCL members to learn more about ESD. They are also a platform for sharing knowledge, best practices, success stories and challenges related to sustainability.  

Lunch bytes also help raise awareness about sustainability issues, encouraging participants to think critically about their impact on the environment and society. 

Read more about Sustainable Education at UCL here.