XClose

Sustainable UCL

Menu

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
    • 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 Dr Kate Roach 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
    • Simon Knowles, UCL SDGs Initiative – Co-convenor
    • Kenneth Yeung, Sustainable UCL – Co-convenor
    • Dr Irina Lazar – Chair of Task-and-finish group 3 (Supporting Academics)
    • Prof Emanuela Tilley – Chair of Task-and-finish Group 4 (New ESD cross-disciplinary offer)
    • Prof Jane Holder – Chair of Task-and-finish Group 5 (ESD for postgraduate researchers)

    Students' Union UCL 

    • Simon To, Director of Policy, Governance & Advocacy
    • Shaban Chaudhary, Education Officer
    • Joanna Socha, Sustainability Projects Lead

    Professional Services

    • Wendy Browne, Careers
    • Jason Clarke, Sustainable UCL
    • Leo Havemann, VPESE
    • Anne Preston, UCL East

    Faculties

    • Dr Hans Demeyer, Arts & Humanities
    • Dr Lorenzo Lotti, Bartlett
    • Dr Julie Evans, Brain Sciences
    • Dr Irina Lazar, Engineering Sciences
    • Prof Paolo Taticchi, Engineering Sciences
    • Dr Alison Kitson, IOE
    • Prof Douglas Bourne, IOE
    • Prof Tristan McCowan, IOE
    • Dr Vasiliki Kioupi, IOE
    • Prof Jane Holder, Laws
    • Dr Jim Labisko, Life Sciences
    • Prof Andreas Schaefer, MAPS
    • Dr Vicky Hilborne, MAPS
    • Dr Adesh Sundaresan, Medical Sciences
    • Dr Witte Frank,  Social & Historical Sciences