One way in which the Sustainability group builds community is through the Cranfield Sustainability Network. This informal network of scholars, practitioners and students holds early evening events four or five times a year, typically involving visiting speakers to seed a discussion on a sustainability-related hot topic.
Building a better and greener world, with Paul de Leeuw, Director Energy Transition Institute - Robert Gordon University
As each year has its own unique challenges, 2021 will probably be defined by the global response to COVID-19 and the climate emergency. The global vaccination programme, the upcoming United Nations COP26 conference and the prospect to build a better and greener society will provide the opportunity to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges. COVID-19 has helped to unite the world against a common cause and has demonstrated that the global community can step up to do remarkable things.
Against this backdrop, Professor Paul de Leeuw from Robert Gordon University will talk about how we can build on this positive momentum to manage the energy transition and to ensure the sustainability of our planet.
Sue is one of the world's leading expert practitioners in developing sustainability strategies in major companies and aligning them with business objectives. She runs her own consultancy business; her clients currently include Mars, Primark, O2, RBS, Jersey Telecom, and Danone. During her time at Unilever, Sue led the work to embed the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan to support growth, build brands with purpose, build employee engagement and future proof the business.
Fashion has the reputation of being one of the least sustainable industries in the world, consuming lake-sized volumes of fresh water, creating chemical and plastic pollution, and exploiting workers to create clothing which we all too quickly throw away (31kgs per person each year).
But things seem to be changing. Consumer demands are driving the world biggest fashion firms to say that implementing sustainability measures is their top strategic priority in the wake of Covid-19. Clothing resale is predicted to outgrow fast fashion by 2029.
Additional links and papers:
MUD Jeans
Seasalt
Eluxe Magazine
Fixing Fashion: Clothing Consumption and Sustainability
Making the Leap to Circular Fashion
The Station of Fashion 2020
Bringing academic and industry professionals from the traditional and renewable energy sectors together to discuss what the UK’s commitment to a Net Zero economy means, and the implications of these changes on how we live and work.
In this live interview beamed from ‘The European Sustainability Academy’ in Crete, Sharon Jackson provided a thought provoking insight into why so many people do not enact their well-intended climate-change recovery behaviours.
Sharon used ‘communication’ examples from the COVID-19 pandemic to illuminate why our attention towards some of the most important issues can become blocked without us realising.
This session is for anyone with a curiosity about how to gain more awareness of how to make their own sense of the globally pressing sustainability issues and how to consciously shift good intentions into meaningful actions.
Viewers will learn new skills for enhancing their own meaning-making radars in a way that will improve their ability to communicate more clearly and encourage others to act.
Interested in learning more about a career in sustainability? Or maybe even how to implement it in your workplace? Then watch Martin and Julie from the Canary Wharf Group discuss their experiences fighting the sustainability cause within their industry and pushing boundaries.
Mary Creagh brings her unique viewpoint as a policy maker and Chair of the Environmental Audit Select Committee to the UK government’s policy priorities for a green recovery post Covid-19 and our governments agenda going into COP26.
To build back better we need to move beyond corporate responsibility, through resilience to “regenerative capitalism”. John leads us through the primary transitions in corporate sustainability to the opportunities offered by “Green Swans”.
Mike Barry recently left M&S having spent 15 years there launching, developing and integrating their sustainability strategy speaks on helping business big and small, new and established to prepare for and succeed in the great sustainability disruption that will wash through the economy in the 2020s. Featuring an introduction from Professor David Oglethorpe Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Cranfield School of Management.
