After the School’s Declaration of a Climate and Ecological Emergency in 2019, we are committed to lead the way in action not just words.
The Sustainability Working Group, held a People’s Assembly on Flying on Tuesday 1st June. Organised by Dr Charlie Gardner, Lecturer in Conservation Biology and Sustainability Lead for the School, Lois Mitchell, MSc Conservation Project Management, Myra Mansell, BSc Wildlife Conservation and Katie Hargrave-Smith, BA Environmental Social Sciences.
Staff and students deliberated and voted on potential policies through which the school could reduce its emissions from unnecessary travel, as well as offset those emissions we are unable to eliminate in order to meet the School’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2025 and to reach net zero by 2040. This would align the School with its Declaration of a Climate and Ecological Emergency.
‘As conservationists, anthropologists and geographers the work we do is inherently international, so any decisions to reduce the amount we fly are not to be taken lightly.’ Gardner explained ‘While we have a responsibility to show leadership in reducing our emissions, we also need to make sure we can continue carrying out world-leading research and providing the best possible training opportunities for our students. We wanted to ensure we make the best decisions possible, and to do that means hearing from as many different perspectives as we can, so we held a People’s Assembly to give all staff and students an opportunity to discuss and deliberate on the decisions we have to make.’
The event was organised by students of the Sustainability Working Group and attended by undergraduate students, postgraduate students and staff from across the school. We had brief presentations on a range of topics and used break-out rooms to discuss three main themes: 1) stopping flights within the UK and other easily accessible destinations by adopting a minimum travel distance for flying, 2) reducing flying to in-person academic conferences, and 3) how we should offset the emissions from the remainder of our flights.
On the basis of these discussions the SWG will now put forward a set of recommendations to the School’s leadership committee, who will decide whether to adopt them as school policy.