An ambitious new project to ensure every student at Murray Edwards is informed and inspired about environmental sustainability and can champion the issue in their lives beyond College has won an award for excellence from Cambridge University.
The Student Sustainability Leaders Programme, launched for the 2022-23 academic year, has seen our students take part in topical and challenging debates around green themes, with a focus ranging from the sustainability of the College’s own 1960s grade 2* listed buildings to the implications of ice loss in Antarctica.
The programme is one of nine projects deemed ‘Excellent’ by the Environmental Sustainability Team at the university and recognised with an award. All are judged according to rigorous criteria, including demonstrating innovation and measurable impact, involving a wide range of people, and generating lessons and new good practice that can be shared with others.
A series of stimulating green-themed events at Murray Edwards began at home, with a discussion titled ‘How do we make Medwards greener?’. Students engaged in a lively debate with a panel chaired by College President Dorothy Byrne and including the Bursar, Head Gardener, two Fellows [academics] from the Net Zero Committee, and Environment Officers representing both undergraduates and graduates. The discussion covered the significant challenges of improving the environmental sustainability of a 1964 concrete building, a major task costing millions of pounds, as well as prompting many innovative ideas on how energy use could be monitored and use of space improved, and how behaviours in College could change.
A second event, this time with a wider perspective, featured speakers from Global Choices, an organisation dealing with global issues around climate change, particularly in the Arctic. The panel included a second-year law student from King’s College, who shared her experiences as an ‘Arctic Angel’ - a programme of young activists working with the organisation.
Our third debate, ‘Will Cambridge University Really Go Green?’, engaged with the wider university community. The Chapel Architect at King's College, Oliver Caroe, told the story of the College’s daring solar panels, while Philip Armitage of buildings services engineers Max Fordham, who led King’s’ Decarbonisation Strategy Report of May 2022, highlighting the benefits of the scheme as a foundation for reducing the College’s reliance on fossil fuels. Contributors from Churchill and Darwin Colleges developed the theme, discussing moves to use insulation and heat pumps to decarbonise, and work to introduce recycling and more sustainable catering. A final vote by the student audience overwhelmingly backed the view that Cambridge will indeed fulfil its sustainability goals and ‘go green’.
As a result of the meeting, Murray Edwards will host an annual event to enable colleges to share best practice on energy use and wider sustainability issues.
The events series culminated with ‘Antarctic night’, an immersive multi-media experience combining discussion with art. Our Professorial Fellow Michael Meredith from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) shared findings and images from his recent expedition to Antarctica to study temperature change in the Southern Ocean, while a moving short film on Antarctic ice loss was accompanied by a performance of Last Post for Antarctica, a live piece for solo trumpet inspired by the 21-year journey of the A22a iceberg. Commissioned by BAS, the new composition by Murray Edwards Music Director Ewan Campbell follows the lifecycle of the iceberg from calving to break-up, as well as drawing attention to the threat of climate change.
The Student Sustainability Leaders Programme will develop further during the next academic year, with more events, the production of a College green newsletter, and further collaboration and sharing of good practice with other colleges in Cambridge.
Dorothy Byrne said: ‘The events organised as part of the programme have had a huge impact on the college – spreading way beyond those who attended and sparking new discussions, ideas and collaborations beyond our walls. We want our students not only to be inspired about sustainability while they are with us, but to leave the College as passionate and knowledgeable champions of the environment in the future life and work, thus contributing over their whole lives to the protection of the planet.
‘We are also proud to have identified and filled a gap in knowledge-sharing on decarbonising among the colleges of Cambridge as a community, and to be driving forward collaboration across the university with the exchange of best practices.’