Category: Community

Dr Alan Dixon and Albert Mvula from the University of Worcester’s Department of Geography have been researching the social-ecological sustainability of a new farming system in Malawi… In its 5th assessment report on the impacts of climate change, the IPCC (2014) placed sub-Saharan Africa at the front line of climate unpredictability, suggesting that it is here where people will be… Read more →

Dr Alan Dixon’s work on developing a Functional Landscape Approach to managing wetlands has recently been integrated into the work of international non-governmental organisation Self Help Africa in Zambia, where it will inform the Zambian government’s ongoing efforts to implement climate-resilient sustainable development and its national wetlands policy. Their PRESERVE Kafue programme is a three-year project that aims to improve… Read more →

Examining heating behaviours in off-campus student houses in multiple occupation This is the seventh iteration of the Energize Project, which in the past has addressed the relationship between tenants and landlords, the role that technology plays in five specific student houses of multiple occupation (HMOs), and how tenants’ habits and perceptions shape their energy consumption. This particular iteration was exciting because we were given… Read more →

Woo Bikes The University of Worcester’s bike share, Woo Bikes, is looking to get staff and students to travel more sustainably. It offers both traditional pedal bicycles and electric pedal assist e-bikes to users. Woo Bikes has also been looking into getting some of their e-bikes to local businesses so that employees can use them on business trips. A Have… Read more →

Living Sustainably as a Mum Written by Tanya Carpenter Actually, I never watched Blue Planet. I had guessed the punchline already and knew it would be a depressing one (I was right). It didn’t take the Blue Planet for me to figure out that plastic doesn’t just dissolve into the ether (not without leaving behind some nasty chemicals). My journey… Read more →

Eco-Media Communicating Green Messages To a Wide Audience   John Parham is a Professor of Environment Humanities in the School of Humanities here at the University of Worcester. His research is focused on eco-media and how we can communicate green messages to a wide audience. We live in a world constantly connected. Our lives tend to consist of a lot of time… Read more →

Living Sustainably: Where does our food come from?   Dr Duncan Westbury is involved with research at the University of Worcester which contributes towards making farming more sustainable. He specialises in ‘agroecosystems’ in which farmers are encouraged to work with nature as opposed to against it – this contributes greatly towards sustainability.   Where does our food come from? An important part… Read more →

Hello! We are students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), located in Worcester, Massachusetts in the USA. We were in Worcester, UK to complete a project as part of our degree requirements. The four of us that make up this team are in our third of four years of university. We are working with the Severn Rivers Trust (SRT) on their Unlocking the Severn project,… Read more →

Operating on the University of Worcester campus since 2012, an investment from the WLEP,  Worcestershire County Council and Worcester City Council has now blossomed into a successful bike share of 100 bikes, 50 are Gtech electric bikes. Known as Woo Bikes this 2 year pilot is investigating the impact of e-bikes to the fleet and is working with large employers… Read more →

American Students Collaborating to Combat Energy Inefficiency in Student HMO Properties For the past 8 weeks, students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the United States have been working with the University of Worcester to continue the Energize Worcester project, a sustainability project that has been going on for a few years.  The team wanted to further understand both student perceptions… Read more →

Interview by Wendy Corbett. Words by Rebecca Lashley. Sound design by Kevin Jenkins. Rebecca Lashley, Worcestershire County Council’s Biodiversity Officer, discusses the ecology and wildlife of traditional orchards in Worcestershire and the work the County Council is doing to promote these ancient and valuable habitats. The boom in orchard planting and fruit production in Worcestershire throughout the 1800s and into the… Read more →

Children from across Worcestershire learnt about how they could make a difference to the environment at an annual University of Worcester-run event involving local charities and businesses. The Skills for Tomorrow event saw pupils from local schools engage in interactive activities and workshops, introducing them to a variety of real world environmental issues surrounding sustainability, and quiz businesses about their… Read more →

Dairy farming is not a special case; all industries should become more sustainable. Taken at the most basic level, we shall eventually run out of fossil fuels so it would be irresponsible not to develop alternative sources of energy. Dairy farming gives the opportunity to use the waste matter produced by the cattle to generate the electricity to run the farm.… Read more →

There is a new discourse emerging within the education and learning for sustainability community, which argues that citizens need to have certain key competencies that allow them to engage constructively and responsibly with an increasingly complex and unsustainable world.  As one recent authorative UNESCO report suggests, ”competencies describe the specific attributes individuals need for action and self-organization in various complex contexts and… Read more →

The Midlands Sustainable Education Network Leaders Programme Launched at the EAUC 2017 conference and commencing September 2017 with the initial session at Coventry University, the programme will be delivered over a 10 month period with 5 delivered content sessions and 5 ‘action learning set’ sessions throughout the year. Led by the University of Worcester  this pioneering new programme will equip emerging sustainability professionals with the essential… Read more →