King's College London

Sustainability at King’s has seen major changes and progress over the past year. On the 18th of July 2022, students, staff and alumni came together at the King’s Sustainability Awards to celebrate the efforts and achievements of everyone who has been involved in helping to make King’s a more sustainable place. The event was also a valuable opportunity to share updates on ongoing initiatives and programmes that continue to improve sustainability at King’s.

Sustainability Champions

The Sustainability Awards celebrate the commitment and passion of King's 500+ Sustainability Champions - members of the King’s community who are working on campus and in our residences to make King's a more sustainable working environment. This year, the network of staff carried out over 2,800 actions on sustainability.

Sustainability Champions teams across King’s were given sustainability awards, for actions which took steps to reduce their personal and departmental carbon, enhance biodiversity, as well as increasing accessibility, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), and widening participation.

For undertaking these actions, teams were given various sustainability awards reflecting the impact made. The breakdown of the awards this year was: 1 Working Towards Sustainability Dozen, 13 Sustainability Dozen, 7 Bronze, 1 Working Towards Silver, 5 Silver, 34 Gold Awards. Of these teams, 28 offices, 1 halls of residence, and 32 labs submitted work into the programme.

Staff who have successfully embedded sustainability across operations, teaching and the wider King’s community were recognised in the Special Awards category.

• Dola Akanmu, staff champion in the Vascular Biology & Inflammation labs and office team. Dola has been the sole champion for these two teams and has made significant changes – including the development of an EDI plan for her department.
• Glyn Jones, staff champion in the Dickson Poon School of Law. Glyn won this award for his delivery of many “no dig” presentations about his allotment, sharing his learnings with students and staff at King’s.
• Kautuk Chaddha, staff champion in the Strand Operations team. Kautuk has engaged across many Sustainability events this year, including the sustainability careers festival. He continues to champion sustainability and encourage engagement across his department.
• Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) offices won an ‘engagement for sustainability’ award for their stitch and pitch series of events they ran this year, which was enjoyed by many.

The following groups of students and staff received Special Awards for the extra support they provided King’s sustainability projects:

• 84 students who completed the KEATS Sustainability & Climate Module (between March-June)
• Six students (Anita Baratti; Saniya Mehmood; Zaynab Hussain; Yichan Gao; Juan Pablo Valderrama Echavarría; Kshitija Mishra) who altogether mapped over 200 modules during the SDG Curriculum Mapping project
• Six students and staff (Yilin Lei; Euan Casey; Vaibhav Mehta; Fatima Wang; Mel Davies; Kindness Ezekwe) from King’s Climate Action Network
• Five students and alumni (Sigrid Leivdottir; Abigail Oyedele; Kathleen Williamson; Daniel Jonusas; Elsa Nativelle) who have co-hosted and co-produced the Spotlight on Sustainability podcast
• School of Global Affairs communications team (Julia Stepowska and Grace Harley) for their support on sustainability and climate focused communications
• Damely Akizhanova for their work on the Sustainability Residence Committees and the Culture-Climate Lab workshop
• The King’s Procurement Team – for their work on introducing the new Sustainability Supply Chain Code of Conduct

Recognising King’s achievement to sustainability

We welcomed Professor Evelyn Welch, Senior Vice President (Service, People & Planning) who delivered the keynote speech. Professor Welch recognised the Sustainability Champions for their work this year, as well as praising the other successes which have taken place for sustainability at King’s over the last 12 months, including full divestment from all fossil fuels one year ahead of schedule and a 51% reduction in carbon emissions since the 2005/06 baseline. Other major successes include:

• King’s ranked in top 5 UK universities for environmental & social impact in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, as well as second in the UK in the People & Planet League table this year
• 500+ people taking part in the Sustainability Champions programme and 350+ members of the Climate Action Network (CAN)
• Between September 2021 and July 2022, over 1,400 attendees came together across 87 events and training opportunities ran by the King’s Sustainability Team
• The development of the KEATS Sustainability & Climate module, which had over 600 students and staff enrol and over 180 complete the full module and receive sustainability awards
• Over 1000 modules mapped against the Sustainable Development Goals, carried out with the help of over 60 trained students and staff
• All King’s suppliers must now sign up to the Sustainability Supply Chain Code of Conduct. This is a huge step to reducing our carbon emissions, as our supply chain is the biggest source of carbon (scope 3)
• King’s Food & Venues choice menus are now 70% vegetation and vegan
• King’s has recently been awarded the highest rating of three stars by the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) rating, as well as being re-accredited as a Fairtrade university

Next steps for Sustainability & Climate Action at King’s

The King’s Climate and Sustainability Action plan was recently approved by University Executive. The action plan was co-created by our students, staff and alumni through King’s Climate Action Network and it sets out a wide scope of actions across estates, investment, procurement, travel, research, education and community engagement.

The plan outlines carbon reduction targets across our scope, 1, 2 and 3 emissions. These will be in line with what scientists have recommended with a minimum 50% reduction by 2030 in our scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Over the next year, King’s will be setting up a governance structure with a Climate and Sustainability Committee that reports into University Executive to ensure that the university delivers on the plan.