King's College London

We have set the ambitious target to be net zero carbon by 2025.

We spoke to Jone de Roode Jauregi, a fourth-year International Management student and Climate Action Assistant, on how you can help King’s to achieve this by sharing your views on our Climate Action Strategy.

Tell us about yourself and your role at King’s

I study International Management and I’ve just finished my fourth year. In March, I applied for the role of Climate Action Assistant in the Sustainability team to help with developing the climate action strategy.

I think climate change is our number one priority. Sustainability is just such a crucial topic and something we have to work on together. Career-wise, that’s definitely a direction I want to go in, and in my personal life that’s something I try to embody too.

What is the King’s Climate Action Network and why did you want to get involved?

King's has set the ambitious target to be net zero carbon by 2025 and to achieve this the Sustainability team is currently co-creating the King's Climate Action Strategy with a network of students and staff.

The King's Climate Action Network (King's CAN) was launched in October 2020 and its members have developed recommendations to take climate action, covering topics such as our estate, procurement, travel, research and education.

On my year abroad, I did an internship in climate diplomacy. When I came back, that was something that I wanted to continue so I was looking for volunteering options or ways that I could stay involved in sustainability.

 

What have you done so far as part of King’s CAN?

I decided to be part of the Community and Engagement subgroup. A big part of it was to talk about the initiatives we are already supporting, such as the Fair Energy Campaign and the Just Transition campaign, as well as thinking longer term about how we are going to tie this all into a strategy.

A focus has been listening campaigns. So not just thinking, ‘We’ll throw out all of this information or create all these great projects’, but really basing it on listening and seeing how we can create initiatives to support the wider community.

A questionnaire is now open for students and staff to shape our Climate Action Strategy. Can you tell us more about that?

The questionnaire is an important way to hear thoughts of more people and to align the strategy with what the King’s community wants. Your responses will help shape the Climate Action Strategy, which will be published in autumn 2021.

Questions around the scope of the targets we will set are still rather open, so it depends what our community says.

Why should students share their views?

No one has to be an expert but it’s about hearing your opinions.

This strategy is going to pave the way for the next few years at King’s and there are some big changes that will hopefully take place. So it’s a really good opportunity to share your thoughts.

The questionnaire asks about embedding climate education into education at King’s. Why is that important to you?

I think everyone who has an interest in sustainability should have the opportunity to study it. In my final year I had this opportunity. In the Business School there have been a lot of changes and sustainability has become more central, so that’s been an exciting change to see.

Sometimes people have quite a narrow view of sustainability, that it’s only about the environment, and it’s this topic that you either know about or you don’t. But I believe that sustainability is related to pretty much any topic so it could be integrated into any degree.

What other ways are there to get involved with sustainability at King’s?

There’s so many different ways you can get involved, including volunteering, becoming a Sustainability Champion Assistant and writing blog posts. Several ‘take action’ teams of students have also been set up to start implementing some of the climate action proposals. King’s CAN will keep running and you can sign up to join.

There are always opportunities coming up, so signing up to the newsletter and following the Sustainability team on social media is a good way to stay up to date. And the Sustainability team is always happy to support student ideas.