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Last September, the University held its first Watt Forum on Environmental Sustainability at the James Watt Centre.
The Watt Forum was established following internal Strategy2025 consultation discussions, with the objective of providing a venue for our students and staff to come together and discuss how to solve key global challenges.
Environmental Sustainability is one of our key performance indicators within Strategy 2025. The Principal's Blog (Climate Change) has highlighted our commitment to develop globally relevant targets for our emissions, as well as our organisation, practises and behaviours - and, importantly, to quantify the net societal and global impact of our flagship, ground-breaking research projects and policies.
The Watt Forum attracted around 50 students and staff, all of whom had the opportunity to interact with a panel of experts discussing some of our ongoing initiatives in sustainability - including student-led programmes, plastics sustainability, Estates, logistics and Procurement. The expert panel was formed by William Cox (Co-president of the Sustainability Society), Dr Ruaraidh D. McIntosh (Assistant Professor, EPS), Chris Larkins (Environment & Energy Manager, Estates Services), Adam Gripton (Senior Research Associate, SoSS) and Victoria Kulczycki (Head of Procurement Services).
The Watt Forum also included a World Café for participants to share their views in key areas to help us achieve net-zero, including changes in personal behaviour, estate planning and impact of our innovations in research and policy.
The event was organised by Dr Gillian Murray (Deputy Principal for Enterprise and Innovation) and Prof Mercedes Maroto-Valer (Associate Principal for Global Sustainability).
Chris Larkins said, "This morning was a really useful session to help us develop our strategy and forward planning around sustainability."
Adam Gripton said of the forum, "it's taking people from different parts of the University, who would normally never be in contact with each other, and getting them to share ideas, and I think that's a real important part of what we're doing."
Prof Maroto-Valer commented, "We are very pleased to see that the Watt Forum has received such a warm welcome from our students and staff. We look forward to continuing engaging on the development of our environmental sustainability agenda."
Watch a video documenting the first Watt Forum on Envirnomental Sustainability below.