Day 11 – Sustainability

Welcome to Day 11, in which we hear from colleagues from the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde about their experiences and insights on sustainability and ecopedagogy.

Inclusive Sustainability: Addressing Eco-Ableism Through a Student–Staff–
Community Partnership Project
by Leyla De Amicis, Paulina Navrouzoglou and Laavanya Varadarajan Shanmugapriya

Every meaningful project has a story, and this one started with a simple but powerful
question: What learning experiences can truly advance Education for Sustainable
Development. To explore this, we met Laavanya (Vanya), an enthusiastic, creative and
passionate student from Enactus Society of University of Glasgow.

In our early discussions, Vanya highlighted the problem of eco-ableism; the way some
sustainability practices unintentionally exclude or disadvantage people with disabilities. Her
strong interest in this topic is reflected in her volunteering with Enable Glasgow Fortune
Works (EG-FW), an organisation that supports individuals with learning disabilities. This
insight immediately resonated, linking sustainability with social justice in a compelling way.
To strengthen the project’s impact and make it transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary, we
reached colleagues and students across disciplines, as well as practitioners, and succeeded
in building a genuinely collaborative and promising project (i).

The project invited people with learning disabilities (PwLDs) from EG-FW to engage in
growing and consuming microgreens, as an accessible and meaningful sustainable living
activity. Through this hands-on approach, we aim to show how thoughtfully designed
community practices can be inclusive, enjoyable and empowering, enhancing the overall
wellbeing of PwLDs.

Image 1 and 2: Microgreens set-up at Enable Glasgow Fortune Works’ gardens

Once we had a shared vision about the project, with the strong support of the Growing
Together Coordinator of EG-FW (Rachel), we identified a suitable funder to bring the project
to life, the SCAF (ii). Importantly, this wasn’t a top-down process. Vanya was actively involved
in every step: connecting us to our external partner, EG-FW, where Vanya was (and still is)
volunteering, drafting the funding application, preparing ethics documents (iii) and shaping the
initial design of the project activities. She helped develop questionnaires, refine research
questions and plan how we would collect and analyse data.

Furthering our external engagement, we organised a Healthy Eating Workshop in
collaboration with the NHS Healthy Living Group, educating PwLDs about the nutritional
benefits of microgreens.

Image 3: Julia, Leyla and Vanya at Healthy Eating Workshop with NHS Healthy Living Group

The eight incredible weeks of this project was celebrated at a Community Event that brought
together more than 10 students from the Enactus Society, GUEST and beyond, creating an
inclusive and accessible space filled with music, creativity and fun activities for PwLDs. This
kind of engagement helped keep the project rooted in real experiences and authentic needs,
building trusted relationships and raising broader awareness of inclusion and sustainability.

Image 4 & 5: UofG students and Enable Glasgow FW Service Users at the Community Event

Our work was presented at the SCAF Annual Event 2025, the NRS Mental Health Network
Annual Scientific Meeting and the Family Day event at Kelvin Hall. Looking ahead, we aim to
disseminate our findings through research papers and reports, and to seek further funding
opportunities to continue advancing our mission. We also plan to apply to present our work
at the Nutrition Society Scottish Conference 2026.

Image 6: Paulina, Vanya and Leyla and other students at Kelvin Hall Family Day Event

This short film offers a snapshot of the key milestones in our journey, highlighting how the
project unfolded so far. We hope this blog demonstrates the power of co-creation and
community engagement to transform how students understand sustainability, as highlighted
in the wider literature on student partnership and transformative learning (Bovill, 2020;
Healey et al., 2014). Rather than treating it as an abstract environmental issue with no clear
pathway for action, they experienced it as a lived, relational practice deeply connected to
human rights, social inclusion and wellbeing—values reflected in frameworks such as the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015) and UNESCO’s vision
for Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 2017, 2020). These experiences also
strengthen key employability skills: communication, teamwork, empathy and applied
research, while helping them see themselves as agents of change (UNESCO, 2014; Vare &
Scott, 2007) for a fairer and more sustainable future. As us, as academics, this experience
has been a source of joy, pride, and a profound sense of purpose in contributing to a
meaningful change in higher education and society.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to UofG students and alumni for their support and help at various stages of this
project: Aijun, Alice, Dana, Danee, D’Unya, Emily (GUEST), Hannah, Louise (GUEST), Medha,
Mehul, Nicole, Siu Shan, Paloma (Enactus), and all EG-FW staff, especially Jan, Thomas, Tracy
and Matt.
Image permissions
All images and film included have the appropriate consent for use.

References
Bovill, C. (2020). Co-creation in learning and teaching: The case for a whole-class approach in
higher education. Higher Education, 79(6), 1023–1037. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-
00453-w
Healey, M., Flint, A., & Harrington, K. (2014). Engagement through partnership: Students as
partners in learning and teaching in higher education. Higher Education Academy.
https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/engagement-through-partnership-studentspartners-learning-and-teaching-higher
United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development. United Nations General Assembly.
UNESCO. (2014). Shaping the future we want: UN Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development (2005–2014) – Final report. UNESCO.
UNESCO. (2017). Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning objectives. UNESCO
Vare, P., & Scott, W. (2007). Learning for a change: Exploring the relationship between
education and sustainable development. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development,
1(2), 191–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/097340820700100209
(i)The other members of this project’s team are Dr James Dorling (Lecturer in Human Nutrition, Dr Zhen Long (Research Assistant), Miss
Rachel Maitland (Growing Together Coordinator Fortune Works Enable Glasgow), Miss Julia Boswell (Gardening Assistant).
(ii) This project is supported by the Scottish Alliance for Food which is funded by the Scottish Funding Council grant H23050 and ESRC
Research Grant ES/T011343/1.
(iii) This project has been ethically approved via Research Ethics Committee in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow
(Application Number 400240338

Building competency confidence: Vertically Integrated Projects, Education for Sustainable Development, and Entrepreneurial Mindsets by Mr Thomas Devaney, Dr Scott Strachan, Ms Nicola Sutherland

Scaffolding of students’ project work through specially designed workshops gives students the time, space and tools to recognise and reflect on key learning, and areas of development. Assessment is traditionally focused on measuring and reinforcing academic achievement, that allows progression and, along with feedback, enables further improvement. When these elements work together, in a complementary fashion ‘for learning’, the students gain more than knowledge – they can gain experience, which can breed confidence in what they can achieve and allow them the time and space to reflect on why it matters.

In the Vertically Integrated Projects for Sustainable Development (VIP4SD) programme, students join long‑term, interdisciplinary teams tackling research and development challenges aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Many students describe VIP4SD as the first opportunity they get at University to work on a challenge where they feel able to make a meaningful, tangible contribution to a real-world problem, where their project objectives and output serve a wider purpose than that of satisfying module assessment criteria. Students are motivated by the raised stakes associated with these real-world challenges and the opportunity to make a genuine difference. The VIP4SD model does this by allowing students to engage in challenge-based learning and work with students from different year groups and disciplines.

A key part of the VIP4SD experience for students is handling uncertainty as they collaborate in research and development with social, environmental, or economic value – as well as risks. This gives them a learning experience that links directly to UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development competencies, while developing broad employability skills. Sir Jonathan Porritt, former Vice Chancellor of Keele University, very eloquently highlighted how Higher Education must not only prepare students for the world of work, but prepare them for the work of the world.

Strathclyde’s VIP4SD programme seeks to prepare students for the world of work, by tackling the work of the world.

The VIP4SD programme is something of a delivery vehicle for the type of learning that was included explicitly – for the first time – in the most recent update of the QAA Subject Benchmark Statements, in its efforts to drive the holistic integration of ESD, Entrepreneurship and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in HE curricula.

The VIP4SD project environment gives students the platform for experiential learning, but the experience in and of itself – participation in a project – is not enough when it comes to impressing prospective employers. Employers want to know what students got out of the experience, and what they can bring with them to their role within a organisation. Many students struggle to explain this in definable terms. They often tell us (or employers) they took part in meaningful work but cannot name the competencies they used and developed as part of their experience. This competency articulation gap diminishes both the immediate benefits and the longer-term potential of the experience for students.

To address this, the Careers Service, Strathclyde Inspire (an internal unit supporting entrepreneurship for staff and students), and VIP4SD academic leads have worked together to embed the University of Strathclyde’s Entrepreneurial Mindset framework more visibly and tangibly within VIP4SD projects. This enables students to recognise when and how they are developing these competencies throughout their project journey and, critically, how to articulate these competencies effectively.

The framework focuses on five areas competencies – as defined in Strathclyde’s Entrepreneurial Mindset – these are value creation, collaboration, forward thinking, communication, and resilience. However, the tools students are equipped with as part of a competency articulation workshop series, can help them articulate other competencies and skills, including those constituting the UNESCO ESD competency set.

The competency workshops support students in recognising and articulating the competencies they develop throughout their project journey. These sessions raise awareness of competency growth and emphasise the importance of being able to evidence and communicate these skills effectively.

These sessions introduce the Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Mindset and also map these to UNESCO ESD competencies. Students work through short tasks where they identify actions they took, decisions they made, and problems they solved in their projects. They practise explaining these examples in language they feel comfortable using and mapping these to the more abstract competency definitions they are provided with. Many students begin believing they have little to share, yet by the end of the workshop they can articulate their contributions in clear, definable terms.

Students complete formative reflective accounts, where they review their work and describe their development, and on which they receive feedback. They use simple articulation tools such as the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) framework that link action, learning, and impact, which they are introduced to during the workshops. This enables students to communicate their competency development to themselves and others, providing tangible benefits when pursuing internships, placements, or graduate roles and navigating applications or interviews.

The culmination of this approach, sees the students participate in a summative assessment that consists of a one-to-one mock interview, where they are asked to articulate (without any visual aids, scripts or prompts) – under interview-type conditions – two competencies they have engaged with and developed as part of their VIP4SD project experience over the past academic year. This is an example of experiential assessment for learning, where students participate in an authentic, real-world task as part of their assessment, and gain valuable experience from this in and of itself. Students are then provided with feedback from their assessor/interviewer. A future enhancement would involve students reflecting on their own practice, preparation and performance – ‘assessment as learning’.

Anecdotal evidence highlights the impact of this combined approach. Students often discover they have stronger examples than expected, recognise skills linked to sustainability and entrepreneurship, and articulate how their contributions support both project goals and wider societal aims. As they make sense of their experience, their confidence grows and they begin to see themselves as capable change‑makers.

As educators, our role extends beyond providing disciplinary support and the platform upon which students have the opportunity to develop and exhibit these skills and competencies; we must go further, and equip students with the tools that will allow them to leverage these experiences for their professional advancement and personal growth.

Teaching sustainability in lab-work based courses by Emanuele Conte

The University of Glasgow has recently been recognized as one of the most sustainable universities in the world, thanks to its strive to reduce its environmental impact by applying a comprehensive Green Strategy. Pursuing this effort requires full awareness, the combined effort of both staff and students and an evaluation of the programmes in terms of sustainability, as recognized in the Learning and Teaching Strategy 2021-2025. In any university, labs have by far the biggest environmental footprint, as they are responsible for 65% of the energy consumption and over 60% of total water usage¹. Yet, the “Sustainability at Glasgow” webpage highlights the sustainability efforts from the colleges of “Social Sciences” and “Arts and Humanity”, but not from MVLS, arguably the worst offenders on campus! This is not to say that nothing is done to reduce the environmental cost of doing scientific experiments; on the contrary, technicians and lab staff work hard to minimize impact through initiatives like the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF). Still, while 84% of scientists agree that they would like to do more to reduce the impact of their day-to-day scientific work on the environment, only 11% of them say they always follow sustainability guidance². The reason for this impressive gap is usually a lack of knowledge, with over half of scientists complaining they “have not received any training” and almost a third admitting they “don’t know where to start”².

This should be a wake-up call for all educators in science, and it requires a reflection on how to teach sustainability for the next generation of scientists. But how do we teach sustainability effectively in a setting that traditionally relies on resource-intensive processes? Achieving this objective will require a pedagogy of sustainability to be organically integrated in the curriculum of lab-based courses. Globally, universities around the world have introduced measures to reduce the impact of lab-work, for example by changing the setting of the ultra-low temperature freezers or switching the brand of kits to ones that includes less single-use plastic. Most of this advice can often only be implemented by those who lead and organise the labs, though, leaving the students out of the conversation as passive receivers of directives they have no agency on. To empower the students and increase their awareness of their social responsibility as lab users, we launched a collaboration between academics, technicians and three students, which was funded as a SSPS project in the 2024-25 cycle. We decided to adopt a different approach, putting the students at the centre, to develop new teaching resources and share a culture of education for sustainable development.

As a first step, interrogating the students with a questionnaire on how they perceive their role in the pursue of a more sustainable University will help to increase their involvement and make them feel part of the solution³. Rather than treating sustainability as an afterthought, we want to open a discussion on how to integrate it into the course Learning Objectives⁴, and we’ll gather input from students, researchers, teachers, technicians and students in a dedicated focus group. We aim to audit and revise the common lab-based practicals in both undergrad and MSc courses to identify possible suggestions to decrease plastic waste and introduce sustainability “tips” embedded in the lab manual provided to the students to highlight how to reduce waste in each step of the protocol. As a last step, we will collect a database of shared “tested practices” adoptable by any lab user through a survey addressed to the teaching staff, active researchers and members of the technical teams. These suggestions will be made available in a guide for students as a reference to provide ideas on how to include sustainability in their day-to-day practice during their final project, which usually represent their first experience of independent lab-work. By changing the way we teach, we hope to help our students to mature and grow as a future generation of environmentally conscious scientists. The link to the survey will be shared in January, so if you work in the MVLS college please participate, make sure your opinion is heard, and be part of the solution!

References:

1 – Freese, T., Elzinga, N., Heinemann, M., M. Lerch, M. and L Feringa, B. (2024). The relevance of sustainable laboratory practices. RSC Sustainability, [online] 2(5). doi:https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SU00056K.

2 – Royal Society of Chemistry. (2022). Sustainable Laboratories: A Community-wide Movement toward Sustainable Laboratory Practices. Cambridge

3 – Maiorescu, I., Sabou, G.C., Bucur, M. and Zota, R.D. (2020). Sustainability Barriers and Motivations in Higher Education – A Students’ Perspective. www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro, 22(54), p.362. doi:https://doi.org/10.24818/ea/2020/54/362.

4 – Svanström, M., Lozano‐García, F.J. and Rowe, D. (2008). Learning outcomes for sustainable development in higher education. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 9(3), pp.339–351. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/14676370810885925

Song for today – Truth to Power by OneRepublic

Lead Editor – Louise Sheridan

SoTL Editors – Edward Beggan , Shaun Bremner-Hart, and Louise Sheridan