Northeastern University London Sustainability

Overview

The University has formally adopted the following definitions of sustainability, sustainable development, and sustainable development in the context of teaching and learning. The definitions have been approved by the Sustainability Committee, the Teaching and Learning Committee, and Academic Board, and they were drawn from industry bodies: the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and AdvanceHE. Both bodies define sustainability in terms laid down by the UN Brundtland Commission from 1987.

  • Sustainability: ‘Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (United Nations Brundtland Commission, 1987).
  • Sustainable development: ‘An aspirational ongoing process of addressing social, environmental, and economic concerns to create a better world’ (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education).
  • Sustainable curriculum: ‘The process of creating curriculum structures and subject-relevant content to support sustainable development’ (Education for Sustainable Development, adopted by Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and Advance HE).

The standardisation of sustainability across our curriculum will help us to realise Northeastern’s 2025 Academic Plan, which empowers students to make meaningful interventions in evolving global and local contexts. The issue of sustainability is central to that endeavour. It will encourage students to be agile across disciplinary boundaries, because sustainability is both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary; entrepreneurial and innovative, because students will engage with academic, applied, and entrepreneurial solutions; and networked globally and locally, because students will approach sustainability from both a global and local perspective.

NU London continues apace with its mission to embed sustainability within its educational provision and the operation of the University itself. We will shortly publish our updated sustainability strategy, carbon strategy, and further initiatives that will inform our work in the months and years to come. For further information, click here for a feature on the Northeastern University website.

Team

Associate Dean of Global Impact and Sustainability – Dr Diana Bozhilova, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations

Head of Sustainable Curriculum – Dr Callum Barrell, Associate Professor of Political Thought

Governance

The University’s Sustainability Committee meets roughly once per semester.

Terms of Reference – Sustainability Committee

Research

The University’s research into sustainability and sustainable development is interdisciplinary and ever-growing. For example, we are currently undertaking research into the political theory of the Anthropocene (Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs] 10, 13, and 16); sustainability and social returns on investment: databases of proxies (U.K., US), application, consulting (SDGs 3, 6, 17); sustainability and the energy transition: computational analyses of energy majors, social media comms, and annual reports to shareholders (SDG 7); applied work with NielsenIQ; sustainability and food (in)security (SDG 2); sustainability and food diets/carbon tax/index (SDG 2); sustainability and plastics (SDG 14); and mapping Black London (SDG 10).

Sustainability in Teaching and Learning Hub

Faculty and staff are encouraged to explore the Sustainability in Teaching and Learning Hub on Canvas, which can be accessed here. You will need to use your login credentials. The hub contains guidelines, resources, presentations from live sessions, and a comment box. It is updated regularly.

Recent Updates and Events

Careers in Sustainability (25 September 2024)

This event, hosted, by Drs Diana Bozhilova and Callum Barrell, saw a panel of NU London alumni discuss their experience in the sector with an audience of students and Faculty.

Harry Lightfoot Brown (Economics and Politics), Maria Payro (PPH and MSc Digital Politics and Sustainable Development), and Sophie Toff (Philosophy and Politics, now a PhD student at NU London) have pursued varied and successful careers in sustainability. Harry joined the civil service fast track after graduating from NU London (then NCH) and has worked in several government departments, including the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. He has just completed his MSc at Oxford in Sustainability, Enterprise, and the Environment. Maria is NU London’s former Student Union president. She has industry experience in sustainable fashion, a topic about which she is passionate and on which she wrote her Masters thesis. Sophie’s undergraduate thesis was on ecofeminism. Since graduating she has worked for Volans—a leading think tank and advisory firm—as an Ecosystem Facilitator. Alongside her ongoing professional engagements, Sophie is about to enter her second year as a PhD student at NU London. Her thesis explores the intersection between biopolitics and the climate crisis.

The panel began by exploring the intersection between the professional and academic sectors and the extent to which they synergistically advance sustainable development. While these sectors are often siloed, there are commonalities: any career in sustainability, the panel agreed, requires both passion and a specialism. Given the pace with which social, economic, and environmental change must occur to meet global goals, it is very likely that sustainability will be a component of most jobs in the near future, including design and architecture; science and technology; and communications, industry, and business.

The panel then discussed paradigmatic change. Maria focused on sustainable retail, Harry on policy shifts and the real economy, and Sophie on the role of networks. While this paradigmatic change presents enormous challenges, our panelists agreed that there are some skills students can develop now that will carry them into the future. These include systems thinking, humility, resilience, and an openness to the unknown. As Harry aptly put it, we cannot expect to have all the answers to such an unprecedented problem. Understanding that will be key to future-proofing the economy and to opening doors in this sector.

The panel ended by contemplating larger questions about the meaning of sustainability in theory and practice. How can we pursue sustainability without falling into the traps of greenwashing and ‘green hushing’? Sophie suggested that trying to navigate this dynamic is a double-edged sword. Making waves in sustainability can inadvertently land one in hot water, especially because it is difficult to individually verify ethical supply chains. On the other hand, the fear of being publicly vilified can detrimentally affect necessary work to advance sustainable development. Integrity in decision-making, at both individual and institutional levels, is therefore crucial. Maria talked about the challenges of scale in retail when it comes to sourcing sustainable materials, and how easy it is for smaller businesses to go bust if corporate retailers do not follow through on premium orders for sustainable materials. It was a brilliant example of the importance of throughput. Harry acknowledged that, while policies must shift, it is equally important to reflect on the role of democracy and the short-term horizons of liberal democratic politics. This prompted Dr Callum Barrell to discuss democracy’s advantages and disadvantages as a political system in which to deal with the short, medium, and long-term threats of the ecological crisis. The event drew to a close as Dr Diana Bozhilova reminded students of an oft-referenced model in her classes: the Kuznets curve, which suggests that every transition holds the promise of betterment but not before a dip and a bottom out. Sustainability, in this sense, represents both a challenge and opportunity for young people.

Taylor Swift Jet Usage Sparks Debate (14 August 2024)

Dr Callum Barrell, Head of Sustainable Curriculum and Couse Leader for Green Political Thought (Level 6) and Political Theory in the Anthropocene (Level 7), contributed to a discussion on Taylor Swift’s jet usage in a piece written by journalist Patrick Daly. You can access the article here.

COP28: In Conversation with the Executive in Residence, Cyril Martinez (14 November 2023)

The Associate Dean of Global Impact and Sustainability, Diana Bozhilova, hosted a fireside chat with the Executive in Residence, Cyril Martinez. The event was curated in collaboration with the Director of Global Initiatives, Jason H. Nolen-Doerr, and moderated by the Head of Business, Sanjay Bhowmick.

One of the four central cross-cutting themes at this year’s COP in the United Arab Emirates is sustainable finance. The conference of the parties is running under the slogan of #actionism. Benefitting richly from Cyril Martinez’s illustrious career and extensive experience in the financial services sector, Northeastern University London brought to students and faculty an intellectually stimulating conversation about the relative role of the private and public sectors in supporting the climate transition. The Executive in Residence elaborated on a decade of context where lack of data had initially deterred investors from looking into sustainable investment instruments. However, this changed with the advent of ESG. Yet, data alone does not minimize the risk of investment in sustainable financial instruments. The sustainable agenda of public policy tends to run over a long-term horizon, such as 2030, 2050, and beyond. By contrast, investor focus is short-term, on the here and now. The ensuing gap leads to low predictability of returns and triggers high costs associated with sustainable financial instruments. Yet, entire industries will become unsustainable if we do not confront climate change with urgency. This has prompted the private sector to increasing #actionism. From this, a few key considerations have emerged. First, sustainable investment and profitability are not mutually exclusive objectives. Second, global regulatory gaps create impediments to #actionism. Therefore, COP28 member countries should strive for more ambitious collective decisions this year. Third, high level governance for the climate transition is supported by each one of us considering own consumption choices. Finally, universities have a role to play in abridging the gap between private and public sectors through immersive opportunities for knowledge exchange.

This COP28 event was held two weeks before the start of the conference and supports stimulating conversations in higher education. We look forward to future encounters with the Executive in Residence and the Global Initiatives Team at Northeastern University London.

The Air We Breathe: Citizens’ Steps Towards a Sustainable City (6 November 2023)

This event took place as part of the University’s ongoing sustainability series. Dr Diana Bozhilova began by thanking the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences for organising the event, after which Dr Raimondi introduced the speaker, Mark Martin MBE (Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Education Practice), who is at the forefront of technology and computer science education in the UK. Mark opened with some startling facts: 3.1 million children in England attend schools in areas with toxic air, while children in our local community of Tower Hamlets are almost four times as likely to attend a school that exceeds WHO limits for air pollution. The consequences are severe: lung function among children in Tower Hamlets is approximately 5% less than the national average. Mark discussed a superb and ongoing initiative at NU London that brings together school students, NU London undergraduates, academics, and industry to address this problem. Using parts donated by Dyson, local school students created devices to monitor pollution in their local area. NU London undergraduates, harnessing data visualisation techniques and the power of experiential learning, then built the platforms through which the findings could be accessibly presented to diverse audiences. Mark ended by talking about ways in which to continue the project, particularly by engaging the local community and the Mayor of Tower Hamlets. The event was a tremendous success and we wish to thank Mark for presenting on the outstanding work that is already being done within our community to help make our city sustainable.

Sustainability Pathway

Undergraduate students can use elective slots in their degrees to pursue elective pathways that address complex global challenges that require agile thinking across disciplinary boundaries.

To complete the Sustainability pathway, students need to take THREE elective courses from this list across at least TWO levels. The pathway is correct as of November 2023 and students are encouraged to first consult their academic advisor.

Sustainability Pathway

Eligible courses:

L4

Ideas for Impact Experiential Project (interdisciplinary) – Sustainability theme

L5

Sustainable Cities and Communities (interdisciplinary)

Creating Impact Experiential Project (interdisciplinary) – Sustainability theme

L6

The University is expanding its postgraduate provision in sustainability. Alongside our MSc in Digital Politics and Sustainable Development, which offers courses on Political Theory in the Anthropocene, Human Security, and Sustainable Development, the University currently has several PhD students working on the ecological and related crises.