On the 21st of April, The University of Manchester's Dr Jen O’Brien and Dr Andrew Welfle joined us in our 6th event of the Sustainable Futures Seminar Series to discuss sustainable development. The event brought in over 30 internal and external attendees.
Dr Tim Foster, Sustainable Futures Resilient futures Challenge Lead, was the chair of the event. He opened the event; welcomed our attendees and introduced our guest speakers.
Dr Jen O’Brien, Academic Lead of Sustainability Teaching and Learning, The University of Manchester presented first on “Education for Sustainable Development in a Living Lab approach”.
Dr Jen O’Brien argued “students at the University of Manchester alone, are a 40,000 strong force for change. Imagine the global potential. To harness that force, we are deploying Education for Sustainable Development in a Living Lab approach to partner across and beyond the University to affect sustainable change. Students are equipped and empowered with skills and confidence as they engage in interdisciplinary applied research set by external partners. Our University Living Lab was established as the first of its kind in 2013. Since then students have worked with a huge range of partner organisations, including international consultants, governments, health bodies, charities and local businesses. Impacts range from work on urban resilience that was presented to the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, to establishing beehives in Manchester construction projects. The applied projects are framed around the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and can be applied to any assessment at any study level.”
Dr Jen O’Brien ended her segment by participating in a live Q&A session with the attendees.
Dr Andrew Welfle, Research Fellow, Manchester Environmental Research Institute at The University of Manchester was the next guest speaker. He explored the “Bioeconomy Sustainability Indicator Model (BSIM)”.
Bioenergy is targeted within many countries’ future energy and decarbonisation strategies. As a consequence, there has been much interest in developing and deploying bioenergy technologies and with this a corresponding rise in demands for biomass resources. As the scale of bioenergy increases and ever more complex bioenergy schemes and feedstock supply chains are planned and established, Dr Andrew Welfle evaluated its sustainability, introducing and demonstrating the features of the Bioeconomy Sustainability Indicator Model. He also highlighted how perceptions of ‘sustainability’ vary – for industry and government stakeholders sustainability requires the generation of jobs, economic growth; social scientist stakeholders place far greater importance on public acceptance of technologies and impacts on land, food and society etc.
At the end of his presentation, Dr Andrew Welfle answered some questions live from the attendees.
Dr Tim Foster thanked the attendees and our guest speakers and closed the event.
Watch the recording of the seminar here!
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