Creating a greener future at the London Student Sustainability Conference

Now in its third year, the London Student Sustainability Conference (LSSC) invited students to showcase their green ideas through posters, performances, videos and presentations, each focusing on the 17 UN Global Goals.

City co-organised this year’s LSSC with Kings College University London and invited Daniel Hartz, Founder of the Sustainability Champions podcast, to share his passion and belief that we can all be sustainability champions.

In an opening address, City’s President, Professor Sir Paul Curran and Professor Bronwyn Parry, Interim Vice President & Vice Principal (Service) at King’s College London, outlined the importance of sustainability in higher education.

To mark the half-day event, City’s official crest was turned green on all of its social media accounts.

Creating a greener future

Featuring 25 presentations from a total of 53 students, ideas included: upcycling adapted clothing for people with disabilities; food production services combining fish and plants; empowering people to take their own actions against climate change; upskilling people to make their own clothes and more.

One presenter was City student Mona-Carita Ceder (MSc Food Policy), who promoted the idea of ‘aquaponics,’ an energy efficient growing system that uses a pump to cycle fish waste as fertiliser, providing nutrients for plants. Through a different pump, the plants then clean the water for the fish.

Aquaponics is a diverse system which can be applied to multiple industries. It is a closed food system so there is no waste, which is one limitation of current agriculture. It can also increase resource efficiency and allow us to produce food more sustainably.

This could help reduce food insecurity as you can create this basic food reproductive system almost anywhere. I am hoping that in the future this system will become a normal thing – almost like a TV!

Poster competition winners

The LSSC poster competition closed the event, with students invited to create a poster detailing their ideas for a sustainability project. The winning posters were then voted for by the audience.

The winner of the ‘most original concept’ poster was Garmented, a City based group committed to making adaptive clothing affordable, sustainable and fashionable for disabled people.

One of the Garmented presenters, Bahlla Karim (BSc Business Management), said: “I got involved with Garmented because I saw a real potential and need for adaptive clothing for people with disabilities.

“I have received a lot of support from others when growing up, and I believe this will be a worthwhile project to focus on in the long term if I want to contribute to society and to give back to communities."

Events like the LSSC are important because we as a generation care a lot about building a better future. The best ideas and opportunities can come from people you meet and the discussions you have and at LSSC you are able to work together with likeminded people.

We plan to take Garmented to further competitions and produce more prototypes so we can gather more partners and stakeholders. We hopefully will generate revenue which will sustain the business and give back to our local communities.

Full Garmented team: Yoga Barrathwaj Raman Mohan, Jessica Da Rui Labrecciosa, Emily Houghton, Bahlla Karim, Jaahnvi Krishnamurthy, Stuti Nagpal, Dominika Slovenská and Abigail Theaker

See the full posters here. For more information see sustainable development.