The Bristol Method: Green Capital Student Capital - The power of student sustainability engagement

THE BRISTOL METHODThe Bristol Method is a knowledge-transfer programme aimed at helping people in other cities understand and apply the lessons that Bristol has learned in becoming a more sustainable city, not just in 2015 but in the last decade. Each module of the Bristol Method is presented as an easy-to-digest ‘how to’ guide on a particular topic, which use Bristol’s experiences as a case study. The modules contain generic advice and recommendations that each reader can tailor to their own circumstances.This module focusses on the Green Capital: Student Capital project, and explains how the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) and the University of Bristol – with their respective students’ unions – have been working in partnership with the city and local communities, using Higher Education Funding Council for England Catalyst funding to promote student involvement in Green Capital activities across Greater Bristol.Student Capital created a broad programme of citywide impact during European Green Capital. It delivered a programme of student and staff engagement in enhancing sustainability within the city and has developed student and staff engagement with sustainability action. Through action research approaches it is also providing lessons for how institutions can collaborate across cities and communities to have internal and external impacts for sustainability. This report is for anyone seeking to increase sustainability engagement. In it we tell the story of the Student Capital project, explaining the processes and the outcomes, and suggesting pieces of advice and lessons for what went well, and what could have been done better or differently

Sustainability in Higher Education:Beyond the Green Mirror

With living labs and co-production increasingly playing a vital role in universities, the University of Bristol is taking significant and drastic steps in incorporating both of these themes into its strategic planning. This paper discusses how the Bristol Futures integrated approach, and specifically its Sustainable Futures pathway, are taking sustainability beyond its obvious and most frequently used links to connect it to subjects like homelessness and resilient cities, personal happiness and wellbeing and a sense of purpose in life. The aim of this approach is to provide a framework through which the learners can engage with other roles and disciplines, while using sustainability as a lens to achieve this. The living lab model provides us with the tools and approaches needed in order to use a new online Sustainable Futures course, designed by a University of Bristol team as a platform where learners from across the world can interact. The focal point of Bristol Futures is a dual approach—that learning, and change come from the dual approaches of theoretical understanding and practical experience. Using sustainability as a lens and the Sustainable Development Goals as a framework, students explore local and global challenges through a series of interdisciplinary case studies (Wood 2004) and reflect on how they would best be positioned to address those challenges (Martin and Jucker 2005). It then harnesses the University of Bristol’s international award-winning reputation and the Bristol Students’ Union Learn Act Engage Create approach to give students engaged learning opportunities to turn theoretical study of sustainability into practical action in communities. Bristol Futures provides students with a unique combination of skills that will enable them to become agents of change on a local and global level, using online courses, face-to-face study and engaged learning to ensure they take sustainability outside the lecture rooms and turn it from theory, to practice and a way of life.</p