'We held a workshop on advocacy and activism attended by over 130 delegates at the British Ecological Society's annual meeting: "A research career vs campaigning for change: a false dichotomy?" This led to a survey of members' attitudes towards activism, and the results were more positive than we had expected. We are now planning further events, including a session on activism at the upcoming BES conference.'

James

Professor of Ecology

'I successfully changed my students' sustainability assignment to be a practical as well as an academic exercise. One student got her workplace to replace their plastic aprons with washable ones, which has now been rolled out across all their settings. Another student successfully applied for a grant to help a homeless charity set up a small growing area at a drop-in centre. A third student reworked the logistics of home-care workers so that they reduced their fuel use on home visits.'

Jane

Healthcare Science Lecturer at East Sussex College Hastings

'In our lab we have been able to replace some single-use plastic consumables quite easily. For example, we have gone back to using glass tubes for growing bacteria. My colleague doing the histopathology now uses reusable cassettes for tissue blocks and glass for collection tubes. Emissions have been reduced by using our in-house lab media services which means that the reagents we use are not being shipped from overseas.'

Lynn

Senior Researcher at the Institute of Cancer Research

'In 2024, working closely with another colleague, we managed to get Sustainable Travel Leave (up to 2 extra days a year for flight-free travel) passed as a policy. This was initially adopted on a trial basis, but it has proved popular and is hopefully here to stay. To encourage others to consider flight-free travel, we ask staff who use the policy to write a short testimonial about their holiday, which we share in our staff e-newsletters. This helps colleagues see what is possible and know who they can speak to if they want to find out more about particular experiences. We have backed up the policy by holding events promoting green travel every June and ran a drop-in discussion session on flight-free travel around Europe. We also encourage staff to log their commuting miles by active transport during June, and people have been really creative with it. One of my colleagues even came in by train and paddleboard today!'

Viola

Science Communications for a Wildlife NGO

'While I was working at a semiconductor company in the UK, I needed to take four team members to the Netherlands for a meeting in 2022. The default assumption was that we would fly, but I suggested that we travel by train instead. Using the journey-planning advice available on Seat 61 to organise the trip. It showed me that simply encouraging colleagues to consider an alternative can be a good place to start.'

Tony

Semiconductor Professional

'Back in 2009, I remember being one of the first people to speak out about academic flying in my research group. This was awkward to start with, but over time attitudes changed and it became more normalised. Working together with others in the cross-university Tyndall group, we developed guidelines and points of principle for creating a low-carbon research culture. By the time the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) was established in 2019, we had fully developed and uncontroversial policies for sustainable travel, as well as for procurement and catering. What had once been an awkward conversation had become standard practice, and the normal course of action was to travel overland to European conferences.'

Stuart

Senior Research Fellow in Psychology at a Russell Group University