Working together, they have embedded environmental and social justice into the curriculum and campaigned for behavioural change according to the principles of the UN's sustainable development goals.

In this article, Sustainability Champion Karolina Szykula, highlights some of the achievements and impacts of the CMM Sustainability Champions over the last few years.

CMM Sustainability champions

Integrating Education for Sustainable Development in the Curriculum

One of the main goals of the Sustainability Champions has been to ensure education for sustainable development (ESD) lies at the heart of training students to be responsible scientists. Over the last few years, the Sustainability Champions have worked closely with several staff in the school to integrate ESD into the CMM curriculum. These are some of the things they have achieved:

• Engaged hundreds of students with green lab practices through a new lab sustainability quiz in 2024-25, embedded within eBiolabs, our dynamic laboratory manual. The quiz is now a compulsory part of lab induction training for all CMM undergraduate and MSc students and covers important concepts such as sustainable waste management, green lab initiatives, and the importance of reducing the environmental impacts of biomedical research.
• Introduced a ‘Sustainability in Biomedical Sciences’ lecture to one of the core units, educating CMM students about sustainable development and the importance of purpose and responsibility in innovation and research.
• Embedded themes of sustainable development into lectures on several units on the course, highlighting the important links between sustainability, health and research in every-day teaching.
• Enabled opportunities for students to learn about sustainability in a broad and interdisciplinary context - the school now offers second year students a choice of open units that focus on sustainable development such as “City Futures: Migration, Citizenship and Planetary Change” and “Sustainable Development”.
• Encouraged all future CMM students to consider the environmental and social implications of their own work by embedding sustainability into the ethics section of grant proposal coursework projects and into the ‘impact’ and ‘ethics’ sections of third year dissertation projects.

Shaping the Future of Life Sciences Careers

In 2024 and 2025 Hannah and Karolina collaborated with other Life Sciences Sustainability Champions to run student-led careers events exploring the urgent topics that are often overlooked in many career events - the global, environmental, and social challenges facing the life sciences industry. Over 120 students attended, gaining insight into how they can drive meaningful, sustainable action in their future careers and be part of the industry’s evolving response to a changing world.

Speaking about the ‘Careers in Life Sciences: Meeting the Challenges of Global Change’ event in March 2024 a student told us “I really enjoyed how you had such a range of speakers across many different areas... This really diversified the perspectives of having a career within life sciences and the advice that they gave.”

Photo taken at the ’Careers in Life Sciences - Careers for Change Makers’ event in February 2025

Campaigning for Behavioural Change

The Sustainability Champions have also worked hard to create a more climate-conscious community of students, academics and staff in the school of CMM. Here is how they have inspired real change in the community:

• For the last two years, Markella has spoken to all incoming CMM students during Welcome Week about how sustainability considerations are linked to their programmes, raising awareness from the start of their time at university. · Engaged dozens of students, academics and university staff in Climate Fresk workshops. Climate Fresk is a fun, interactive game aimed to educate people on climate change and empower individuals to take action towards a more sustainable future.
• Represented students' voices and pushed for collective action for climate in student-staff liaison meetings.
• Increased awareness of green lab accreditation and practices among students by creating posters on LEAF (the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) and sustainable waste management for the biomedical sciences teaching labs.
• Gathered students' opinions regarding sustainability and ESD, and conveyed feedback to unit directors, the teaching committee and academics in the school to guide decision-making for curriculum development.
• Engaged with staff to explore ways to boost student engagement in sustainability and discuss the best ways to implement ESD in the curriculum.

   

What is LEAF? and Waste management in labs posters created for the biomedical sciences teaching laboratories and on display for hundreds of visitors at the University of Bristol Open Days.

From creating meaningful curriculum changes to campaigning for a more climate-conscious community, the Sustainability Champions have helped embed sustainability into everyday learning and culture of the school. As the programme continues with future Sustainability Champions, the positive impacts of their work will only grow and with each new initiative and change the school moves towards a more sustainable and responsible future.

This article was written by 2024-25 CMM Sustainability Champion Karolina Szykula.