How much do you want: lagom, or just enough?
November 9, 2015
Sarah Stubbings writes: Have you ever gone down to the breakfast buffet in a hotel, eagerly looking forward to a meal that someone else has cooked? You’re patiently queueing up when some greedy character in front piles all the best food onto their plate and there’s nothing left for you. How do you react? Next …
Get more out of your Halloween pumpkin!
October 29, 2015
At Halloween, we’re back to the topic of food waste. Apparently when buying your pumpkins you should be aware that there are two grades, ones that are grown simply for carving – the taste isn’t brilliant although they’re still edible – and culinary pumpkins. The latter may be smaller but you can use them in …
Coping with the carrier bag charge
October 19, 2015
How are shoppers coping after Monday 5th October when they started being asked to pay around 5p per single-use carrier bag in shops in England? Charges are already routine in Wales (since October 2011), Northern Ireland (since April 2013) and Scotland (since October 2014). The scheme is intended to protect the environment from the number …
#lovefoodhatewaste on World Food Day
October 16, 2015
I’ve recently been following the #lovefoodhatewaste hashtag on Twitter. With recent news reports on the amount of food wasted worldwide, and the conference “Fight Food Waste, Feed the Planet” at Expo Milan 2015 tackling the issue of food waste with the EU and the UN, it’s very topical. Today, 16th October, World Food Day, UN …
Sustainability, Society and You MOOC starts on 2nd November
October 13, 2015
At the end of September world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and committed to 17 Global Goals which aim to achieve three extraordinary things in all countries in the next 15 years. End extreme poverty. Fight inequality & injustice. Fix climate change. How do these …
Keep calm and pre-cycle!
June 6, 2014
As part of the closing stages of the ‘Sustainability, Society and You’ MOOC we ask participants to, if they wish, produce a poster on a subject relating to sustainability. These are then peer reviewed by other learners. As many are posted publicly, we have seen some wonderful examples, from simple informative posters or exhortations to …
Make time for the MOOC and avoid food waste!
January 4, 2014
Meal planning is a great way to avoid wasting food – and saves money and time too. Wondering what to cook for dinner can be a minor but irritating cause of stress all day. Having a plan means it’s easy to make a shopping list, cutting down shopping time and decisions as well as food …
Advent calendar #25: Using your Christmas leftovers
December 25, 2013
Sarah Speight writes: we have just finished running the ‘NOOC’ – the Nottingham Open Online Course, ‘Perspectives on Sustainability’. This is an internal University of Nottingham version of the Futurelearn MOOC, ‘Sustainability, Society and You’ that starts on January 6th. Our students have been carrying out audits of their domestic waste. While most of them …
Advent calendar #17: Sustainability issue – food waste
December 17, 2013
Would you have thought that VIPs would ever eat imperfect fruit and vegetables? Yet this was exactly what happened in February, when the United Nations treated 500 delegates at its Environment Programme event in Nairobi to a five-course meal of blemished African fruit and vegetables – exactly the kind of food that Western supermarkets would have …
Advent calendar #7: Sustainability in the street
December 7, 2013
Recently I took a short break from all our MOOC preparations and spent an enjoyable weekend in Barcelona. Among the Gaudi, Picasso and other delights of a city I thoroughly recommend for a visit, I came across this alongside the Arc de Triomf. A waste audit in a Barcelona square! Children were being encouraged to …
