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 …
The top five environmental anthems
October 23, 2015
Sarah Stubbings writes: While working on our plans for the University of Nottingham’s MOOC Sustainability, Society and You, Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi was on repeat play in my head. Joni’s inspiration for the song was looking out of her hotel window in Hawaii and seeing its sublime natural beauty blighted by the sight of …
The Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment joins the Nottingham MOOC Team
October 21, 2015
Professor Sarah Speight writes: Our upcoming MOOC ‘Sustainability, Society and You‘ is being run in association with IEMA – the Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment. IEMA is a professional association that works with individuals and organisations to set, recognise and achieve global sustainability standards and practice. There are currently about 15,000 IEMA members – all …
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 …
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 …
Upcycling all the rage?
July 18, 2014
Two of the course team for our current FutureLearn MOOC, Sustainability, Society and You, course leader Sarah Speight and engineer Mike Clifford, have been busy reusing unwanted pallets. Mike’s gone for a cerebral solution and has turned his into a bookcase (could do with a bit of sanding down and a wax Mike), while Sarah’s …
Living sustainably
May 28, 2014
As someone interested in living sustainably, I subscribe to blogs, Twitter feeds and Pinterest boards of a variety of sustainability-related organisations, firms, and individuals. This way I tend to see a lot of discussion of the details of how to live sustainably, often in the form of steps one can take to move towards a …
Sustainable buildings
February 21, 2014
Examples of particularly sustainable buildings shared by participants in Sustainability, Society and You, the current MOOC on Futurelearn. Business and commercial flagships The Green Firemen: The first six minutes of this video (link below) shows what one local fireman achieved for his station. This Fire station in North Dublin is now carbon neutral and being …
MOOCs are themselves sustainable
January 6, 2014
As we launch our ‘Sustainability, Society and You’ MOOC today through FutureLearn, it is heartening to think that the course itself is sustainable! Online learning, such as in MOOCs, is itself eco-friendly as evidenced in recent studies conducted by the Open University in the UK. Researchers found that distance learning courses consume 90% less energy than …
