The 18^th of October marks Christ Church’s Social and Environmental Justice for a Sustainable Future Conference.

As part of the Diamond Jubilee celebration, various teams have come together to arrange an interdisciplinary day that explores social and environmental justice and its application to creating a sustainable future.

The day will host a number of presentations, workshops, Q&As and interactive activities led by environmentalists, academics, and individuals with lived experience. Topics range from craftivism and fast fashion to ecofascism and sustainable human development. Alongside a poetry reading and a tour of the climate dragon on Becket Lawn, Repair Café: Ashford will also be present at the event, encouraging delegates to bring a range of broken items in need of repair.

There will also be a Recycle Revamp Repurpose clothes swap, in which delegates can bring their old clothes and have them fixed at the sewing table, decorated at the printing table, or swapped out with other donated clothes on a one-to-one basis, totally free of charge.

At the beginning of the day, Nannette Youssef will be making the keynote speech. Youssef works out of The Runnymede Trust, an independent race equality think tank, and recently co-wrote Confronting Injustice: Racism and Environmental Emergency in partnership with Greenpeace.

Sustainability remains one of the biggest challenges facing our planet. We live in a world that is already experiencing unprecedented levels of biodiversity loss, extreme weather events, relentless population growth and natural resource depletion, in addition to on-going inequity and injustice, and these problems are slated to only get worse without mobilisation of people and government pressure.

However, The Social and Environmental Justice conference is also about developing a hopeful future and how we, and universities, can drive that forward.

The conference will be running from 9am to 5pm on the 18^th of October out of Augustine House in the morning, and Verena Holmes from noon onwards. The event is totally free, and all are welcome to attend, but booking is necessary. You can book through the BH365 events page.

This conference has been organised by the Academy for Sustainable Futures in partnership with Closing our Gap, BH365, EDIE, LTE, Global Majority Network, Interdisciplinary Research Network, International Office and SU.


By Bethany Climpson, Sustainability Engagement Assistant

Featured image by Jade Barker