SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production

Each year final-year Dance students plan their own collaborative project and are encouraged to work with local charities to raise awareness/ funds through their planned performance event. Last year 19 students worked alongside the charity Buckinghamshire Mind and raised over £700 for the charity through their dance gala event ‘We Think Blue’.

The University’s Missenden Abbey conference centre supports the local and national charities by holding fundraising events throughout the year. Over the last 7 years it has supported charities including: Rennie Grove Cancer Support, Thames Valley Air Ambulance, Roald Dahl Children’s Charity, Thomas Ball Children’s Cancer Fund. We provide proceeds from the entrance fees and support in running the event by encouraging the staff to volunteer. This has raised over £10,000 in financial support to the charities. Our main support goes to the Missenden Walled Garden Charity which provides learning and social support to the people with learning disabilities.

SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production - Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

In February 2020, Buckinghamshire New University pledged to go carbon net zero by 2030 - 20 years ahead of the Government’s target - as part of a Love Our Planet day across its campuses. The University had already exceeding the carbon footprint target for 2020, with a 64% reduction since 2011.The Love Our Planet day was celebrated with environmentally-friendly activities, including Fashion and Textiles students unveiling a ‘tree hug’ piece created from recycled materials which was displayed on a tree in the High Wycombe campus.Staff and students shared their pledges on how to be more sustainable by writing on sustainable bunting which was created from scrap material left over from students’ fashion and textile projects.

We manage and dispose of our waste responsibly and have achieved a 12% year-on-year reduction in the amount of waste produced across our three campuses:

Recycling facilities are available for paper, card, plastics, metal, electrical equipment, batteries and mattresses. Our recycling rates are currently at 49%, and increasing.

We are working on food recycling at our campuses and halls of residence, and coffee cup recycling for our cafes. Customers using a reusable Bucks cup already receive discounts on hot drink purchases to discourage the use of paper cups.

Office furniture is reused and repaired until it is no longer economical to do so.

Waste that cannot be recycled is sent to a waste-to-energy plant where possible, and to landfill as a last resort. All hazardous waste is stored in suitable containers and disposed of by specialist contractors using best available techniques in 2016. This scheme collects donations of household items from students, such as crockery and bedding, and makes them available free of charge to new students.

Usable duvets left in our student accommodation are donated to the YMCA, and the remainder are donated to Stokenchurch Dogs’ Home. All donations are delivered using the University’s electric car, the post bus or are collected in person to minimise our environmental impact.

Our students engage in volunteering which supports environmental projects such as beach cleans, litter picking and recycling initiatives.

We have removed more than 5,000 plastic straws from our bars and cafes.

The Bucks New Usage upcycling scheme - which won a Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice - redistributes used and wanted items from student accommodation, such as crockery, kettles and kitchen equipment, to new students. This is both sustainable and helps our students to save money they would have had to spend to prepare for University life.

Bucks’ Students’ Union runs campaigns across campus to promote sustainability: aiming to lower our carbon footprint and encourage students and staff to do their bit for the environment. Students are given the opportunity to take the lead in running campaigns which tackle issues that matter to them most and are provided with the support and guidance to ensure that the campaigns have the desired impact, in collaboration with the University.

In 2019, the Students’ Union’s Green Ambassador, Darren Hannay wanted to challenge the institution to be more sustainable by focusing on the use of paper, especially within courses. By challenging the wasteful use of paper for assignment handins and holding discussions with academics on amending dissertation submissions to solely digital formats. This campaign has been successful with two of the University’s seven Schools now changing the need for paper submissions. The campaign also influenced the Students’ Union office staff who made a pledge to only hold paperless meetings, reducing an estimate of 17,500 pieces of printed meeting papers.

Within our teaching: –Our courses within the School of Art, Design and Performance embed a significant number of the SDGs into its underlying course philosophy which believes in the power of design to question, highlight and challenge issues that affect our planet and its inhabitants. This philosophy often manifests itself in projects that students undertake particularly at Level 6. The responsibilities of the designer are explored in both theoretical and practical areas of the course. These are often related to sustainable production methods and economic models that have the least impact upon the earth’s resources.

The Hannover Principles of Sustainable Design and a Cradle to Cradle philosophy underpin the courses’ sustainability agenda.

The circular economy is debated and discussed to prompt students to re-evaluate how their work might directly be able to eliminate waste and the continual use of resources, both in terms of the materials they use and in the ideas that they develop to initiate audiences and consumers to think about their resource impacts. We also encourage students to engage with the Double Diamond Design process (Design Council) to encourage students to not only solve design problems but also to innovate by identifying problems within the context of current and future social and sustainability agendas.

BA (Hons) Fashion Design and BA (Hons) Textile Design programmes:

‘When we think of industries that are having a harmful effect on the environment, manufacturing, energy, transport and even food production might come to mind. But the fashion industry is considered by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), to be the second most polluting industry in the world.’ (news.un.org: 2019). In response to the changes in legislation and guidance from the United Nations, expanding transparency throughout the fashion and textile supply chain is a subject that has been embraced by the Fashion Design and Textile design programmes at Buckinghamshire New University.

To ensure students are able to develop greater awareness, and an ability to critically evaluate historic and contemporary methods that were used throughout the design and production of textile and garment production, a series of guest lecturers provide opportunities to learn about and debate practices in the sector. The visiting lecturers from industry professionals extend knowledge on many areas and subjects related to mass consumption production methods and circular economy. For example, the decimation of Mongolian grasslands due to the demand of cashmere, recycling or manmade fabrics, and the types of dye and alternate environmentally friendly manufacturing processes for textiles. In addition, students are attending workshops on alternate processes that are considered to have a safer ecological footprint, for example using the laser cutter to create ‘stonewash’ finishes on denim, or etching on velvets to create Devore style fabrics, without chemical application and significantly lower water consumption. Enabling students to compare, analyse and consider the implication if used in manufacturing on a wider scale and preparing them as designers for the future.

Through curriculum changes across contextual and design modules that encourage awareness and informed choices to be made by the students, many are now developing their research practice in the final year projects to consider how attributes of Responsible Consumption and Production can reflect their opinion and inform their career choices.

Examples of student work: –Danielle Flaherty: BA (Hons) Fashion Design final year student who has focused on upcycling denim and experimental methods to change the appearance of denim. Having met with visiting lecturers from New Star Group, international manufacturer and supplier of jeans, to most high street brands, to understand the difference a designer can make from product development through to retail and WGSN.

The importance of the sustainability theme has resonated with our partner colleges and been influential in revalidating the BA (Hons) Fashion Design and BA (Hons) Fashion Business degree programmes at Amsterdam Fashion Academy.

In the Textiles department, we have worked with some key commentators on the issues of Sustainability including Purva Chawla from Materials Driven and Alice Wilby from A Novel Approach. We have a current Research project to put in place a Sustainable Materials Library by Sept 2021. The intention is to have a collection that serves multiple courses within the School, focusing on sustainable materials (both practical and aspirational).

The encouragement to use upcycling and sustainable materials in implemented through all Studio Modules. We look at production methods for yarn and fabric and discuss waste and pollution as part of the curriculum. We have a final-year student Emily Hopkins, growing Biomaterials as her Final Major Project. Sophie McGoldrick is using Polyester made from recycled plastic bottles within her Surface samples and Gemma Singleton is using images that include the theme of Biophilia (connectivity to the natural environment) in her print collection.

Michaela Springfield who graduated two years ago is showing this year at The Surface Design Show with her collection of cork based Acoustic products, and Polly Redfern who graduated three years ago works for NESTA on sustainable innovation.

Third-year BA (Hons) Textile Design student Emily Hopkins is among students already playing their part to help the environment and is using a type of ‘vegan leather’ she grows from a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. Emily wants to set an example of the kind of materials the textile industry could use as an alternative to its staple sources of cotton and polyester, commenting that: “Textiles is the second most-polluting industry in the world, so creating alternatives is a simple way to decrease its impact.”