Michelle Jackson, Chair of the SWG

SUSTAINABILITY AT SOMERVILLE The Story So Far

As the college’s Climate Change Champion and Chair of our Sustainability Working Group, Fellow and Tutor in Biology, Associate Professor Michelle Jackson, is at the forefront of Somerville’s move towards net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Here, she discusses the college’s response to the climate crisis and her research into the impacts of human activity on freshwater environments.

Iwas lucky enough to grow up in the Sussex countryside, surrounded by nature. I fell in love with biology at a young age, and still have my childhood handwritten observations of the number of times a day the local blue tit parents fed their chicks. Despite my passion for the subject, it didn’t occur to me until the final year of my undergraduate degree at Queen Mary that I could actually have a career as a researcher – my twin sister and I were the first in our family to go to university, so an academic career wasn’t on our radar.

“I hope that by highlighting the way we are changing the environment, it will drive change.”

My passion for sustainability stems from my work, which focuses on how humans affect freshwater aquatic ecosystems such as streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds. These habitats are often overlooked by conservationists, despite their enormous value for biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Just consider, freshwaters cover less than 1% of the Earth’s surface area, but have 10% of all described species and more than 50% of all described fish species. They are also amazingly diverse. I’ve done fieldwork in locations ranging from the close to home – London’s canals and the Hampstead Heath swimming ponds – to the lakes of Kenya and South Africa and even the freezing reaches of Woodfjorden in Northern Svalbard and Deception Island in Antarctica. All of these habitats are incredibly precious – and fragile. Even small increases in water temperature can have drastic effects on the timing and success of breeding in aquatic plants and animals.

While my work is principally aimed at understanding the impact of humans on the environment rather than proposing solutions, I have also written policy papers and given evidence to Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee on river pollution. I hope that by highlighting the way we are changing the environment, it will drive change – but I also think we should each be taking any opportunities we can today to create change in our individual lives, institutions, and workplaces.

That is why I was delighted when Jan asked me to succeed Professor Renier van der Hoorn as Chair of Somerville’s Sustainability Working Group (SWG). The group, which consists of a broad crosssection of the college from students to admin staff to senior management, has been active since Michaelmas 2019. The quality of discussion and focus on action and policy has been excellent.

We believe that the colleges, staff, and students need to work together towards our ambitious aim of ensuring the university, and more widely, Oxford, becomes truly environmentally sustainable.

Somerville is already transforming to meet this challenge and, as the next few pages will attest, there is plenty more to come.