During Summer 2021, Shannon Branigin (MSc Global Mental Health and Society) completed a placement-based dissertation with the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability (SRS). Her research focused on global mental health, the climate crisis, and sustainable development, looking into Edinburgh’s urban green and blue spaces as opportunities for mental health systems.

Niamh Kinch, Vet student, speaks about her journey as a Sustainability Champion, from helping to make Ecosia the University’s default search engine, to what she learned at COP 26.

Dr Elaine Emmerson, Group Leader, Centre for Regenerative Medicine, Edinburgh BioQuarter, tells us how a hedgehog survey turned into a hedgehog rescue. Survey for the Hedgehog Friendly Campus Project On a sunny Monday afternoon in early August, around 12 volunteers from The Centre for Regenerative Medicine (CRM) and Building Nine on the Edinburgh BioQuarter met […]

The University of Edinburgh has recently been awarded a silver accreditation as a Hedgehog Friendly Campus. Learn more about the importance of protecting our spiky neighbours’ habitat and the student Hedgehog Champions leading this work.

Emma, Kim and Zak attended a virtual PhD workshop run by the University Alliance for Sustainability (UAS), in which participants were able to discuss their research in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Here they share their reflections on this experience and their future plans to build upon the success of […]

Four community and alumni volunteers, Melanie Gillies, Judith Bull, Daniela Izquierdo and Cat Andrade-Robertsen, share their experience of volunteering to map green and blue space in Edinburgh. They used an app to determine the value of areas for people and wildlife, summarised as a Green Infrastructure (GI) Factor.

After months in lockdown, more of us are bringing nature inside our homes in the form of houseplants than ever. What happens when caring for our houseplants go wrong, and how can we do it right? The Secretary of Plant Society, Rebecca Atkinson, explains.

Want to reforest the planet from your own home? We hear from Tamsin Wake, a French and German student, part of the student group campaigning for the University to adopt Ecosia as its default search engine.

We hear from one of the students involved in creating the University’s very own Permaculture garden,  the Ecological and Environmental Science with Management student, Lucie Pestiaux.

Our Voices of the Planet series highlights the real-life impacts of the climate crisis on our University community, focusing on those from the global south. In this entry, we hear from Ecological and Environmental Sciences graduate, Serena Coccioli, about how pressure to meet global food demand is impacting rural areas of Colombia.