There are a wide range of sustainability initiatives for students to get involved in, from joining projects on sustainability education to communicating climate change through creativity. We regularly update our list of opportunities for students to ensure students can engage with sustainability and gain valuable sustainability skills in the process.  

Support the integration of sustainability into all modules and courses at King’s. As a volunteer in this project, you will work with the King’s Sustainability Team and student volunteers to understand the barriers in place to embedding Education for Sustainability (EfS) into the curriculum at King’s and develop an EfS strategy which responds and identifies solutions to overcome these barriers.

Volunteers will receive Community Organising training which will empower and enable you to deliver 121 conversations with academics across King's. In these 121s, you will better understand what barriers academics face to embedding EfS within the curriculum.

Volunteers will help us develop the timeline and goals of this project which will be running across the 22-23 academic year.

Once you have completed your 121s with academics, you will help us to develop an EfS strategy for King's and collate resources which will provide support to academics when practically building EfS into the curriculum - shaping these resources off the back of the barriers expressed in the 121s.

Apply via King’s Volunteering platform

This project, funded by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education, brings together the University of Gloucestershire (UoG), University of the Arts London (UAL) and King’s College London. The aim of this project is to create a blueprint for quality sustainability learning and to assist students on all degree programmes to be a driving force for sustainability practise at their university.

The project draws on an Education for Sustainability (EfS) module rating approach, first developed at UoG. The three participating universities will test and refine the rating approach, adapting the principles to each university setting and specific courses examined. This work will be done with the help of with trained students to assess the quality of EfS integration at their home institution, identifying best practice examples and areas for EfS development.

The collaborative project aims to go beyond using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to assess sustainable integration into the curriculum, but instead judge EfS integration by applying a rating framework which looks closely at the role of assessment and course structure.

Overall, the intention is to create a blueprint and guide for how to practically assess and embed EfS across the Higher Education sector.

The outputs of the project will include:

• A blueprint and method of Education for Sustainability assessment that can be applied to any course
• Tools to empower students to ask quality questions of courses and call out ‘curriculum greenwash’
• Publication of a Framework usable by students and academic teams to use this method, and support quality Education for Sustainability integration
• Webinar to disseminate findings to QAA Members

Volunteer to assess the sustainability quality of King's curriculum by supporting us to:

• Rate King’s modules on Education for Sustainability
• Help us to identify how we can refine the rating scale to King’s sustainability goals and strategies
• Communicate the results of the project across the Higher Education (HE) sector and apply findings to broader HE context

Apply via King’s Volunteering platform 

This academic year, King’s Culture and King’s Sustainability teams launch the King’s Culture Climate Collective, a new network supporting students’ art, creativity and storytelling as powerful forces for transforming our climate emergency. Created with and for King’s students, the Collective will feature collaborative arts projects alongside vibrant participatory events to enable you to build community, generate new visions and take action for a sustainable future.

Find out more on King's Culture Climate Collective page.

Student Sustainability Auditors audit teams of Sustainability Champions at King’s. They receive IEMA approved training on sustainability auditing, which they then use to assess the work the staff champions have done within their sustainability workbooks and to evaluate how they meet the sustainability criteria. These workbooks contain various actions covering areas including waste, energy, health & wellbeing, biodiversity and service to the community.

Students go through each completed action with their teams, identifying positive progress the team have made over the year and identifying any areas for improvement to take forward onto the next champions year.

The audits take place around May each year.

Students living in King’s Residences can support the Residences Teams to make them more sustainable. Email resilife@kcl.ac.uk for more information on how to get involved. 

The King's Sustainability team is often looking for King’s students and graduates to get involved. These volunteering and paid opportunities offer skills learning and work experience in a growing field. Check out our current projects and keep up to date about any job openings through our newsletter.

To support students' employability, we recognise all of those who make a significant contribution to sustainability at King’s through the Sustainability Awards and/or the King’s Experience Champion for Change Awards.

King’s Experience Awards gives you formal recognition for activities that you do alongside your degree. They are based on your experiential learning, which can include volunteering in local or international contexts, paid employment, or undertaking additional learning, such as learning another language.

The Sustainability Awards are run by King's Sustainability Team and are awarded in July each year.