Climate Fresk at NTU

In 2023, Associate Professor of Fashion & Sustainability and School Executive member, Amy Twigger Holroyd, spearheaded the Nottingham School of Art and Design (A&D) to embrace the initiative. The school have since delivered workshops to over 150 staff and 400 students, with five undergraduate courses incorporating the sessions into their curriculum. Feedback has been positive, with students noting how the workshops deepened their understanding of climate change. Over 30 staff members within the school have since become trained facilitators, building a network of climate champions within the department.

Climate Fresk contributes to A&D's wider Climate Action Strategy which includes a variety of initiatives including the Changemakers Climate Justice Award, Tree Trail Tuesdays, and Climate Chats. This integration of Climate Fresk into departmental practices has helped embed sustainability in both staff development and student learning, and can lead as inspiration for other departments to do the same.

Lucy Yates, NTU's Sustainability Engagement Officer, highlighted the impact of these sessions: "Climate Fresk empowers NTU staff and students to adopt practices that enable ambitious targets within the university’s Environmental Management System (EMS) and Net Zero Carbon goal. Art and Design’s leadership in this area highlights a model that, if followed by other schools, can accelerate our journey toward our Embracing Sustainability ambition of being sector leading."

The Climate Fresk initiative supports NTU’s Embracing Sustainability strategic theme, which aims to position the university as a leader in sustainability within higher education. The Sustainability Team delivers workshops that are not only informative but also tailored to the specific needs and interests of different departments, ensuring that the content resonates with a wide range of staff and students and the impacts they can make on and off campus.

The opportunity to become a facilitator empowers participants to spread knowledge and take action, creating a self-sustaining model for climate education. Additionally, the workshops enhance employability by providing students with essential green skills increasingly valued in the job market.

The discussion prompted during Climate Fresk, within both curriculum and professional sessions, allow both students and colleagues to extend sustainable practices into their personal and professional lives, reinforcing NTU’s impact beyond campus.

Student feedback has included “I enjoyed how engaging the activities where and how I learned more about the effects we have on the environment in more depth.” And “I did not realise how interconnected [the climate] was and that our actions have many different consequences”