Birkbeck Climate Festival

Join Birkbeck’s Climate Action Network for a relaxed, creative hour of upcycling at our bookmark-making stand.

An evening of film, writing and discussion exploring the ecological trauma of war in Ukraine through shared practices of grief, care and healing.

Have you ever seen a round poster? Can we hear the sun? Are we really listening? Join in and contribute to a collective call to action by sharing images that respond to the climate breakdown.

Through conversations with educators, the Creating Value in Schools podcast explores practical ideas to provoke thought, inspire action and create better outcomes for learners and communities.

This exhibit explores how sustainable archaeologies can move beyond preservation to support communities, shared decision-making and responsibility to the future.

How do advertising and media shape the way we think about the climate? Join Thea de Gallier to explore how creative work can challenge greenwashing and become part of the climate solution.

This interdisciplinary workshop invites writers and photographers to explore plastic as both a material and a metaphor - at once miraculous and destructive.

Can reducing working time help address the climate crisis? This session brings together leading voices from politics, research, and practice to explore the environmental impacts of the four-day week.

Everyone knows about climate change but how do authors write books that change people’s minds and motivate them to take action?

Ecosphere (2020) is an award-winning immersive documentary created with the World Wildlife Fund and United Nations field experts, transporting audiences to some of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.

How might the far right respond to the climate crisis, and how could climate breakdown reshape authoritarian politics?

This talk explores a 'cosmic perspective' on life on Earth, considering our planet’s fragility and the unique responsibility humans may hold for the future of life itself.

This lunchtime talk and tasting explores how zero-waste food choices can reduce environmental impact.

This workshop on climate dramaturgy is for theatre makers, storytellers and anyone involved in creating or shaping events.

This talk explores how the climate emergency is already affecting reproductive health in the UK as a lived reality, not a distant future risk.

Waste increasingly shapes our everyday environments, from public spaces to coastlines. This session explores how communities interact with waste and what collective action can address its growing environmental impacts.

Dr Catherine Lord explores environmental mourning through the figure of the maternal, bringing together ecological humanities, psychoanalysis and feminist theory.

This talk explores learning from a Climate Partnership–funded collaborative project bringing together a psychodynamic psychotherapist, local education manager and nature guide.

How can storytelling respond to the scale of planetary ecological crisis? This interactive session explores narrative’s power to shape ecological awareness, drawing on eco-fiction, critical theory and climate communication.

Explore the growing gap between corporate sustainability claims and real environmental action. This research presentation is followed by a panel examining greenwashing, ESG failures and the slow pace of decarbonisation.

Immersive media can help the public understand the complexities of climate change in vivid, meaningful ways.

Join Dr Toby Butler, Head of Birkbeck’s Immersive Learning Centre, for a talk on how the life-stories of UK environmental activists over the past 50 years reveal the evolving nature of environmental action.

Join Jack Ashby and Isabel Davis as they explore how historic specimens are being reimagined to inform climate action and more sustainable futures.

Fires and Fascism is a powerful new documentary exploring how Europe’s wildfires are linked not only to climate change, but to fascism, big business and the rise of the far right.

In this Breakfast with Birkbeck session, Dr Konstantinos Chalkias and Dr Ellen Pei-yi Yu discuss financing a greener world.

This session explores how energy utilities, efficiency, and net-zero strategies can be made accessible and equitable.

Exploring the intersection of technology, policy and finance in building sustainable energy solutions that are both accessible and equitable across all communities.

Bringing together veterinarians, social scientists and environmental researchers to explore the sustainable practice of parasiticide use in our pets.

A collaboration between the Birkbeck Research Centre for Environment and Sustainability and the Environmental Education Team, this session looks at how to work across disciplinary divides.

This session looks at the emotional dimensions of climate change - anxiety, grief and solastalgia and provides a space for discussing how these emotions relate to the climate crisis.

This talk looks at early philosophical ideas on the relationship between humans and nature, focusing on cultivation, farming and human agency.

This event brings together PhD students from across the College and across disciplines to showcase their research on environment and sustainability.

'Financing a greener world: How do we manage environmental risks in investment and insurance?'

A hands-on session in the art of Sashiko - the traditional Japanese mending technique.

Focusing on urban resilience, climate adaptation, resource management and social equity, this session will highlight the role of narrative in addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene.

This talk provides an overview of existing approaches to the issue of Just Transitions in urban food systems, highlighting key political and policy implications of these ideas.