Birkbeck Climate Festival 2026: Exploring climate challenges through creativity, research, and community
A programme of talks, workshops and panel events returns this March, inviting students, researchers, professionals and the public to engage with climate science, culture and action.
Birkbeck, University of London’s annual Climate Festival is back from 10–19 March 2026, offering a cross-disciplinary programme that brings together ideas, expertise and practical insight to respond to the climate emergency. The festival highlights Birkbeck’s commitment to sustainability, collaboration and public engagement, with sessions that range from scientific inquiry and policy debate to creative explorations of climate narratives and community action.
Across the festival, attendees can join interactive workshops, in-depth discussions and creative sessions designed to deepen understanding and inspire action. Highlights include an interdisciplinary workshop examining plastic through the lenses of writing and photography; a panel on whether a four-day working week could benefit environmental outcomes; and events that weave together heritage, culture and environmental change, such as “Sustainable Archaeologies in Times of Change”.
Other sessions will explore how immersive media can bring climate issues to life, discuss human interactions with waste and community action, and look at how natural history collections can inform climate solutions.
Open to Birkbeck students, researchers, sustainability professionals, and members of the wider public, the Birkbeck Climate Festival is a chance to connect, learn and contribute to conversations about how society responds to one of the defining challenges of our time.
Professor Joanne Leal, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Innovation and Academic Development, commented:
“At the heart of the Birkbeck Climate Festival is the aim of encouraging discussion, consideration and action about the environment and sustainability. By bringing together cutting-edge research and grounded community perspectives, the festival will act as an incubator for new ideas and exploration into how a difference can be made both locally and globally.”
Festival schedule
Tuesday 10 March
- Peace letters to silenced landscapes – an evening exploring the ecological trauma of war in Ukraine.
Tuesday 17 March
- Creating Value in Schools: Sustainability in Practice (live podcast recording) – online conversation on sustainability in education.
- Sun (24h poster) – participatory climate poster installation open all day.
- Sustainable archaeologies in times of change – exhibit exploring how sustainable archaeology can empower communities while preserving heritage.
- Creativity as a Climate Ally: Greenwashing, Propaganda and Solutions – workshop exploring how advertising and media shape climate perceptions and how creativity can become a climate solution.
- Plastic Planet: Writing, Photography and the Anthropocene – interdisciplinary creative workshop exploring plastic through art and narrative.
- A four-day week to save the environment? – panel discussion on whether reduced working time could support sustainability transitions.
- Climate change literature – can it make a difference? - workshop exploring how novelists can shift minds beyond facts and fear, and toward climate action.
- Ecosphere: Witnessing Climate Change Around the World - an award-winning virtual reality documentary journey created with the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations exploring fragile ecosystems and the communities protecting them.
- Three Fascist Futures and the Climate Crisis – topical ecofascism reading group and discussion.
- Earth, a unique oasis in space? – talk exploring Earth’s possible uniqueness through astrobiology and the profound cosmic responsibility humanity holds for life’s future.
Wednesday 18 March
- From Planet to Plate: Your Zero Waste Food Journey – lunchtime talk with tastings and practical insights on zero-waste eating.
- Ness: Displaced - a climate dramaturgy workshop exploring how creative practice can respond to ecological crisis.
- Reproductive justice and the climate emergency – a talk exploring how the climate emergency is already affecting reproductive health in the UK.
- Humans and waste: taking action and considering communities – interdisciplinary discussion on waste, communities and environmental action.
- Mothers (or not) for Ecological Thinking – lecture exploring ecological care and environmental mourning through the lens of feminist and psychoanalytic thought.
Thursday 19 March
- Writing the Planet Taster: Storytelling and Resistance in the Anthropocene – interactive session exploring how storytelling can act as cultural force in the face of ecological crisis.
- Decoupling Rhetoric from Reality: Greenwashing in the Transition to Net Zero – panel discussion about the widening gap between corporate sustainability claims and substantive environmental action.
- Climate change and immersive learning – hands-on session testing immersive tools for climate education.
- There is no Planet B – an oral history talk exploring how life stories of activists reveal the changing nature of environmental action in the UK over the last 50 years.
- How natural history collections help save the world – expert panel on the role of historic collections for climate research and action.
- Fires & Fascism: film screening and Q&A – documentary screening with post-film discussion.
With the programme of events continuing to grow, it’s advisable to keep an eye on the festival event page for updates and more details.