Greener Future Leaders from the University of Westminster’s Cavendish Living Lab delivered a series of sustainability workshops at local secondary schools, empowering young people to take meaningful action on environmental sustainability within their school community.
The Greener Future Leaders first visited The St Marylebone CE School, where they delivered lunchtime sessions with members of the school’s Eco Club. Students were introduced to the Cavendish Living Lab and its sustainability initiatives across Westminster, highlighting how research and community engagement can address environmental challenges.
Students were trained to carry out food waste audits, analyse waste patterns and design a food waste awareness campaign. The students then implemented the campaign within their school community and delivered a presentation to the entire school, sharing findings and promoting sustainable food practices.
Student presentation at The St Marylebone CE school
In January, the Greener Futures Leaders also delivered three sustainability workshops at The Grey Coat Hospital School. These sessions introduced students to the concept of sustainability, its importance and its impact on both present and future generations through quizzes, debates and group activities such as sustainability charades. Students explored practical ways to adopt sustainable habits in their daily lives and learned how individual actions connect to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
A total of 180 Year 7 students participated, with 60 students attending each workshop. The sessions encouraged active engagement, reflection and discussion, empowering young learners to become informed and responsible global citizens.
Workshop activity at The Grey Coat Hospital School
The Greener Futures Leaders at Westminster are funded by the London Community Foundation and the Grosvenor Trust’s Greener Futures Fund project, which aims to deliver interactive workshops on food sustainability to children in the City of Westminster borough.
The workshops were designed and delivered by a multidisciplinary team of Greener Futures Leaders consisting of second-year Public Health BSc Honours student Priyambada Sinha Roy; final-year Biomedical Science BSc Honours student Julia Pinheiro Bassani; final-year Biochemistry BSc Honours student Nellmah Sahar; and doctoral researchers from the School of Life Sciences Soumya Sharma and Laima Tokhi. They were assisted by volunteers from the Cavendish Living Lab alongside members of the Grosvenor Trust and the wider community.
About the workshops Rupert Littlewood, a teacher at The Grey Coat Hospital School, said: “We were delighted to host the Cavendish Living Lab for workshops with our whole Year 7 cohort introducing the concept of sustainability. The students really enjoyed the wide range of activities which catered for the different learning styles within the group. They also had a chance to really consolidate their learning, as well as share their ideas widely in front of their peers. They also enjoyed discovering more about the varied work of the lab and their students, and how ideas and designs can actually be put into practice in real world scenarios.”
A student from The Grey Coat Hospital School who attended the workshop said: “This project has taught us all the importance of sustainability and how doing it can make our future bright, sustainable and clean. It has taught us that we do not have a planet B, so we need to look after this one even more carefully, by reducing, reusing, recycling and repeating this process until we are living in a healthy, clean planet.”
Charlotte Byrne, Data Analyst Apprentice Sustainability at Grosvenor Property UK and workshop volunteer, said: “Volunteering with the Greener Futures team at Westminster was a genuinely uplifting experience. The day made it clear that sustainability truly sits at the heart of learning for the current generation, reflected in the students’ enthusiasm and the sophistication of the solutions they developed.”
Greener Future Leader Julia Pinheiro Bassani said: “Embedding sustainability into education from the very beginning is what creates real, lasting change. While delivering the workshop at The Grey Coat Hospital School, I could clearly see how engaged the Year 7 students were, particularly when discussing topics such as fast fashion and less polluting forms of communal transport. Moments like these show the power of collaboration between schools, students and partners like the Cavendish Living Lab, and how, by working together, we can build a strong foundation that empowers young people to apply sustainability in their everyday lives.”
The workshops directly contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3: Good Health and Wellbeing, 4: Quality Education and 12: Responsible Consumption and Production. Since 2019, the University of Westminster has used the SDGs holistically to frame strategic decisions to help students and colleagues fulfil their potential and contribute to a more sustainable, equitable and healthier society.
Find out more about the Cavendish Living Lab at the University of Westminster.
To find out how to support the Cavendish Living Lab, please email the Development team.
Presentation at The Grey Coat Hospital School
Greener Futures Leader Souyma Sharma
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