One Planet Week
One Planet Week runs every year during Week 6 of Spring Term to celebrate and share sustainability knowledge and research at the University to staff, students and the wider public. We are using the One Planet Living® framework created by Bioregional – find out more at www.bioregional.com/one-planet-living.
One Planet Week aims to provide a platform from which to promote awareness, and share knowledge and actions on sustainability to staff, students and the wider community. The title reminds us that we live on a planet with finite resources and that currently we're living beyond those limited means - every year the average European consumes 3 planet’s worth of resources (for the USA the figure is 5 planet’s worth)!
For the second year we have a range of activities online, plus some face to face ones on campus. We aim to record all online activities so they are available for catch-up on the Sustainability YouTube Channel.
For presentations given outside of One Planet Week, we have a range of sustainability and climate change themed talks within this York Ideas YouTube playlist.
“The publication of our Sustainability Plan in October 2021 demonstrated how we are setting sustainability at the heart of the University’s strategic aims, recognising it is of crucial importance for our future.
I would encourage you to support these goals by getting involved with One Planet Week events and activities, including a Sustainability Forum where you have the chance to raise your questions about our sustainability ambitions.”
Charlie Jeffrey, Vice-Chancellor
One Planet Week 2023: Land and Nature
Our theme for 2023 is Land and Nature, with most events available in person and open to the public, and will be recorded.
One of the 10 principles of One planet living® (a framework by Bioregional) Land and Nature focuses on creating, protecting and restoring land for the benefit of people and wildlife. It promotes positive impacts on natural ecosystems and not to harm them, from extraction to production and retail. It further outlines the need to source materials responsible and eliminate the use of materials associated with the destruction of natural habitats, while making a positive impact to local biodiversity.
Through some of our events we will look at what is the current impact on Land and Nature in Yorkshire, understanding how biodiversity and wildlife changes, as well as what you can do to preserve it. We will further explore sustainable methods of production and food, which reduce the impact on our land, and understand the current leading solutions to climate destruction and preservation from people around York.
Join in with our events
Watch this space - more information about our upcoming events will be coming soon!
Previous themes and events
Find out more about our previous One Planet Week events in the dropdowns below.
OPW22’s theme was Equity and Local Economy, which focused on a range of sustainable events revolving around the topics of local food, climate crisis, practical actions and sustainable businesses. It saw events such as a live cooking demo using locally sourced sustainable food, to learning about Yorkshire’s bioeconomy and business growth. There was a wide range of workshops and discussions with many social events and activities. Some of the presentations from the week can be found on the OPW22 playlist on our Sustainability YouTube channel.
We moved all our activities online for 2021 and covered sustainability related to Culture and Community, including sharing a virtual meal in our online cooking demo. We also looked at how different communities are affected by the climate crisis and how sustainability solutions can affect and interact with those with disabilities. Some of the presentations from the week are available on our OPW21 playlist on our Sustainability Youtube Channel
OPW20 was on the theme of Zero Carbon and included a range of educational and practical events to show how low carbon living could be achieved. We teamed up with GIKI to help people find low carbon foods when they shop and ran a community volunteering event to plant 1000 trees for One Planet both on campus and on local school and community recreation grounds. Some of the presentations from the week can be found on the OPW20 playlist of our Sustainability Youtube channel.
#OPW19
OPW2019 had some great events from the Ocean Plastics Exhibition to Ethical Clothes Swaps, Quizzes, Tombola, Eco-cafe crawls and making your own Beeswax Wrap workshop.
We also had our "More Sustainable Options" labels in the Nisa in Market Square, which highlighted local and seasonal products, vegan options, Fairtrade accreditations, recycled materials, and/or use of sustainable palm oil.
Our calendar below shows all the activities which ran throughout the week.
The calendar is visible to all members of the University - you need to be logged into your University Google Account to see it. Click the +Google Calendar button (bottom right) to subscribe to the calendar.
#OPW18
In 2018 staff and students demonstrated their commitment to the theme (and principle) of Zero Waste!
Starting with a Karaoke Night in the Courtyard, #OPW18 included a range of workshops from upcycling to fixing musical instruments; a college recycling audit competition; a Zero Waste Challenge; a virtual Wonder Wander in the 3Sixty Room; and building a bug hotel building - to name but a few.
What next?
Being more sustainable isn’t just for One Planet Week!
Check out our web pages to find out more things that you can do to make sure you're living more sustainable and within our one planet's resources.
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