Hello, I'm Rahim, a first-year Environmental Geoscience student studying at UCL.
My motivations for attending the Sustainability Leadership Conference 2025 were to improve my knowledge of sustainability, whilst also getting experience of attending and making the most out of my first ever conference.
The three-day event, packed full of sessions, was a perfect opportunity to bring together students with sustainability experts, and allow us to discuss the biggest challenges facing the planet today, and how to tackle them.
Day 1: Key trends and challenges in sustainability
The first day of the conference opened with an introductory keynote/ panel from WHO to discuss key trends in sustainability, challenges facing young people today, and the importance of effective leadership on climate activism.
Following this, I attended a panel highlighting the importance of politics in sustainability, which featured key activists such as Abdi Suleiman, Friends of the Earth, and Lucy Pegg, Greenpeace. They explored the links between social media and political parties' elections campaigns when it comes to using sustainability for popularity purposes. An important takeaway was that climate-related policies are becoming increasingly important in government - to make progress, we just need to vote for the right one!
After a short break for lunch, Kathryn Pharr, Jacob Tompkins, Luiza Campos and Fiona Jeffery OBE, took the stage to explore the importance of water sustainability, the impacts of trans-water conflict, and the of depleting water resources exacerbated by climate change.
I then attended the ENO Breathe Workshop, led by the English National Opera Institute (my highlight of the day!). This opened my eyes to the benefits of doing breath work when dealing with stressful situations. The exercises involved us practicing different breathing techniques and joint relaxation, all from the comfort of our own chairs.
The last session on ‘Decarbonising the Energy System’ with Isobel McPartlin, Malte Jansen and Jan Rosenow explored how to effectively reduce the carbon in the energy system, while meeting the demands of the growing population. One surprising fact that I learnt from this panel was that only 33% of our electricity bill goes to the electricity production, and the rest goes on the running costs!
To end the day, I networked further with other UCL students and the guest speakers at the Riverside East Cafe where I enjoyed complimentary soft drinks.
Day 2: Investigating Sustainability – can we modify what we have to be more sustainable?
I started day two of the conference with a hands-on workshop led by Joss Carr, a master’s student from Queen Mary University studying Biodiversity, where we learned how to effectively record biodiversity in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We used observations from the lens we attached onto our phones to examine the characteristics of numerous species, such as crickets, ladybugs and locusts. I really enjoyed the active nature of this workshop, and came away with a sense of how important it is to maintain ecological biodiversity. We saw a species that has only been seen once in the UK!
After a short break, I attended a workshop led by Georgia Cavanagh and Shana Gallagher of the British Standard Institute on how important it is that we maintain international standards in effectively transitioning to Net Zero. The workshop provided us with an insight as to how companies’ plan their Net Zero strategy - I was surprised to learn that 92% of companies argue that there are still barriers in preventing them from reaching Net Zero by 2050.
During the session, we went into smaller breakout groups to discuss the barriers that stakeholders might have when addressing the challenge of reaching Net Zero – we concluded that consistency and accountability is by far the most important factor to meet Net Zero Goals.
Consistency and accountability is by far the most important factor to meet Net Zero Goals.
In the afternoon, I attended a Sustainability Skills Workshop led by Unilever which involved us being split into groups and completing short presentations. My group used the ‘Human Rights’ pillar of Unilever to present on ‘Human Rights Accountability within the Supply Chain Industry’. This workshop taught me the importance of accountability (which tied in well with the previous workshop) in managing effective and sustainable climate change – something which tends to get undermined within the fast fashion industry.
The final workshop of the day was the Sustainability in Sport panel, where I listened to Claire Pool from Sport Positive, Elliot Arthur-Worsop from Football for Future, Freddy Daley from Cool Down and Alexei Rojas, a professional Arsenal football player, share their thoughts on how football can be made more sustainable - from the kit to the stadiums. It was really interesting to gain an insight into how sustainability is implemented in the sports sector through everyday actions.
To finish, I had a front-row seat to the Climate Comedy session with Stuart Goldsmith - a really unique end to the day!
Day 3: Turning ideas into effective strategies for action
I began the final day of the Sustainability Leadership Conference by attending the ‘Designing Technology for Collective Intelligence’, where we explored how AI platforms can be used in shaping democracy and urban planning. The main takeaway from this session for me was that it is important we consider the way in which we use AI: there are significant environmental impacts to using AI sources for even simple things.
I then shifted my focus to the UCL Sustainability Council (SusCo) where we focused on formulating a link between fossil fuels and banking. This workshop revealed how important it is that we switch to sustainable banking to prevent further losses.
To end the conference, we had a final networking opportunity, with canapes, complimentary drinks and time to take photos.
Post-conference reflections
Overall, the conference was full of inspiring lessons. One of my main takeaways was that we have already passed the tipping point - we now need leaders who are actively pushing for sustainable changes.
It was also really refreshing to learn new skills at this conference. The session with ENO about breathing was a great example of this, and I will use the techniques to better equip myself in high stress environments.
It's clear that interest in sustainability is growing - there is a growing amount of people looking to pursue a career in sustainability. 63,000 jobs are now being created encompassing sustainability, and it is becoming increasingly integrated into policy.
A really important takeaway for me was that anyone can be a climate leader if they are educated about it. In order to truly create an impact, we need to make sure people are continuously educated on climate and sustainability issues, and that they don't get brushed under the carpet.
My final takeaway from the conference is that we need to change our attitude towards sustainability, and we need to do it now! I’m sure this is self-explanatory, but we are the future. Anyone can be a leader in sustainability, and we need to start paving the way NOW.
We now need leaders who are actively pushing for sustainable changes