Directory of activities
Search these pages to explore a selection of our directory of activities. You can use the keyword search and filter
buttons to discover how we are addressing each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and the five
priorities in our Social Responsibility and Civic Engagement Plan. You can also filter activities by
location and function.
searching subjects: Environmental sustainability
Using AI to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges
The University has been working with an international team of colleagues to create a pioneering research platform called ‘Virtual Labs’, which uses autonomous AI to retrieve and share relevant knowledge with research teams around the world who are now in a race to mitigate the impact of climate change. The technology will also help fast-track new research and innovation to support breakthroughs in diverse areas of study, from the development of new advanced materials to the design of new drugs.
Young People at a Crossroads
The voices of 40 migrant-background 14-18-year-olds in Manchester and Melbourne have taken part in producing a climate education resource for teachers, students and researchers, entitled Young People at a Crossroads: Stories of climate education, action and adaptation from around the world. The project was led by the University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute in partnership with researchers at the University of Melbourne. The team set out to explore and enable conversations about climate change in homes where, through migration, parents and young people grew up in times and places with different exposures to environmental challenges and different information about climate change.
Manchester Museum’s Carbon Literacy toolkit
We launched the first ever museum-sector-specific Carbon Literacy toolkit as part of Roots & Branches, a partnership between Manchester Museum, Museum Development North West (MDNW), and The Carbon Literacy project. The toolkit helps museum professionals and volunteers undertake training, to then certify as Carbon Literate. This foundational work supports staff, volunteers, and partners to build their understanding of climate action, so that they can make informed sustainable choices. The project also encourages museums to develop organisational pledges to act against climate change.
Sustainability Challenge photography competition
We host an annual Sustainability Challenge photography competition, asking students to submit a picture that raises awareness of a sustainability issue that they are passionate about. Alongside this, the challenge encourages students to express their opinions and critically engage with issues relating to climate change.
Sustainable Futures
Sustainable Futures aims to bring together the unique depth and breadth of internationally leading research at our University, as well as interdisciplinary working to produce sustainable solutions for urgent environmental challenges. The organisation also aims to develop complete understandings of the environmental systems on which we depend and how humans interact with them, spurring scientific innovation and facilitating societal change at a scale and pace to address environmental crises.
Student Volunteering Week
Each year our University organises the Student Volunteering Week which aims to encourage students to take part in various volunteering opportunities to help society and the environment. For example, in 2025, in partnership with Ardwick Climate Action, students took part in sprucing up areas around Kale Street and the Mancunian Way, improving the biodiversity of the area and making it cleaner and greener for the residents.
Innovative solutions to GM public food procurement
A researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Sustainable Consumption Institute has co-published a report entitled ‘Being Brave: Innovative Solutions to Public Food Procurement.’ The report highlights how to improve food systems and the resilience of food procurement while also reducing its impact on the climate. The report also finds that there is a pressing need to improve school food provision and that adopting a more sustainable approach to school meals could facilitate substantial benefits in children’s nutrition and health, as well as reduced carbon emissions.
Caring in a Changing Climate
Dr. Sherilyn MacGregor, Reader in Environmental Politics at our University, is the lead author of a major report ‘Caring in a Changing Climate‘ commissioned by Oxfam America that investigates the impacts of climate breakdown, climate mitigation and adaptations on care work. The report calls for greater actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions and a more significant focus on the nexus of climate and care work within policy and research. It points to the need for climate initiatives to pursue gender-transformative approaches via the adoption of care sensitive interventions.
Greater Manchester Green Summit
Our University plays a key role in providing expertise on how we can reach the University’s goal of Zero Carbon by 2038, which is pivotal to influencing stakeholders to take greater action in addressing climate change. The Green Summit brings together residents, businesses, policy makers and community groups that share a determination for the city-region to be carbon neutral by 2038.
Sustainability at Manchester University Press
Our Manchester University Press (MUP) are focused on sustainable publishing practices and enabling readers to be responsible consumers when it comes to books. MUP regularly works with audiobook producer ‘Sound Understanding’ on many titles to make the daily lives of readers more sustainable. MUP’s audiobook programme focuses on releasing books aimed at a general readership interested in society and the world around us.
Preventing aquatic ecosystem damage
Our work in hydrology and hydrochemistry to understand metals, carbon and gases in water systems has led to the development of a highly successful spin-out company, Salamander, which has brought to market two cutting-edge pieces of water monitoring software – chloroclam and hydroclam – which are being used in industry to improve water and marine system monitoring. We have also undertaken work to understand hypoxia – dead fish zones – which has directly informed marine industry practice on aquatic ecosystems.
Cooperative planning for climate change disasters
We are involved in co-operative planning for climate change disasters at both local and regional levels, working closely with government. Locally, our Grow Green Project supports local government, partners and stakeholders to design and deliver a detailed green infrastructure masterplan for climate action resilience in West Gorton, Manchester. Regionally, our RESIN Eco-cities project involves leading a consortium of researchers at the forefront of urban climate adaptation research.
Renewable energy pledge
100% of our electricity consumption is backed with REGO (‘Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin’) certification. This means that for every megawatt (or 1,000kWh) of electricity the University consumes, the equivalent volume of electricity is generated from renewable sources.
We encourage our staff, students and our local community to make a similar move to renewable energy suppliers!
Social responsibility partnerships
Examples of our civic partnerships include:
We also prioritise global partnerships to advance our work towards the SDGs. These include:
Policy@Manchester
Policy@Manchester is our University’s sector-leading policy engagement institute.
It connects researchers with policymakers and influencers, nurturing long-term policy engagement partnerships and impact.
Public engagement partnerships
We partner with a range of organisations to carry out meaningful public engagement with diverse audiences and share ideas and research as well as inspiring informed discussion, debate and creativity.
Examples include:
Student learning partnerships
We’re committed to empowering students with the knowledge, skills and opportunities to address all of the SDGs through partnerships with public, private and civil society organisations.
Our University Living Lab platform connects student projects with external organisations to address the SDGs.
Our Volunteer Hub acts to advance partnerships between hundreds of charities and our student volunteers.
And many academic programmes offer service-learning partnerships, where external organisations benefit from practical student interventions in areas such as dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, business and legal advice.
Biodiversity on campus
To help promote biodiversity on campus, we’ve developed:
- an online, interactive campus Tree Trail highlighting 50 of the 1,500 trees across Oxford Road Campus, North Campus and Whitworth Park.
- a tree plan requiring the planting of two trees for every one removed by our campus developments.
- UMAPIT (University of Manchester Animal Positions and Information Tracker) – a bespoke app to allows the public to record sightings of urban wildlife species.
We ensure our biodiversity hotspots are taken care of:
The Firs is located on the University’s Fallowfield campus and houses a suite of facilities for environmental research, monitoring and engagement.
Our UNESCO World Heritage site, Jodrell Bank, is another area rich in biodiversity.
We’ve also transformed a former road into Brunswick Park – a pocket park to enhance green space and wellbeing on campus.
Cultural venues and nature
The Whitworth created the UK’s first dedicated post of Cultural Park Keeper.
This has led to the creation of a Natural and Cultural Health Service programme of outdoor activities to raise awareness, educate and inspire our diverse visitors to connect with and protect life in our park.
At Jodrell Bank we work with community and voluntary groups, including the RSPB and the Cheshire Beekeepers Association, to protect and enhance our natural environment.
Nature Recovery Network
A renowned engagement expert from our School of Environment, Education and Development is using her Ketso Connect community and stakeholder engagement toolkit to help the government’s Natural England advisers launch their National Recovery Network.
This network aims to restore 75% of protected sites and to create or restore 500,000 hectares of additional wildlife-rich habitat.
The project is piloting public and civic engagement models with local libraries across Manchester.
Species conservation
Our Manchester Museum Vivarium is dedicated to the conservation of reptiles and amphibians.
We recently partnered with Panama Wildlife Charity PWCC on non-invasive research and conservation education involving local communities in the Santa Fe National Park in Panama.
This led to a world first in 2021: one of the world’s rarest toads, the Harlequin Frog, was successfully bred in captivity outside its country of origin, at our museum.
We also curate a world-famous FrogBlog and deliver a digital Learning with Lucy conservation programme for schools.
Manchester City of Trees
As part of our partnership with the local NGO, Manchester City of Trees, students can use our Volunteer Hub to sign up for one-off or weekly tree planting sessions or even become a Citizen Forester.
Our student volunteering is supporting their mission of planting one tree for every person across Greater Manchester, creating a healthier and more sustainable city region.
Community forestry in Nepal
Deforestation is the second leading cause of climate change after fossil fuels, accounting for almost a fifth of planet-warming emissions.
Our researchers led an international and interdisciplinary team of ecologists, economists and political scientists in the largest ever study of community forestry.
Studying 18,000 community-led forest initiatives in Nepal we found that community-forest management led to a 37% relative reduction in deforestation and a 4.3% relative reduction in poverty.
Getting to the root of poor soil health and bringing it back to life
Researchers in our Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences have examined degraded soils of grasslands in Kenya and China to understand the role of soil biodiversity in creating and supporting healthy ecosystems.
We’ve scaled up novel approaches to harness ecological connections between native soil microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, algae) and native plants to accelerate recovery from degraded to healthy soil.
Tools have been developed to provide accessible and practical knowledge for local communities to repair soils and public and policy awareness has been raised of the vital importance of soil biodiversity on a global scale.
Making labs greener
Leading the way in achieving the University’s pledge to eliminate avoidable single-use plastic usage, staff in our School of Biological Sciences are reducing single-use plastics in the lab through adoption of a 6R approach.
This has included:
- refining protocol and optimising waste management;
- reducing single-use items;
- re-using materials, plastic containers and gloves;
- using recycled material;
- replacing plastics where possible with glass, paper or wood.
