Sustainability and climate emergency
Our relationship with the planet's resources calls for urgent and lasting change. If the global population reaches 9.6 billion by 2050, the equivalent of almost three planets with be required to sustain current lifestyles.
Artists and designers are uniquely placed to meet these challenges. All forms of creative practice combine the ability to imagine new futures with the means to deliver them. Our work isn't defined simply by what we produce, but what comes before and after – how those things are made and how they are used.
We understand that the world is shaped through creative action.
The Climate and Ecological Emergency
Designing the Future
Leading courses
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Credit: Maria Macc Maria Macc, Maria Macc
Sustainability stories
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Grow your own phone accessories
Welcome to the near-future designed by MA Material Futures students Rūta Irbīte and Liene Kazaka in response to a brief from Three.
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Class of 2020: Waste at Work
From unwanted food to industrial byproducts, we are producing waste at an alarming rate. Many of our graduating students are rethinking waste as raw material and here, we speak to just a few of them.
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Class of 2020: Mia Karren
Graduating from BA Textile Design, Mia Karren shares her experience living in an isolated Airstream caravan with no running water and making her own tools for her final project exploring the meaning of shelter.
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Class of 2020: Nature Speaks
As the climate emergency emphasises just how dysfunctional our collective relationship with nature truly is, we take a look at graduating work – spanning from a biocomputer to a gull costume – that gives nature a voice.
College projects
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Ca-cough-any (2017) A performance protest by PDP students as part of Greenweek 2017 instigated by a workshop on CLEAN AIR with Greenpeace,
Plural Futures
A series of co-design workshops questioning existing practices and imagine future possibilities
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Fundamentals
An annual series of public debates chaired by Oliver Wainwright for the Spatial Practices programme
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Material Library (photo: Alys Tomlinson)
Materials and Products Collection
A resource of innovative materials reflecting the trends in manufacturing
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Image: Paul Cochrane
MAKE @ Story Garden
A public space for creative collaboration with, and by, the local community
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Alternative Futures
Organised by the Culture and Enterprise programme, exploring what ethical circular practice looks like, and how it might change our relationship to objects, people and ourselves
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A close up of MA Material Futures student Sean T. Ross' Solar Forge created for the Swarovski Conscious Design project. Image: Bruce Basudde
Swarovski Conscious Design Hub
A lasting, free resource for designers championing creativity and collaboration as a driving force for sustainable development, delivered in partnership with the Jewellery, Textiles and Materials programme
Sustainability at UAL
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Sustainability at UAL
Explore UAL's commitment and engagement with sustainability
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Grey to Green, London College of Communication UAL event.
Green League success
UAL jumps 25 places to 19th in the UK's Green League ranking universities by ethical and environmental criteria
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UAL Carbon dashboard
Take a look at our electricity, gas and water consumption, and waste production
Climate Emergency in Research
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Image courtesy of Tom Corby
Materializing Data, Embodying Climate Change
Changing our experiences of climate change by encountering data in physical forms
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Living Systems Lab
Exploring biological living systems to develop new ecological knowledge through creative practices
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Tokushima indigo dye museum, Indigo dyeing on fish skin. Image taken by Takayuki Ishii, 2019
Fishskin
Developing a new category of raw material for fashion – fish leather