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Sustainability and climate emergency

Digital image of sculpture of leaves and rocks floating against a sky background
Digital image of sculpture of leaves and rocks floating against a sky background
Luis Guttierez Rico, MA Graphic Communication Design, Plant Eden

We are committed to addressing the climate and biodiversity 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.

Creative ecologies

Maison/0

Maison/0 is the Central Saint Martins-LVMH creative platform for regenerative luxury. Our partnership is committed to leveraging the agency of creativity and education to help regenerate our climate and biodiversity and to empower emerging talents to design a better future.

The climate and ecological emergency

Designing the future

Leading courses

Sustainability stories

  • Class of 2022: Food
    Seowon Park, MA Narrative Environments

    Class of 2022: Food

    On Central Saint Martins: URL you'll find a collection of projects that look at food in a myriad of ways. Here, we pause on handful of that work by graduating students, from spatial design that connects community to its local food system to an

  • Winners of the MullenLowe NOVA Awards 2022 announced
    Malu Luecking, MA Biodesign

    Winners of the MullenLowe NOVA Awards 2022 announced

    Last night, the winners of the 2022 MullenLowe NOVA Awards were announced. The celebrated work spans disciplines, from spatial practice for climate emergency to films that reframe the perceptions of tower blocks.

  • Mills Fabrica Innovation Award 2022
    Malu Luecking, MA Biodesign

    Mills Fabrica Innovation Award 2022

    Malu Luecking, MA Biodesign, wins the Mills Fabrica Innovation Award with her project Landless Food regenerating extinct flavours using microalgae.

  • Maison/0 This Earth 2022
    Min Zhang, MA Fine Art

    Maison/0 This Earth 2022

    Now in its second year, the Maison/0 This Earth Award celebrates the power of artistic practice to advocate for nature.

College projects

  • Hand holding material samples
    Material Library (photo: Alys Tomlinson)
    Materials and Products Collection

    A resource of innovative materials reflecting the trends in manufacturing

  • Photograph of a brick building

    Fundamentals

    An annual series of public debates chaired by Oliver Wainwright for the Spatial Practices programme

  • back of a studio with shelves, tables, chairs and material lying around
    Image: Paul Cochrane
    MAKE @ Story Garden

    A public space for creative collaboration with, and by, the local community

  • A series of pastel and neon shapes, arrows and squiggles on a purple background

    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

  • Sean T. Ross' Solar Forge
    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

Climate Emergency at UAL

  • Lili Gyarmati, 2021, Pre-degree Photography, London College of Communication, UAL
    UAL Climate Action Plan

    Learn about UAL's key priorities

  • Image: Fiona Fuller, The Open Assembly, BA Interior and Spatial Design, Chelsea College of Arts
    Climate Emergency Network

    A growing UAL community of interest and concern, creative practice and action

Climate Emergency in Research

  • Abstract digital image, resembles grey clouds or smoke over a dark background
    Image courtesy of Tom Corby
    Materializing Data, Embodying Climate Change  

    Changing our experiences of climate change by encountering data in physical forms


  • Living Systems Lab

    Exploring biological living systems to develop new ecological knowledge through creative practices

  • Photograph of dyed textures that look like fish skin
    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