Empowering our students to make sustainable changes in their personal and professional lives.
What's covered?
We’re equipping our students with the knowledge and skills to live more sustainably and make a positive impact in their chosen industry when they graduate.
Why?
Educational leaders are anticipating that graduates with sustainability expertise can expect to be increasingly employable in the years to come, and it’s also becoming increasingly clear that the commercial and business world is radically changing its approach towards sustainability.
Falmouth has a responsibility to bring sustainability into all areas of our activity – which is why we’re embedding sustainable learning into all of our existing courses, as well as launching new sustainability-focused courses.
Our approach will help make our students better global citizens as part of our necessary collective response to the climate and ecological emergency.
What we want to achieve
Goal 1
To design our curriculum to include sustainability learning outcomes and assessment criteria in all courses.
Goal 2
To embed sustainability related challenges and projects in the curriculum aligned with our action-oriented philosophy and transdisciplinary approach.
Goal 3
To ensure our graduates will leave Falmouth University with a greater awareness of sustainability, and the difference they can make.
Goal 4
To ensure our students have an understanding of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and apply them into business start-up principles.
How we're going to do it
Sustainability Learning Outcomes
In early 2020, Falmouth defined and agreed university-wide Sustainability Learning Outcomes (SLOs) across study levels 4 to 7, which kickstarted the path to creating the authentic and meaningful integration of sustainability that the institution is aiming for. These agreed SLOs are:
Level 4
Identify fundamental social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges to sustainable practice.
Level 5
Apply ethically informed, innovative sustainable practices.
Level 6
Assess the impact of ethically informed, innovative sustainable practices.
Level 7
Create ethically informed, innovative sustainable approaches to real-world challenges.
The Falmouth Curriculum Ladder for Sustainability
The Falmouth Curriculum Ladder for Sustainability (FCL-S) is the tool we’ll be using to embed climate education and broader sustainability themes across the entire curriculum. Following an extensive piece of climate education research, we’ve identified 9 key sustainability themes and principles to incorporate into our teaching.
We see the FCL-S as an evolving tool, and it is likely to be updated with the most relevant and appropriate sustainability principals in the future, as and when deemed necessary.
Working with academic staff & students
We’re running sustainability teaching consultation sessions for our academics, which will help them to identify and begin to incorporate the themes into their courses at Falmouth. We’ll also be gathering feedback from our students to help our teaching teams fine-tune their approach to embedding sustainable learning outcomes.
What we've done so far
Sustainable courses
Falmouth has already integrated sustainability fully into several of its courses via learning outcomes, and partially in many others. As we embed sustainability into our curriculum, we’ll be continually asking for student feedback.
Sustainability Champion
A University-wide Sustainability Champion role has created to support our work in Learning & Teaching. This role is currently held by Adrian Bossey, Head of Business and Experience Design.
Our sustainability-focused courses
Designed by Florence Mitchell
Sustainable Product Design BA(Hons)
Become a conscientious and innovative product designer with the professional practice skills to make...
Sustainable Tourism Management BA(Hons)
Shape the tourist landscape of tomorrow on this innovative degree designed in partnership with the E...
Sustainable Festival Management BA(Hons)
Working at the forefront of inclusivity, accessibility and sustainability, you‘ll gain the skills,...
Sustainable Business MSc (Online)
Become a change-making business leader, a force for driving change from within, across the modern bu...
Sustainable Fashion MA (Online)
Become a conscious changemaker in the 21st century fashion industry. Develop a radical and circular ...
Falmouth's methodology published by COP26 Universities Network
Falmouth University has created, and continues to evaluate, a novel evidence-informed strategy for embedding climate education through the sustainability strategy at scale across the curriculum. Our paper was listed as a case study by COP26 and will allow other universities to consider how best to embed sustainability across their courses.
Read moreNews & stories
Wild Voices: The "sound of extinction" by Tom Hull
12 August 2022
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Changing fashion for the better: In conversation with lecturer Tom Crisp
11 May 2022
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Falmouth ranked as Top 10 Institution by 2022 SDG Teach In
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Falmouth joins the Fashion Declares movement
04 February 2022
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Falmouth University at COP26
12 November 2021
Staff members have taken to Glasgow to learn how to combat the most pressing issue facing society to...
CEO delivers live brief to students with enticing prize on offer
14 October 2021
Second year BA Creative Advertising students have been set an industry brief by John Brown, CEO of b...
Student reaches final of international design award
25 March 2021
Third-year Sportswear Design student Matilda Shields reached the finals of the 2020 Woolmark Company...
Living and working sustainably at Falmouth
26 February 2021
Textile Design graduate Jane Gray’s sustainable artwork has been showcased by the Craft Council’...