‘No One Left Behind’ at third environmental sustainability seminar

On Friday 16 February the Hall welcomed Aularians, students, academics and friends to hear a panel of experts give their insights into ‘No One Left Behind’: Environmental Challenges and Solutions for developing countries for the third seminar in our ‘Conversations in Environmental Sustainability: beyond greenwashing’ series. This termly seminar brings together leading thinkers and decision-makers from academia, business, government and NGOs to look beyond greenwashing. Each term they examine a specific issue related to environmental sustainability, exploring how to effectively marry environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals with financial returns, innovation and other business imperatives.

Hosted by the Principal of St Edmund Hall, and Oxford Professor of Biodiversity, Professor Baroness (Kathy) Willis, the audience heard from four guest speakers who tackled the highly topical and important theme of environmental sustainability within the context of the sustainable development goals and the importance of no-one being ‘left behind’. Bayo Owolabi, Principal and Energy Specialist at Boston Consulting Group, Anousheh Ansari, CEO, XPrize Foundation, Deirdre Cooper, Head of Sustainable Equity, Ninety One and Khalid Abdelgadir, Founder of Baridi all gave 10 minutes presentations to an audience of 70 people followed by a fascinating questions and answers session.

Since 2019, St Edmund Hall has been committed to being recognised as one of the greenest and most environmentally sustainable colleges in Oxford and the establishment of this new sustainability seminar is also critical to this mission. The Hall aims to facilitate a forum for considered honest, solution-based responses to the many global environmental sustainability challenges as well as improving our own environmental impact. This was followed by a drinks reception and a private dinner in which further debate, analysis and forging of connections between different sectors continued to help us understand how businesses can measure its environmental impact.

Watch ‘No one left behind’ on St Edmund Hall’s YouTube Channel.