What is Transition University of St Andrews?
Transition University of St Andrews is part of the UK-based Transition initiative, which has been expanding worldwide over the last 5 years. Transition operates within community groups on a grassroots level, founded and operated by the communities themselves, in response to the threats of climate change and peak oil. Through working on practical projects with different community groups, the initiative helps communities minimise their impact on the planet, become more self-sustaining, and strengthens community ties. It also benefits individuals by developing their skills and encouraging re-consideration of the aspects of life which truly promote happiness and wellbeing.
The Transition initiative at the University was launched in 2009 by a group of students and has since gained momentum, with both academic and non-academic staff being involved. This year the group was awarded funding from the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund to employ three full time staff members between March 2011 - March 2012 to work on specific identified projects with staff and students in the four key transition areas – energy, waste, transport and food. This project has now come to completion and was extremely successful. See the final report of this project below.
As a result of the success of the project in 2011-2012, Transition has been re-awarded money by CCF to help support the behaviour change project for the next three years. In an unprecedented partnership bid, Transition and St Andrews Environment Network (StAndEN) have been awarded £347,770 between 2012 - 2015 to run projects with town and gown in St Andrews to cut carbon emissions of the community.
Because the University is such a fundamental part of the local community, working within the community is highly important to our work and philosophy. With the new CCF bid, we expect to engage with a significant proportion of community members over the course of the project, and really hope this will strengthen ties between the university and town around the vital issue of localised sustainability.
Our aim: To engage the community at the University of St Andrews and beyond in collective carbon-emission reduction activities in response to the challenges of climate change and peak oil.
To find out more about what we do, go to: www.st-andrews.ac.uk/transition
