Cambridge Zero: supporting and facilitating climate and sustainability education within the University of Cambridge’s formal undergraduate and taught postgraduate curriculum
Working with academic Schools
Cambridge Zero’s Education Team seeks to enable all six academic Schools of the University of Cambridge to foster climate and sustainability knowledge, understanding and skills within learning and teaching.
In 2025-26, we coordinated projects within each academic School that seek to identify opportunities for meaningful, rigorous and organic inclusion of climate and sustainability within curricula. These projects have been led by student consultants working in collaboration with academic teaching staff in each school. We have also previously supported the formal curriculum review of the Natural Science Tripos within the School of Biological Sciences and supported the recruitment of the University’s first Climate Teaching Fellow to the School of Clinical Medicine. We are active members of the School of Clinical Medicine’s Sustainability Advisory Group, and have presented at or are members of several other School-level teaching committees.
The Education Team is available to discuss opportunities within and across all academic Schools.
Working with academic Departments
Cambridge Zero’s Education Team is available to meet with departmental representatives and individual researchers or lecturers at any stage of the year. This could involve Heads of Departments, Tripos leads, Directors of Undergraduate or Postgraduate Education, or anyone interested in discussing opportunities for teaching and learning within their own context.
Previous projects have included the Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, Faculty of Education, Department of Veterinary Medicine and Department of Geography.
We are also keen to hear from lecturers and Departments about exciting examples of good practice that we can share across our networks! Past examples have included innovative skills development and assessment, such as the Quantitative Environmental Science Part IB course in the Natural Sciences Tripos, or how the Faculty of Education’s PGCE courses support climate and sustainability knowledge within their secondary Science, Geography and English cohorts.
Students as Partners
Cambridge Zero promotes the work of the Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning (CCTL) around inclusive teaching, the use of innovative pedagogies, and developing learner agency and wider stakeholder involvement through the students as partners concept. Find CCTL’s Students as Partners guidance here.
This concept is a powerful way to involve learners at the heart of curriculum development projects. Committed students are able to provide valuable insight which can enhance climate and sustainability themes and learning opportunities within their own studies.
Cambridge Zero’s Education Team supported the University’s largest student climate group, Cambridge Climate Society, to frame and deliver climate education projects across a wide range of subjects in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years (7 and 3 departments / undergraduate degree programmes, respectively). In 2025-26, this work was brought in-house, with the Climate & Sustainability Education Project supporting student consultants in the following Departments:
- School of Arts and Humanities: Department of German
- School of Biological Sciences: Department of Veterinary Medicine
- School of Clinical Medicine: Department of Medicine
- School of Humanities and Social Sciences: Faculty of Education
- School of Physical Sciences: Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry
- School of Technology: Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology
Watch this space for a summary of the 2025-26 projects.
Find out more in our case studies: