Exeter holds inaugural sustainability lecture
Exeter College welcomed students and staff from across the University of Oxford, along with Fellows and alumni, for its first sustainability lecture on 26 February, led by Exeter’s Sustainability Officer, Juliet Tye.
We were delighted to welcome two guest speakers, Dr Emma Garnett from Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, and Tom Atkins from Newcastle University’s School of Natural and Environmental Sciences.
The steaks are high: food, climate and planetary health
Dr Garnett, a postdoctoral researcher in the Sustainable and Healthy Food Group, gave the opening talk: ‘The steaks are high: food, climate and planetary health’.
She discussed the resources used in food production and the carbon dioxide and other emissions created, comparing these values across different food groups and methods of production.
With intense land use and high levels of emissions, Dr Garnett suggested that a sustainable approach to diet would include very moderate or no consumption of beef or lamb. By contrast, nuts, pulses and eggs are among the foods that result in relatively low emissions and use comparably small amounts of land.
Remarkably, the amount of meat consumed worldwide annually has risen from 23kg per person in 1961 to 43kg in 2021, with consumption in some countries, including the USA, Australia, Spain, Argentina and Mongolia, now at between 100kg and 200kg per person. In the UK it is between 50kg and 100kg, on average. The planetary health diet, an eating plan that aims to balance human health with environmental sustainability, recommends less than 20kg of meat consumption per person each year.
Dr Garnett went on to share studies that have demonstrated that simple steps can alter consumption habits without impacting consumer satisfaction. These include listing vegetarian meals at the top of menus, or placing them first within a canteen, with meat options further down.
Dr Garnett stressed that for a more sustainable future, it is essential that there are system changes as well as individual behaviour changes.
Barred grass snakes and Exeter College woodland
Our second speaker was Tom Atkins, a PhD student at Newcastle University in the Network Ecology Group. Mr Atkins was previously a researcher at Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and, during that time, he studied an area of woodland owned by Exeter College, adjacent to the College’s sports grounds.
Mr Atkins spoke about the wood and the variety of flora and fauna he observed there, including badgers, deer and, in particular, a significant population of barred grass snakes. Mr Atkins discovered the snakes during his research, and he has identified more than 20 in the site of approximately one hectare. Barred grass snakes are in decline across the UK and are categorised as a species of principal importance.
The wood is a good habitat for the snakes, with sufficient sunlight for them to bathe, scrub mosaics for cover, areas of decaying vegetation that provide warmth for eggs, hibernacula, and water to attract prey and cool off in summer.
Without proper management, the wood becomes increasingly overgrown, so Exeter College has been thinning the undergrowth, removing litter, creating egg-laying sites, and reestablishing water resources to encourage the snake population to thrive.
Mr Atkins spoke with passion and expertise, and shared striking photos of barred grass snakes in the wood.
Afterwards, Rector Dr Andrew Roe thanked Mr Atkins for the talk and for being the first to identify the significance of the woodland as an important habitat for barred grass snakes. Previously only known by its description – the wood next to Exeter’s sports grounds – Dr Roe suggested that Exeter rename the wood, Atkins Wood, a gesture that Mr Atkins described as an overwhelming honour.
L: A barred grass snake in the wood prior to the area being thoroughly cleaned. R: Mr Atkins carefully handles a snake at the newly named Atkins Wood
Exeter College’s Sustainability Officer, Juliet Tye, welcomes Dr Emma Garnett
