Meliora: a podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute

In this student takeover episode  of the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton  we discuss the harm alcohol causes on the environment and society, and explore the links to the Sustainable Development Goals through alcohol's manufacturing, packaging and marketing.

Please note, this episode does not in any way support or condone excessive consumption of alcohol.  The episode seeks only to inform from the perspective of undergraduate students.

Episode host: Somerset Fell
Guests: Lucy Hastings, Chiara Batten, Kaylei Callaghan and Zeb Knowland
Editor: Katie Allen 

This episode is part of the Student Takeover Season on the Meliora Podcast, and is a group project from the University of Southampton 'Global Sustainability Challenges' module. 

In this student takeover episode  of the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton  we discuss the topic of sustainability in zoos – a topic we feel is not discussed enough. We cover the advantages and disadvantages that zoos provide to global sustainability and how they can be improved for more effective sustainability. We navigate this by focussing on 6 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

We examine the evolution of zoos from entertainment venues to centres of education and conservation, highlighting how zoos contribute to global sustainability via educating the public about protected species and their importance. It covers the wide range of educational programmes that zoos provide, as well as how zoos are starting to implement sustainable practices involving resource consumption and production in order to be more beneficial than they already are. These benefits that zoos provide to the world and the positives that they contribute to global sustainability have allowed for protection of many species and unfathomable amounts of research.

However, with all of the attributes that zoos provide there are still negative factors that need to be accounted for. Zoos still heavily contribute to the consumption of various resources and their energy consumption is a challenge that must be tackled. Despite zoo’s devotion to education of the public there are still a number of problems surrounding whether or not they provide enough awareness, as well as asking questions on who is at fault for these issues. It questions whether zoos can further reduce their environmental impact and discusses the ongoing ethical concerns about animal captivity and relocation, especially in light of climate change. The effectiveness of zoos in educating the public versus serving as entertainment is also debated, probing whether zoos are truly fulfilling their conservation potential. 

Episode researchers: Libby Kale, Louie Elkington, Joseph Bailey, Charlotte Buxton, Samuel Hart and Oluwamayomikun Adesokan
Episode host: Libby Kale
Episode guests: Oluwamayomikun Adesokan and Samuel Hart
Episode editor: Charlotte Buxton

This episode is part of the Student Takeover Season on the Meliora Podcast, and is a group project from the University of Southampton 'Global Sustainability Challenges' module. 

Season 3 of the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton is our Student Takeover Season where we will be shining a light on the amazing work produced by our undergraduate students.

The first half of the season will be a series of short 12 minute episodes on a variety of sustainability issues written, presented, recorded and edited by teams of second and third year undergraduate students on our 'Global Sustainability Challenges' interdisciplinary and cross-university module.  

The second half of the season will be the 'Meliora Podcast Student Sustainability Research Symposium'. Students from disciplines such as Philosophy, Environmental Science, Engineering, Geography, Marine Biology, and Environmental Geoscience will be discussing their final year independent research projects - otherwise known as their Dissertation (or their 'Diss' as our students prefer to call it).  Our students will explain their high quality research through describing their motivation, the discipline literature, the methodological approaches, the research results, the key outcomes and what this means for sustainability.

We are incredibly proud of our students and we hope you enjoy listening to their work.

Trailer host: Prof Simon Kemp
Trailer editor: Lily Killner

In this episode of the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton we have a lovely chat with another of our wonderful and most celebrated alumni, the fantastic Joshua Davies, now of Santander. 

Our chat covers Joshua's background, how and why he became dedicated to the environment and wider sustainability issues, how he accidentally became an Environmental Scientist, his impressive work as a student sustainability leader at a university level, our work on 'Blackout', his proactive approach to professional experience, and his first few jobs at First Wessex, Old Mutual, AECOM, and Multiplex.  We conclude by discussing Joshua's current role as Sustainability and Responsible Banking Senior Manager at Santander and his hopes for the future.

Josh has been generous enough to continue working with us every single year since he graduated, and he is an important part of our 'Environmental Science Family'. We hope you enjoy our chat!

Episode guest: Joshua Davies
Episode host: Prof Simon Kemp
Episode editors: Sophie Green and Libby Kale

Engage with us on instagram and X: @meliorapodcast

In this episode of the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton we have a great chat with another of our brilliant alumni, the fantastic Gabriel Lemos Finocchio Baraldi where we discuss the challenges of graduating and trying to get that elusive first role. 

Our discussion covers Gabriel's background, how and why he became dedicated to sustainability, his Bachelor degree, research project and his internship with Mott MacDonald. We conclude by discussing Gabriel's sustainability role with Bistech and his hopes for the future.

Gabriel has lots of communication experience so it's no surprise that he sounds so much better than me!  We hope you enjoy our chat!

Episode guest: Gabriel Lemos Finocchio Baraldi
Episode host: Prof Simon Kemp
Episode editor: Lily Killner

Engage with us on instagram and X: @meliorapodcast

In this episode of the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton we have a lovely chat with two of our utterly awesome alumni, Jon Coello and Lucy Marum to discuss their fascinating career routes, the criticality of the circular economy, and how the work of just two (admittedly great) people can make a profound difference.

However, that description only touches the surface. We discuss how and why Lucy and Jon became interested in sustainability all the way back to their childhoods, their degrees in Environmental Science at Southampton, early career work, happy coincidences, and the important work they are leading today.

We discuss dinosaurs, asteroids, hedgehogs, spaceship earth, vintage computer games, systems thinkings, the value of data, modelling tools, convenience, circular economy, the problems with the linear economy, doughnut economics, fast fashion, local repairs, community work, and ultimately how visionary tech companies can make a global difference at the local level.

Read more about Jon & Lucy's work at Cirevo here: https://www.cirevo.com/

Episode guests: Jon Coello and Lucy Marum of Cirevo
Episode host: Prof Simon Kemp
Episode editor: Lily Killner

Engage with us on instagram and X: @meliorapodcast

In this episode of the Meliora podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton, we are joined by the excellent Lucy Benson who is studying BSc Environmental Science.  Lucy has spent the last year working on her Undergraduate Individual Research Project by investigating Lionfish population numbers and associated impacts around her home country of Bermuda.
 
Lucy explains how the Lionfish population has changed in the Bermuda waters over the last 10 years, how  human behaviour has affected numbers, the scale of the environmental problem, the possible impacts on tourism from the associated environmental changes, and how can we better combat the issues. 

This episode continues our strategy of shining a light on the fantastic sustainability work of our students as we move through the academic year, with more yet to come!

Recommended papers from Lucy:
The life history characteristics of invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans P. Miles) in Bermuda -  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10641-019-00877-4

Invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans and P. Miles): distribution, impact and management - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-92735-0_48

Invasive species diet: the ethics of eating lionfish as a wildlife management strategy - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21550085.2020.1848189?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Guest: Lucy Benson, BSc Environmental Science Year 3 student
Host: Prof Simon Kemp, Deputy Director Sustainability & Resilience Institute
Editor: Lily Killner, BSc Environmental Science Year 3 student

Engage with us on instagram / X: @meliorapodcast

For International Women’s day 2024, the Meliora Podcast from the Sustainability & Resillience Insititute (SRI) at the University of Southampton is guest hosted by SRI colleagues Alice Brock and Grace Compton, who wanted to explore the intersection between Gender and Climate Change. 

In this episode they discuss the Sustainable Development Goal 5 on Gender Equality, how the impacts and burden of climate change disproportionately affect women, and what can be done to tackle this, including the role of policy makers and women in leadership. We speak with two women working to further these solutions at the University of Southampton. Dr Pauline Leonard talks about her research on gender and sustainable transport, and Sue Littlemore speaks about her experience of male bias throughout her career as a senior leader. We also discuss the importance of taking an intersectional approach to understanding the scale of the challenge, as women’s lived experiences vary greatly based on characteristics such as race, income, and disabilities. We also hear from Lily Kilner and Sophie Green, final year students at the University of Southampton about their perspectives on the connections between climate change, gender roles and responsibility to implement more sustainable behaviours. 

This episode includes a call to action for those working in research to consider how they are including the experiences and voices of women in their research on drivers of sustainable development and tackling climate change. 

Guests: Sue Littlemore, Director of Civic, Dr Pauline Leonard, Director of the Gender and Transport Research Group, Sophie Green, BSc Geography Student and Lily Kilner, BSc Environmental Science Student. 

Hosts: Grace Compton, Policy Officer for the Sustainability and Resilience Institute and Alice Brock, Sustainable Development Goals Officer for the Sustainability and Resilience Institute, and PhD student studying sustainable choices and behaviours.   

Editor: Lily Kilner, BSc Environmental Science Year 3 student

For more resources on this topic, we recommend:  

• https://www.shechangesclimate.org
• The intersectional environmentalist
• https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-disproportionately-affects-womens-health/

In a first for the Meliora podcast from the Sustainability & Resilience Institute at the University of Southampton, we are discussing an Undergraduate Individual Research Project with the impressive Ben Hunt who is studying BA Geography.  Ben is assessing the sustainability work of some of the most famous sporting organisations in the world, the twenty football clubs that make up the English Premier League.  

The importance of football to so many people cannot be overstated, so the work clubs conduct in the sphere of sustainability can be incredibly impactful.  Ben explains how he used the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework to evaluate the local and global sustainability work of the Premier League clubs, how he developed his own scoring methodology, and gives the results of an SDG football league table in time-honoured reverse countdown style.  Ben then goes into greater depth for a quarter of the league clubs looking at the top, bottom and middle of the SDG table.

This episode marks an increase in the input of our students to the podcast as we move through the academic year.  Our students produce such fantastic sustainability work that it would be terrible not to share it with you!

Guest: Ben Hunt, BA Geography Year 3 student
Host: Prof Simon Kemp, Deputy Director Sustainability & Resilience Institute
Editor: Sophie Green, BSc Geography Year 3 student

Engage with us on instagram / X: @meliorapodcast