Edible Campus Project revealed at the Sustainability Showcase

On Wednesday 20 March 2024, the Theatre Royal Concert Hall hosted the Sustainability Showcase and the Wild Isles in Concert event. 

As part of Sustainability Action Week 2024, the Sustainability Showcase put a spotlight on research from across the University of Nottingham which responds to the theme of ‘Sustainability’ in creative and innovative ways. The diverse interactive displays and installations demonstrated the wide range of work happening across the university to address sustainability and climate change.

Edible Campus Project - Enabling community connection through food and nature

Representing the Nottingham University Business School was the Edible Campus project team, including Dr Anne Touboulic, Karen Cross, and undergraduate student Hope Palfrey. Visitors were able to plant their own edible herbs, which will later be placed on our University Park campus for staff and students to enjoy.  The project aims to connect the community inside and outside the University by building relationships with food and nature.

Anne Touboulic, Associate Professor in Operations Management in the Business School, who is leading the project, said: 

"We have been awarded internal funding between August 2023 and July 2024 to develop and pilot an ‘Edible Campus’ approach on two of our urban campuses, University Park and Jubilee. We have not set out what the edible campus should look like, instead our approach has been to work with our communities of staff and students inside the university, and the wider local communities in Nottingham, to plan it together. We hope to create a space where nature – and people - can flourish by improving access to, and knowledge about, fresh, healthy sustainable food.”

Three special guests visited the stand, each contributing to a planter to signify the trilateral partnership agreement of the project:

• Professor Shearer West, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Nottingham
• Matthew Swann, Director of the BBC Concert Orchestra
• Sharon Huttly, Deputy Vice-Chancellor - Academic Development and Performance at Nottingham Trent University.

Neil Bennison, Music Programme Manager at Theatre Royal Concert Hall, is also a key partner and will be involved in the Edible Campus project in the future.

Edible Campus Project development

Ideas in the pipeline include creating foraging maps of the campuses, promoting growing spaces for fruit and vegetables, and organising communal meals and other events, as well as initiatives to promote cooking skills, increase access to healthy food for all and reduce food waste.

Karen Cross, Community Project Co-ordinator for Edible Campus, added: “The Sustainability Showcase was a great opportunity for us to connect with the wider public in Nottingham and gain their views about how our project could develop.”

Find out more about Sustainability and the University of Nottingham