Environment

We’re shaping new laws for the mining of critical materials and manmade chemicals, as well as supporting more inclusive climate activism and sustainable farming around the world.

• Professor Alex Cannon is studying how Mekong Delta farmers fight climate change through music with a £1.75m grant from the European Research Council.
• Professor Aleksandra and Professor Robert Lee are part of Precisiontox, a project to better map the effects of manmade chemicals on animals and plants.
• Our academics are involved with the £8.2m RECREATE project to develop a circular economy for technology-critical materials in the UK.
• Our Law students have worked on international policy recommendations for recycling electric vehicle batteries, as part of the Pro Bono Group Environmental Law Matters initiative.
• Dr Jeremy Kidwell is investigating climate activism and inclusion, and found that Environmentalism has a diversity problem.
• Professor Aleksandra Cavoski researches gender perspectives in environmental and climate policies, as well as deep-sea mining and critical materials, and spoke at an event on Women, the Environment and Sustainability.
• Professor Adam Ledger, Professor Aleksandra and Professor Robert Lee are part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an interdisciplinary team of over 60 researchers working together to shape the fate and sustainable future of plastics
• Professor Janine Clark's Leverhulme-funded project Rethinking Transitional Justice is developing a more inclusive approach to transitional justice through consideration for more-than-human factors such as rivers, mountains, oceans, animals, plants and soil.
• Dr Matteo Fuoli's advanced linguistic study assessed the language used by Fortune 500 companies when communicating their net zero commitments. 

Using archaeological and historical methods, we’re learning from prehistory to help with rewilding, and harnessing creativity, the arts and religious beliefs to engage the public with protecting our natural world.

• Professor John Holmes’ Symbiosis interdisciplinary network uncovers the history and importance of the arts and humanities in natural history museums, sparking new collaborations with world-famous museums today.
• Dr David Smith examines historic insect records and prehistoric fossils of pollen to determine the viability of rewilding particular landscapes and reintroducing extinct flagship native species, like European bison, in a project on Biodiversity and Land Use funded by Historic England.
• We are the home of the Birmingham Centre for Philosophy of Religion.
• Historian Dr David Gange writes and researches seascapes, kayaking and the cultural history of the sea.
• Professor Henry Chapman investigates the potential that wetlands offer for the exceptional preservation of archaeology

We’re working with scientists and practitioners to compose music, poetry and plays that deal with our relationship to nature, as well as nurturing sustainable practices in the creative industries.

• Professor John Holmes and Dr Dion Dobrzynski have worked with the Guild of George and BIFoR to create an interactive, virtual tour of Ruskin Land – a 100-acre oak woodland in the Wyre Forest.
• Professor Annie Mahtani explores environmental sound and develops augmented soundwalks, amplifying sonic characteristics that are not normally audible to the naked ear.
• The Literature and Science Lab, led by Professor John Holmes, explores connections between the sciences, humanities and the arts.
• Professor Alexandra Harris and Dr Jessica Fay’s Arts of Place is a meeting-point online for all who care about the cultural histories of our surroundings, fostering rich understandings of places past and present.
• Professor Adam Ledger is demonstrating how theatre can engage with environmental issues through Performance and the Environment.
• Our MA Film and TV: Research and Production students took part in the BAFTA Albert Training for sustainable TV production.
• Dr Isabel Galleymore’s eco-poetry explores the ways in which we engage with the natural world.

All of the following courses focus on or include environmentalism and sustainability. But every undergraduate at the College of Arts and Law can also take a module in sustainability.

Undergraduate

• BSc Natural Sciences
• BA Liberal Arts and Sciences
• BASc Arts and Sciences
• BA Digital Media and Communications
• BA English Literature and Creative Writing
• BA Cultural and Creative Industries
• LLB Law
• LLB International Law and Globalisation

Postgraduate

• MA International Heritage (includes Heritage Conservation Management module which covers key concepts such as stewardship, sustainability and visitor management)
• MA Africa and Development modules (e.g. Environment and Sustainable Development)
• LLM Energy and Environmental Law by distance learning
• LLM Global Energy and Environmental Law
• LLM Environmental, Social and Governance Law and Policy
• MA Film and TV (includes BAFTA Albert Training for sustainability in film production)