Wednesday 11-03-2020 - 13:22

With vegan cake, amazing jewellery, live music, student-led activities and much more, Durham’s first Eco-Fest brought together students and the community to celebrate all things sustainable.

The idea for Eco-Fest came about through my campaign to raise awareness of the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals. Each week we have focussed on one of the 17 Goals. The week of the festival concentrated on Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production. My aims for the festival were to invite local, sustainable companies to trade for free, and to introduce students and the local community to the amazing stores that were on their doorstep, allowing everyone not only to help the local community but to help the planet too. 

Twenty-one stall holders attended, including a whole range of local businesses: Durham Markets, Sun of Seitan, Ethicakes, Moral Earth Co., Magpye, Green Guerrilla, Durham Health Food Store, The Ugly Fruit Group, House of Vegan, Refuse Café and Amara Jewellery. The stalls were all local to the North East and are sustainable or vegan. 

Student groups ran activities from tasting alternatives to dairy milk and making posters for the upcoming climate strike, to learning how geology integrates with the global goals. Greenspace Durham also came along and collected pledges from students whilst also educating everyone about what the University is doing to tackle climate change.

We had some wonderful acoustic performances throughout the afternoon from students Ed Chambers, Dan Quinn, Alex Comaish and Meghan McClure, as well as a special performance from local activist Barbara Helen.

The feedback from the stalls and those who attended was extremely positive with almost 150 people saying that they would come again! 

In the evening, Loose Change and Kinky Jeff and the Swingers played a wonderful gig. It was really great to showcase student bands and artists in the SU, and I hope we can offer more opportunities for this in the future. 

If you would like to know more about my Sustainable Development Goals campaign and about upcoming events, please follow us on Instagram: @durhamsu.sdg and look at our event page.