Sustainable development across universities, businesses and communities

In February, Annum and Aisha attended the Office of Future Generations Commissioner for Wales event at Menai Science Park (M-Sparc) in Anglesey which was aimed at promoting the Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 which was developed to improve the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of Wales through sustainable development. Under this Act 44 public bodies are legally obligated to make changes to their current practices to become more sustainable for both current and future generations. The event was attended by students, businesses and prominent members of local community who were interested in learning more about the Act. This event was a great opportunity for the members of Dŵr Uisce team to learn how other organization and businesses view sustainability and how they may be able to implement some aspects of the Act into their businesses to make it more sustainable.

Annum and Aisha also attended a “Low Carbon, Happy Homes” event hosted by Menter Môn. Menter Mon is a not for profit that works with businesses, communities, and individuals to provide solutions to challenges in rural Wales. Low Carbon, Happy Homes is a project that aims to create awareness on the energy use and renewable alternatives to communities in Anglesey. Several small-scale energy savings projects have been introduced under this project which includes water and energy efficiency, electric bicycles, flow gas consortium of 27 houses that lead to cost-saving per litre of fuel and workshops to create awareness in communities on how they can be more energy efficient in LLanddona and LLanfealog communities. Presentations were also given by Renew Wales and Ogwen Partnership in which they discussed how they are helping communities tackle impacts of climate change in hopes to prevent rural poverty through environmental reforms. This event highlighted the importance of involving local communities to make Wales more sustainable. The participation of communities showed that they recognise the imminent threat of climate change and are willing to make changes to tackle it.