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Category: Graduate School

From Field to Fork: Growing a More Sustainable Food Future

Food is one of the most powerful ways we connect with the environment. Every meal we eat has an impact on climate, biodiversity, land use and our health. Dr Rebecca Kent explores this and how creating a more sustainable future means rethinking how we grow, prepare and enjoy our food.

Why Food Matters for Climate and Nature

The role of food production in the environmental crisis is significant. The global food system in its entriety, including production, processing, transportation and waste, is responsible for around a third of greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, agriculture is responsible for almost 78% of ocean and freshwater eutrophication (over-enrichment of nutrients) and 75% of deforestation – both major drivers of biodiversity loss.

Animal agriculture plays a significant role in these impacts, with around 40% of grain production destined for animal consumption and through methane emissions from ruminants which form the largest source of livestock emissions. At the same time, long and complex supply chains often mean food travels thousands of miles before reaching our plates.

The good news is that solutions already exist. Research increasingly shows that diets rich in vegetables, wholegrains, legumes and plant-based proteins can benefit both human health and the environment. This idea sits at the heart of the Planetary Health Diet proposal by the EAT Lancet Commission (a global group of top scientists exploring sustainable food systems), which explored how a growing global population could eat a healthily diet while staying within the Earth’s environmental limits. The Planetary Health Diet emphasises the importance of plant-based protein, high intake of vegetables, whole grains, low salt, sugar and fat and limited starchy vegetables.Scientists on the commissions used computer modelling to calculate the components of a healthy diet that can be achieved for a global population of 10 billion without exceeding environmental limits, for example in greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient pollution and biodiversity loss.

While the challenge is global, organisations like CAT can help demonstrate what these ideas look like in practice.

A Long History of Sustainable Food at CAT

Food has always been part of CAT’s story. For decades, CAT has championed the importance of food and land use in creating a more sustainable society.

We opened Wales’ first vegetarian café and developed pioneering organic growing spaces at our Llwyngwern Quarry home, helping generations of visitors understand the connections between food, climate and the natural world. Over the years, CAT has also researched the impact of food and land use through our Zero Carbon Britain reports, with our 2014 report People, Plate and Planet, focusing on this.

Today, as conversations about climate change, biodiversity loss and public health become increasingly urgent, we are building on that legacy through the work of our Food and Growing Working Group.

The group’s ambition is to develop a delicious, plant based, low-carbon food offer, monitor the impact of our catering operation and increase the amount of food grown on site. While we are only at the beginning of that journey, exciting progress is already underway strengthening the connection between our gardens and café and creating new opportunities for visitors, students and volunteers to engage with sustainable food systems in practice.

Joining Menus of Change: A First for Wales

The Planetary Health Diet may seem a long way from current realities for many of us and putting it into practice represents an ambitious challenge for households and caterers alike. But one approach to implementing it is found in ‘Menus of Change’ an international initiative that brings together universities and institutions committed to creating healthier and more sustainable food systems. Guided by evidence-based principles, the programme helps organisations create healthier, lower-carbon food systems through menu design and waste reduction.

Earlier this year CAT became the first and only organisation in Wales to be part of the ‘Menus of Change Research Collaborative’, and just the fourth member in the UK. As the smallest member organisation in the collaborative, CAT brings a unique perspective to the network. While many members operate large university catering services, CAT offers an opportunity to explore how sustainable food principles can be integrated across education, food growing and catering within a smaller organisation.

CAT became involved with the programme through research carried out by MSc Sustainable Food and Natural Resources graduate Justina Raggett. Her dissertation explored how universities in the UK and United States were implementing Menus of Change principles, including interviews with catering managers responsible for delivering more sustainable food services. Her work was presented at the annual Menus of Change Research Conference and helped establish CAT’s connection with the collaborative. She is now continuing this research through a PhD at the University of Reading.

Restoring the Link Between Growing and Eating

Perhaps the most exciting part of CAT’s food story is the growing connection between our gardens and our café.

For many years, CAT demonstrated the importance of local food production through its productive growing spaces. More recently, there has been renewed enthusiasm for restoring those connections and increasing the amount of food grown and consumed on site.

A key focus has been Roger’s Field, CAT’s main growing area, named after the late Roger McLennan CAT’s Lead Gardener from 1978 to 2023. Since Autumn 2025, staff, students and volunteers have been working together to bring the field back into production. Monthly volunteer work parties have transformed the site, helping prepare growing areas and polytunnels for the seasons ahead. These efforts have been supported by Interim Lead Gardener Nick Robinson, whose knowledge and enthusiasm have helped guide the work and inspire volunteers.

Produce from Roger’s Field and CAT’s gardens can be used directly in the café kitchen, creating a genuine field-to-fork experience for visitors, students and staff. Fresh vegetables grown on site reduce food miles, celebrate seasonal eating and provide a powerful demonstration of what a resilient local food system can look like. By using the Menus of Change principles as a framework, our cafe have also begun reviewing our menus which feed onsite visitors and staff and also catering for conferences, events and residential courses, to identify opportunities to increase plant-based proteins, seasonal vegetables and fresh salads while maintaining the delicious food that visitors know and enjoy.

The kitchen team is also exploring ways to reduce waste and make better use of surplus ingredients. With the support of Sustainable Catering Manager Briony Rigby, this work is helping to embed sustainability into everyday food choices. These may seem like small changes, but collectively they can have a significant impact on both environmental outcomes and public health.

Learning Through Food

The benefits also extend far beyond the kitchen. The CAT gardens provide valuable learning opportunities for school groups, students and volunteers, gaining a better understanding of the choices and systems that shape our diets. Visitors can see where their food comes from and explore soil health, biodiversity, climate change and sustainable land management while postgraduate students can connect academic learning with practical experience.

During the first teaching week of our 2026/27 academic year, new postgraduate students were also treated to a food showcase sharing the food story of CAT through the meals they were served. Through videos in the cafe and highlighting on the student menu where food was produced by CAT, the work of our Catering and Gardens staff and volunteers was celebrated.

There is still much to do, but by reconnecting people with where their food comes from and showing how delicious, healthy and sustainable choices can be, CAT is helping to create a living example to those that visit and learning opportunities from field to fork!

About the author

Dr Rebecca Kent is a Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Alternative Technology. Her work explores sustainable food systems, environmental change and the role of communities in creating a more resilient future. She is a member of CAT’s Food and Growing Working Group and is passionate about connecting research, education and practical action to support a healthier relationship between people, food and the environment.

September 29, 2026
A Future Beyond Limitless Growth?
As the climate crisis deepens, can traditional economic growth still deliver social progress? In this blog, Myfi Fenwick explores this and the contribution CAT graduate Gemma Young made towards the UN’s Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth which is aimed at helping shape practical solutions for a fairer, more regenerative future.

In July 2024, the former Un Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Olivier De Schutter published an initial report detailing the need for a post-growth approach to the eradication of poverty. The landing image for the report is striking – although notably AI generated. It depicts a young boy against a gold-orange horizon sitting on the summit of a landfill heap, ahead of him a wasteland stretches so vast it meets the sky. A visual reminder that we are exceeding our planetary boundaries.

Over the course of the next two years, De Schutter set out to produce The Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, a policy toolkit created with global contributions from trade unions, movements, UN agencies, academics, policymakers. The result? Tangible and actionable policy options for multilateral decision makers, all of which move away from the continuous growth model, towards anti-poverty strategies that sit within planetary boundaries.

© [JKLoma] / Adobe Stock – stock.adobe.com

Why within Boundaries?

As Will Steffen et al. detailed in their seminal research, the 11,700-year-long Holocene epoch in which we exist has allowed us the stability to pursue growth; that same growth is now destabilising the conditions that allowed for it, and indeed, in which we can survive. And with this instability comes further deprivation.

As the Roadmap details, ‘of the 1.1 billion people living in acute poverty, 887 million are exposed to at least one major climate hazard, including droughts, floods, extreme heat or air pollution.’ The message is clear; we cannot set out to eradicate poverty without addressing the climate emergency – change must take place within planetary boundaries.

CAT Graduate Contribution

One of the contributors to the roadmap was CAT Graduate Gemma Young, who studied on our MSc in Sustainability and Behaviour Change. Inspired by her dissertation, Gemma’s proposal explores how financial markets might be redesigned to make investors more accountable for the socio-ecological consequences of the activities they finance.

Her proposed Scaled Investment Levy (SIL) is a systemic intervention that links investment returns to the social and environmental impacts generated by business activity. Economist Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics model provides an aspirational goal and a potential framework for establishing socio-ecological thresholds, against which business activity could be assessed. (See Figure 1).

Where those thresholds are breached, a levy would be applied to investors’ financial returns, scaled according to the severity of the socio-ecological impact. Rather than prescribing a particular levy rate, the proposal explores how progressively stronger financial consequences could make harmful activities less attractive to investors while favouring more regenerative alternatives.

The intervention is intended to influence behaviour as well as redistribute capital. By bringing the socio-ecological consequences of business activity directly into investment outcomes, the SIL seeks to encourage investors to consider those impacts when allocating capital. Revenue generated by the levy could then be directed towards repairing social and environmental harm. Together, these mechanisms aim to redirect investment away from activities that breach socio-ecological boundaries and towards those that contribute to a more equitable and regenerative economy.

A toolkit that must be used

Gemma’s proposal sits alongside contributions from 400 others who also offer anti-poverty strategies that do not rely on unlimited growth, one of whom is economist Kate Raworth, the creator of Doughnut Economics. Here at CAT, we have been fortunate to welcome Dr Raworth as a frequent guest lecturer on postgraduate modules such as The Introduction to Politics and Economics of the Environment, which introduces students to the roles that power, policy, agency and economic structures play in producing the environmental crisis. As such this a fitting full circle moment, given that Raworth’s regenerative economy within planetary boundaries framework was deployed by Gemma in her own proposal. It is also a moment that reminds us at CAT that this is why the Graduate School exists, to support people like Gemma to develop the skills and knowledge to make a real and tangible contribution to the protection of our planet.

In June this year the roadmap was formally presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva by the current Un Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Elena Díaz Galán. That same month Switzerland’s national weather agency reported that temperatures had exceeded 37C for the first time in June, breaking a record set in 1947. A stark reminder that as a document, The Roadmap is a significant achievement, but as the climate crisis prevails and poverty deepens, it simply cannot remain as just a document – these strategies must become actions.

The Ongoing Reality of the Climate Crisis

This summer in particular, the indicators that we are driving the destabilisation of earth’s systems have been constant, signifying that we are no longer in what Will Steffen et al define as a ‘safe operating space for humanity.‘ The impact of climate change is being felt globally at all levels and for those living in poverty, the effects are acute.

Extreme Heat, Wildfires and Food and Energy Insecurity
- For countries already facing additional pressures these effects are catastrophic. In Somalia, extreme drought conditions, conflict and displacement has left the country at risk of famine, with the World Food Programme reporting that a total of ‘6.5 million people are projected to face crisis levels of hunger or worse, including 2 million facing emergency levels.’
- This year in Spain, at the time of writing, a lack of rainfall and heatwaves have left 256,937 hectares burnt by wildfires – an area almost equivocal in size to Dorset.
- In Central and Southeastern Europe, the Danube River is running critically low. The ongoing drought has forced the closure of nuclear reactors that are unsafe to operate without the river as a coolant, as well as hydroelectric power plant turbines causing mass energy insecurity.
- Further downstream in Ryahovo, Bulgaria, they recently uncovered the bones of a mammoth belonging to the Pleistocene epoch, a visual reminder of a time when earth’s climate was not stable, and an earie reminder that we are destabilising it once more.
The Roadmap as an offer of practical hope

The examples above are an incredibly small insight into the devasting global effects of the climate crisis – if we look further, additional examples are innumerable. What this illuminates is how important it is that all 80 of the Roadmap’s Policy Recommendations sit within Planetary Boundaries. Given the current situation, it is a source of hope – from policy recommendations that recognise the effects of colonial extraction, to measures designed to alleviate fiscal pressures from climate-related shocks, policies that address access to clean energy, water and healthcare to decentralised energy systems and beyond. Indeed, whether the policies address the climate crisis directly or do so indirectly through the planetary boundary framework, what they all offer is hope that transformational change can take place without equating progress to limitless capital growth.

Evading the Pursuit of a Wasteland

In the image prefacing Olivier De Schutter’s initial report the young boy perches on the summit of a landfill heap, we cannot see the ground, we see no trees, the only indication of any other human activity is in the landfill wasteland stretched before him. It is a photograph that brings to mind the imagery in T.S Elliot’s Wasteland.

‘What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water.’

We cannot extract from the dry stone; roots cannot grow from a planet stripped of its resources…the pursuit of limitless growth through extractive and exploitative practices cannot sustain humanity.

Strategies such as those detailed in the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth can only fulfill the promise of hope if they become actions.

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August 27, 2026
CAT Graduation 2026: A Celebration of Changemakers
180 sustainability graduates celebrated their achievements at CAT’s 2026 Graduation in mid-Wales, marking the next step towards a green career that will make a difference.

On Saturday 27 June, we welcomed graduates, families, friends, and staff for a warm and inspiring celebration of achievement, community, and hope for the future.

Held against the stunning backdrop of CAT’s eco-centre in mid-Wales, the 2026 Graduation Ceremony marked a significant milestone for 180 postgraduate students completing degrees in sustainability. With sunshine overhead and a strong sense of shared purpose, the day was filled with pride, reflection, and stories of transformation.

Celebrating the Next Generation of Sustainability Leaders

CAT graduates traveled from across the UK and beyond to celebrate their achievements in fields including sustainability and adaptation, renewable energy, sustainable architecture, food systems, and ecology.

Opening the ceremony, CAT Trustee Tim Brewer reflected on the dedication it takes to reach this moment and emphasised the unique and lasting impact of studying at CAT:

“Reaching this point is no small achievement. It represents dedication, perseverance, and a deep commitment, not just to your studies, but to the bigger challenges we all face… You should be incredibly proud. What you learn here goes far beyond textbooks or lectures. It’s about understanding systems, building solutions, and being part of something that genuinely matters.”

This year’s graduates are already putting their learning into action in inspiring and practical ways. Among them are:
- Amy Isted, who has launched a retrofit consultancy, Sustain Change, and is contributing to national work on scaling retrofit solutions.
- Sahrah Wilding, progressing research into land use through the creation of a nut woodland in Powys.
- Richard Clay, co-founder of community energy organisation Power Up Casnewydd in Newport.
- Emma Speekenbrink, working in sustainable public-sector construction projects, helping embed sustainability from the earliest design stages.
- Nora Ramakers, supporting ecological community projects across Europe, bringing people together through food and land-based initiatives.
- CLAASH, a collective of architecture graduates whose design-build work has already reached thousands, including a major project for the National Gallery’s bicentenary.
Their stories highlight how the knowledge, skills, and values developed at CAT translate into real-world impact, through communities, collaboration, and action on the climate and biodiversity crises.

Inspiration from the Global Stage

This year’s keynote speaker, Nick Bridge CMG, brought a global perspective to the celebration. With a distinguished 30-year career in diplomacy — including serving as the UK Special Representative for Climate Change, Nick Bridge has been at the forefront of international climate policy and negotiation.

Addressing the graduating cohort, he spoke about the urgency of the climate challenge and the vital role of skilled, committed individuals in driving forward change. His message encouraged graduates to carry forward their knowledge with confidence, working across sectors and borders to accelerate meaningful action.

His address was a powerful reminder that while the challenges ahead are complex, the collective efforts of individuals and communities remain one of the most powerful forces for change.

More Than a Graduation

The ceremony included speeches from staff and students, the formal presentation of certificates, including representatives from CAT’s validating partners, the University of East London and Liverpool John Moores University, and moments of celebration shared with loved ones.

Guests enjoyed a delicious plant-based meal, live music, and the opportunity to explore CAT’s unique site, a living, working example of sustainable solutions in practice.

The day was not only a celebration of academic achievement, but also of the strong community that defines the Graduate School of the Environment student experience.

Shaping the Future Together

As the Class of 2026 steps into the next chapter of their journeys, they join a global network of more than 3,000 CAT graduates working to address the climate and biodiversity emergency.

In his closing remarks, Tim Brewer shared a message of optimism:

“The challenges we face are complex… but what gives me real optimism is seeing groups like you, people with the knowledge, the skills, and the determination to do something about it.”

With their creativity, commitment, and collective energy, this year’s graduates embody the kind of leadership needed to build a more just and sustainable future. Congratulations to all our graduates, we look forward to seeing what you do next.

Inspired to find out more about studying at Graduate School course at CAT?

There is still time to apply for September 2026 entry to our postgraduate programmes.

Get in touch or sign up to view a recording of our latest virtual open day and discover how you can become part of the next generation of changemakers.
July 17, 2026
Designing a regenerative future for the Biosphere
Last year, after our first-ever week-long Regenerative Futures – Architecture Summer School, Dr Carl Meddings reflected on how it went and how students envisioned a regenerative future for the Dyfi Biosphere.

In July last year, we held our first Architecture Summer School, on the theme of regenerative futures, and chose the Dyfi Biosphere as the focus.

As an environmental education centre dedicated to researching and communicating positive solutions for environmental change, we offer a wide range of Masters-level courses including a Masters in Sustainable Architecture (M.Arch) for students training to be architects.

Building on the success of that course, last year’s Summer School was aimed at undergraduate architecture students who wanted to broaden their understanding of regenerative practices, localism, heritage significance, community resilience, biodiversity and habitat diversity, and the fundamental interconnectedness of human and more-than-human systems. And what better place to explore these ideas than the Dyfi Biosphere?

In the end, we had more than architecture students in attendance. Of the fourteen people who joined the course, two were just doing their A levels and another two had travelled from Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, where they are currently nurturing their own regenerative farm.

Being there

The group travelled around the Biosphere, starting at CAT in the (very rainy) Celtic Rainforest and ending at (a very windy) Borth. Together we visited the Taj Mahal Community Hub in Machynlleth where we met Sandra Bendelow and heard all about the wide range of community activities and opportunities that they support.

We travelled, via The Dyfi Wildlife project (to see the Ospreys and their fledglings) to Coetir Anian where we met Cian Llywelyn who was able to tell us about the gentle, careful work that they are doing and show us the buildings at Bwlch Corog, which are themselves a really lovely and interesting study in sustainability, given that they’re largely built from materials sourced within the site itself. Our final destination was Borth and Ynyslas, where the summer school attendees explored the town and its precarious connection to both the sea and the land.

Being gentle

On return to CAT, we discussed ideas for the future of the Dyfi Biosphere through a Three Horizons workshop developed by CAT’s own Innovation Lab and Zero Carbon Hub. This is designed to enhance and provoke positive, critical futures thinking, and students were invited to contemplate a future where ‘By 2050 the Dyfi biosphere is a place where gentle interventions have guided a thriving local community and a healthy ecosystem’.

This was followed by a Deep Mapping exercise run by tutors on the M.Arch Sustainable Architecture course, exploring creative expressions of the future by asking participants to develop ‘gentle catalysts for resilience’ for human and more-than-human occupants of the area.

Final outputs from participants included proposals for:
- Recipes for local food, sourced, cooked and beautifully served for all to share,
- A mobile community centre in a converted bus, scheduled to travel from place to place as community needs dictate
- An event taking place in 2050 – being the imagined 25^th anniversary of a festival called Cymorth Borth, that celebrates the communal resilience and mutual support for the inhabitants of Borth and Beyond in the face of the impacts of climate change,
- A prototype for a community shelter and living room (based on an extended telephone booth) designed to provide positive mental health support and guidance
- A food library to promote community gathering, food production, education, sharing and nourishment
- A methodology for community engagement drawing on stories and shared experiences, histories and narratives – that are always richer than any map can contain.
“Everyone was welcoming and kind, and it was amazing to have such interesting conversations and do such interesting work as a result of that. The celebratory nature of the product at the end, which I guess, since the ‘catalyst’ was rooted in care, was also really refreshing.” Ashleigh Rizza – participant

CAT offers the only rural-based and sustainability-focused architecture course in the UK. We define sustainable architecture through fully acknowledging the impact of humanity on our planet and the need to act now. We provide the tools for our students to create architecture and healthy places that are appropriate for a world where eco-centric values are held as equal to anthropocentric ones.

Thanks must go to the many people that helped make the week so special, including

Jane Powell, Cydlynydd Biosffer Dyfi, Sandra Bendelow, Coordinator Taj Mahal Community Hub, Cian Llywelyn, Coetir Anian, Rachel Tuckett, Ruth Stevenson and Paul Allen from CAT’s Innovation Lab and Zero Carbon Hub, Owen Griffiths, artist, curator workshop leader and facilitator, Alice Briggs, project manager Tir Canol, Becca Thomas of New Practice, part of Civic, based in Glasgow and Zoe Quick, architect and visiting lecturer at CAT.

Following the success of last year’s Architecture Summer School, we are excited to welcome this year’s participants to site for a week of creative, collaborative and place-based learning.

This article was originally published on the Dyfi Biosphere website.

Dr Carl Meddings is the Programme Leader for CAT’s MArch: Sustainable Architecture course. He is an architect and educator with a passion for educating architects in a rapidly changing cultural and professional environment. His design ethos is rooted in critical regionalism; the exploration of appropriate architecture that is culturally, socially and environmentally responsive. He has taught at all levels from first-year undergraduate to final year masters level and beyond.

Images: Myfi Fenwick, Ashleigh Rizza.

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May 6, 2026
New Postgraduate Bursary Launched to Support Welsh Students
We are delighted to announce a new Postgraduate Bursary for Welsh students, this National Scholarship Week. Funded by the Ashley Family Foundation, this new bursary will support students with a connection to Wales to study at CAT’s internationally recognised Graduate School of the Environment.

From September 2026, the bursary will help remove financial barriers to postgraduate study in sustainability, climate action, and environmental leadership.

What is the new CAT Postgraduate Bursary?

The new bursary will provide £9,000 in tuition costs to a new full time postgraduate student starting their studies at CAT in September 2026.

The funding is available to students enrolling on one of CAT’s Master’s degrees.

Who is eligible for the bursary?

The bursary is open to applicants who:
- Are Welsh, or
- Have lived and/or studied in Wales within the last five years, and
- Are passionate about creating positive environmental and social change.
The aim is to support talented individuals who may otherwise be unable to access postgraduate education due to financial constraints.

Empowering the Next Generation of Welsh Changemakers

The new partnership between CAT and the Ashley Family Foundation reflects shared commitments to education, sustainability, and supporting opportunities for people across Wales, particularly those who may face obstacles in accessing postgraduate study.

The bursary is designed to unlock transformative opportunities for students who have the drive and potential to lead climate action in their communities and beyond and will help to widen participation in the environmental sector and increase representation of Welsh voices in climate action.

“Financial barriers continue to prevent many talented individuals in Wales from accessing the specialist postgraduate education needed to help address the climate and nature crises. This bursary will give a full time student the chance to gain advanced knowledge, confidence, and skills at a critical time — and the ripple effects of their work will extend far beyond their own careers to communities and organisations in Wales.” said Dr Adrian Watson, Head of the Graduate School of the Environment.

Graduates of CAT’s pioneering sustainability programmes frequently go on to careers in renewable energy, community climate action, sustainable architecture, environmental policy, ecological restoration, education, and starting their own enterprises. A significantly higher proportion of CAT graduates begin their own sustainability-focused organisations compared to sector averages, a testament to the practical, solutions‑driven nature of CAT’s teaching and environment.

A Partnership for Positive Change

This dedicated bursary is funded entirely by the Ashley Family Foundation, a UK‑registered charity committed to strengthening rural communities and supporting social and environmental wellbeing across the UK, with deep roots in Wales.

By investing in postgraduate environmental education, the Foundation is helping to nurture skilled, creative thinkers capable of developing innovative responses to the climate and nature emergencies, delivering lasting social, cultural, and environmental benefits for Wales.

Dr Adrian Watson added: “We are hugely grateful to the Ashley Family Foundation for recognising the transformative potential of environmental education. Their support will help ensure that more Welsh students can access the knowledge and tools needed to create meaningful change in their communities.”

How to Apply for the CAT Postgraduate Bursary

Students interested in applying can find full details about the bursary, eligibility criteria, and other funding opportunities by joining our upcoming Postgraduate Funding Webinar on 06 May.

Applications for the Ashley Family Foundation bursary, and other funding opportunities available to new students wanting to study sustainability at CAT, close on 10 June 2026.

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April 22, 2026
A veterinary response to a pollution crisis
There is growing evidence of environmental harm caused by veterinary medicines used to treat fleas and ticks. CAT graduate, Dr Julie Cayzer, a vet and zoologist, used her dissertation to design a workplace learning programme for vets to promote responsible use of these treatments.

The UK is facing a biodiversity crisis, with the latest State of Nature report describing us as one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. A chance moment, hearing a lunchtime news article on the widespread damage to aqueous ecosystems caused by pet flea and tick products, decided my dissertation’s focus. I had been aware of the environmental harm caused by chemicals used to treat pets’ external parasites (fleas and ticks) and internal parasites (worms) for several years. The discussion on the radio focused on new evidence relating to two in particular – fipronil and imidacloprid (a neonicotinoid).

Balancing the health of animals, people and the environment

As a vet myself, I knew the statutory guidance given by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and advice by leading national veterinary organisations was to avoid a blanket year-round approach to prescribing parasite treatments, and instead to tailor them for each pet and their human family. Something was preventing vets from responding to this new evidence of harm. Every vet values the natural world and wishes to protect it, yet we appeared to be unable to act on something so simple – to stop using the most harmful products and limit use of alternatives to a level that is deemed responsible.

Due to my background in veterinary education following years in clinical practice, I decided to co-create a training programme for UK vets on pet parasite treatments to promote their responsible use, drawing on the expertise and experiences of a wide range of veterinary experts and practitioners.

One Health – balancing animal, human and environmental health (British Veterinary Association, 2019) Dr Julie Cayzer

Crucially, the training would follow WHO’s One Health approach, aiming to sustainably balance and enhance the health of animals, people and the environment. This would allow greater flexibility to tailor prescribing behaviours to each individual context, thereby reducing the overall use of these drugs, and improving the outcomes for the environment without compromising public or animal health.

Influencing behaviour to achieve change

For my dissertation, I gathered expert insights from academic and practising veterinary professionals through interviews and focus groups. The codesign process involved four stages following the Design Council’s scheme to Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver the training programme. Throughout, I explored different components of behaviour that influence vets’ prescribing habits, following Susan Michie’s COM-B model. This model, which I had studied during the taught modules of my MSc at CAT, proposes that behaviour (B) is directed by the combined influences of capability (C), opportunity (O) and motivation (M). Twenty practising vets participated in the training prototypes, and our discussions revealed that motivation was key, with vets’ prescribing behaviour affected by social opportunity (practice team engagement) and time (to discuss treatment changes with owners).

It has been heartening to see a rapid response to the training programme by the vets involved in this research. Some have reported team discussions about moving away from spot-on treatments to potentially more environmentally friendly ones, for example, injectable products, so that less contaminated pet fur is shed. They have increased owner awareness regarding appropriate disposal (unwashed product packaging to landfill) and created tailored parasite treatments through lifestyle risk assessments. Empowered vets have begun to challenge systemic barriers such as automatic sign-ups to pet healthcare plans using year-round treatments where this was unnecessary following the pet’s risk assessment. Additionally, vets have reported engaging with further learning opportunities to find out more about the topic and to share this information with their practice teams.

Jeff Waage with one of the information boards on the Heath.

The impact of learning at CAT

My dissertation at CAT gave me the opportunity to make a real difference; since submitting, I have continued to develop resources to enable the behaviour changes needed around responsible prescribing of these treatments by vets.

I volunteer with the Greener Veterinary Practice working group of Vet Sustain, a charitable organisation supporting veterinary sustainable actions across the profession. With them, I co-authored a peer-reviewed resource pack which included evidence-based medicine to support clinical decisions and lifestyle risk checkers to enable tailored parasite control regimes. The packs were released in September 2025 for vets and their teams to enable their responsible use of these treatments. Later that month, I presented my dissertation’s findings to the Vet Sustain curriculum team to explore their use by vet schools and the wider veterinary profession due to the current strategic importance of prevention of this pollution.

My training programme has also been piloted with local vets in the Hampstead Heath area. Joe Downie, a CAT classmate whose dissertation investigated pollution with these pesticides in the Heath’s ponds caused by swimming dogs, introduced me to an environmental researcher from the Heath and Hampstead Society, Jeff Waage (London Tropical School of Medicine). A new campaign by the Society to raise dog owners’ awareness of the pollution problem needed local vets’ support, so a joint event was held at Keats House on the Heath in October 2025 with two veterinary academic researchers (Rose Perkins, University of Sussex, and Andrew Prentis, Imperial College London) who raised the initial concerns about these pollutants. This event explored the behaviour changes by owners needed to protect local ecosystems and the role of advice from their vets. Follow-up online meetings with local vets to plan their support for the new campaign are ongoing.

As a vet, I fully understand the benefits to health and wellbeing from pet ownership. I have an elderly cat called Izzy – my life is enriched daily by her antics! Owners can make a significant difference in their environmental impact through everything from the choice of pet to care for, the food and kit that they buy, to the preventative measures that will keep them healthy. For advice on environmentally friendly choices, visit https://www.bva.co.uk/pet-owners-and-breeders/advice-for-pet-owners/how-can-i-reduce-my-pet-s-environmental-impact/.
Advice for pet owners

Please speak to your vet about a lifestyle risk assessment for your pet(s), as well as pet diseases caused by parasites. There are some that cause human disease, called zoonoses, that can be serious.

Follow their instructions on how and when to use the treatment and dispose of its packaging.

And:

Bag and dispose of faeces in landfill.

Do not allow your dogs to swim, be groomed or shampooed until at least one month after use of spot-on flea and tick treatments.

Always read the product packaging to check what your pet parasite treatments contain. These two pesticides are commonly used in treatments sold outside of vet practices.

More information at bva.co.uk/petowners- and-breeders/advice-for-petowners/ parasite-treatments →
About the author

Julie completed her MSc in Sustainability and Behaviour Change at CAT in June 2025. Following a design route through her dissertation enabled her to collaborate with a wide range of experts in veterinary parasitology, as well as practising vets, to co-design a viable and relevant training programme. In her new role in the Royal College Veterinary Surgeons’ Knowledge team and at the University of Nottingham, Julie will continue to put the skills she gained at CAT into practice as she helps to shape the future of sustainable veterinary care.

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January 23, 2026
Healthy seas for future generations

The sea is vitally important to our health and wellbeing, yet human activities beneath the waves wreak appalling damage, each day, across the globe. As we enter the second half of the United Nations Ocean Decade, an international effort to restore humanity’s relationship with the sea, Dr Cathy Cole reflects on the value of our ocean and the challenge of engaging with a world that is hidden from view.

It pulls me, madly, with its salt scent, the rush and scrape of shingle, the teasing winds that whip my hair, and the shocking assault of cold against my skin. Swallowed whole and tossed like a toy boat, I feel its power, its will, and in the first seconds that take my breath away, I am infinitely small, refreshingly insignificant. The charge of daily life ebbs instantly into the muted rhythm of the swell and I am held. Carried with the incoming tide, we pass Castle Point and swim with determined strokes towards the northern headland, glinting rose-gold with the first morning light. Below the froth that separates air from water, I can’t see more than half a metre, and the sun’s weak rays vanish quickly into ink.

After the swim, as I drip onto the rounded stones, my imagination fires with the hidden worlds playing out beneath the slick surface. In the shallows, when the water is clear, I’ve seen spider crabs lunging over barnaclecrusted rocks, shoals of fleeting silver darts as bream twist through sugar kelp and bladder wrack, cushion stars and crimson beadlet anemones, all awaiting the turning tide. In deeper waters, barrel jellyfish, pulsing ghostly white, sometimes as big as me, disappear as quickly as they emerge. We share the bay with bottlenose dolphins, year-round residents, but more easily seen in the summer when they roll and play in the surf. Just once, I shared a quiet moment of awe with a grey seal as we watched the full-moon set into the hazy dawn horizon.

Studying the state of our seas

I am deeply privileged to witness these glimpses into our marine world, and to have studied the seas throughout my career. As a Master’s student in Southampton, I feasted my senses on everything from the mathematics of the tides to the chemistry of ocean carbon to the secret records of summers at sea etched into salmon scales. Staying for a PhD, and with a strengthening stomach for high latitude seas, I was invited to join a research expedition in the Arctic Ocean to map and measure the bubbles of methane gas venting from sediments offshore Svalbard. This was a stark awakening to the potentially catastrophic nature of our changing climate, as warming temperatures on the sea floor threatened to destabilise reservoirs of methane hydrates and trigger “runaway” climate change. I started to tune in deeply to the changes underway in the seas, as they sequestered enormous quantities of heat and carbon.

A little more than a decade on, and my two-year old daughter has taken to yelling “I love you seeeea” daily as we fly towards it, perched on my bike down Penglais Hill in Aberystwyth. It stretches away from us, a tantalising canvas of greys and blues, depending on the weather. My son, who is five, tells me excitedly that he can’t wait to see tropical coral reefs and snorkel with turtles when he’s older. My stomach lurches, sick with grief. He does not know that, all around the world, marine heatwaves are relentlessly expelling the symbiotic algae that reefs rely on for healthy growth, exposing the vulnerable skeleton. For the first time, we have breached a climate tipping point, and we are seeing this catastrophic loss before our eyes. I don’t think he will ever see a coral reef.

The ocean’s vital role

Nearly three quarters of our planet is covered by sea. Always moving, it is vital to our climate system, driving a global conveyer belt of currents that carry oxygen, nutrients, carbon and heat. This constant churning supports all life on Earth and allows extraordinary diversity to thrive and flourish here. Where ocean currents bring nutrients to the surface, the startling blaze of phytoplankton that erupts can be seen from space. This is the base of the food chain, the source of half the oxygen we breathe, and as this organic frenzy dies off and sinks to the seabed it takes with it carbon that can be locked away in sediments. This natural process of ocean carbon removal – both biological and physical – keeps our world in balance, and has also allowed the sea to absorb more than a third of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Just as the ocean locks away carbon, it also locks away heat; the ocean has absorbed a staggering 93% of all the excess heat that has been trapped by greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activities (like burning fossil fuels and deforesting our land). The ocean is a vital ally in our fight against climate change – but this does not come without a price. Warmer water fuels rising sea levels, intensified storms and strengthened marine heatwaves, all with serious consequences for human safety. At the same time, last year’s astonishing documentary Ocean by Sir David Attenborough starkly demonstrated the extent of other human pressures at sea, with factory fishing vessels, bottom trawlers and dredgers desecrating the seabed with incredulous extent across the entire globe, including almost all the world’s marine protected areas.

Restoring our deep relationship

The ferocity of global outrage is tragically tempered by the fact that all this is happening beyond our view. If we could see this industrial-scale destruction, we would not tolerate it. Recognising this, one of the 10 challenges underway within the current United Nations Ocean Decade is to ‘restore humanity’s relationship with the ocean’. An immense international effort is underway to do exactly this, and in the five years since it began there have been some very welcome changes. One of these is the ratification of the High Seas Treaty in 2025, the first ever international, legally-binding treaty to protect marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. This is critical in the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework to protect 30% of the land and sea by 2030.

In Wales, we are excited by the launch of a major ocean literacy project, Y Môr a Ni (The Sea and Us), which is bringing communities, organisations and government partners together to nurture a deeper connection with our seas, to improve access to the coast and enhance public and political investment in a healthy marine environment. This is part of our teaching at CAT too. Our MSc in Sustainability and Behaviour Change empowers students with the skills to make tangible change in their lives beyond their studies – in their communities and workplaces – to inspire living as ecological citizens, respecting the natural world around us. Students develop expertise in strategic environmental communication, with the opportunity to pursue research into ocean literacy and engagement through their dissertation.

This is a call to us all to be proud “Ocean Citizens”, understanding our connection to the ocean and taking responsibility for healthy seas and coasts, both through our personal daily actions and through our participation in democratic society. We need to mobilise communities with knowledge and with a deep emotional connection to collectively ensure we are active witnesses to the environmental damage inflicted at sea, and to push for meaningful and urgent protection. We invite you to join this global community of passionate ocean advocates, offering wider reach and new powerful narratives to ensure a healthy future for our seas.

About the author

Cathy is a visiting lecturer at CAT’s Graduate School of the Environment, teaching ocean science, communication, and public and policy engagement across several modules. She has recently taken up a new role at Natural Resources Wales as a Specialist Advisor on Marine Water Quality and will be giving a public lecture at CAT on 9 March as part of the Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services module. You can sign up to attend at cat.org.uk/event/public-lecture/

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January 19, 2026
Why we teach… Renewables for Households at CAT
CAT Senior Lecturer and Short Course Tutor Dr Alan Owen explores how our Renewables for Household short courses can help people save time, money and frustration finding out what renewable energy options will work for them.

I’ve been teaching at CAT since 2017 as part of the Graduate School for the Environment and on CAT short courses. One of the things I enjoy most about teaching is helping people understand how renewable energy can work for them.

My own journey started as an apprentice engineer in the 1970s, and over the years I’ve worn many hats – stonemason, roofer, researcher, and lecturer. Later in life, I earned my degree and PhD in mechanical engineering and ran a research centre in Aberdeen, working on renewable projects for remote communities in Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, and Indonesia. I’ve also retrofitted numerous homes myself, cutting energy demand by up to 80%.

This mix of practical and academic experience shapes how I teach today. It’s important not to just bring theory into teaching but to bring teaching that is grounded in plenty of real-world experience.

Dr Alan Owen teaching on The Centre for Alternative Technology’s Micro Hydro short course.

Helping People Make Informed Decisions

The reason I teach these courses is simple: knowledge saves people money, time, and frustration. Many participants come to CAT because they want to install solar panels, wind turbines, or heat pumps, but they’re unsure what will actually work for their home. The internet is full of advice, but it’s often conflicting, or designed to drive sales.

Our courses give people the tools to cut through that noise. We start with the fundamentals exploring how systems work, what factors matter for your site, and how to interpret the numbers. It’s not about turning everyone into an engineer but about giving enough understanding to make informed choices.

One story that sticks with me is a participant who came to learn about wind energy. He was keen to install a turbine on his property. After the course, he realised his site wasn’t suitable for wind, but he also realised we’d saved him about £5,000 in wasted investment. He went on to install solar PV instead which is working really well for him.

Supporting CAT’s Mission

CAT exists to inspire, inform and enable practical solutions for a sustainable future. Teaching householders is a big part of that. Every informed decision helps accelerate the transition to low-carbon living.

It’s not just about technology, it’s about understanding the bigger picture. For example, grants like ECO4 in Wales can be helpful, but only if the property is suitable for the technology. A heat pump might sound great, but if the building fabric isn’t right, you could end up with high bills and poor performance. Our courses help people see the whole system: insulation, energy demand, generation, and storage.

We also talk about options beyond home ownership. Community energy projects, shared investments in solar farms or wind cooperatives can all be just as impactful. Even if you rent, you can still contribute to renewable energy and benefit financially.

Students walk towards the community wind turbine in the hills above CAT.

Why Learn at CAT?

CAT is a unique place to learn. You won’t just sit in a classroom listening to theory, you’ll walk around the site and see working systems in action. Solar PV, solar thermal, wind turbines, hydro, batteries, they’re all here. You can go from learning the principles to standing next to a real system in minutes.

That hands-on experience makes a huge difference. It’s one thing to see a diagram of a solar array, it’s another to stand in front of one, understand how it’s wired, and see the data it produces.

And then there’s the people. At CAT, you’re taught by practitioners. I’m not just an academic – I’ve built systems, retrofitted homes, and worked internationally on renewable projects. Most of us here have similar stories. We’ve learned what works and what doesn’t, and we share that honestly.

A Series Designed for Real Homes

Our Renewables for Households series is designed to be flexible. You can take one course or the whole series. We are part the way through this series which usually starts with an introduction to renewables, then move on to insulation and draught-proofing. From there, we cover solar PV, wind energy, heat pumps, and more.

Each course builds knowledge so you can make decisions with confidence. Maybe you come thinking you want wind, but discover solar is better. Or you realise that before adding technology, you need to improve insulation. That’s exactly what these courses are for.

People travel from all over the UK to attend. Why? Because they want to get it right. And that’s what we help them do.

Alan giving a presentation on Heat Pumps at The Centre for Alternative Technology.

Ready to learn more?
See our full range of short courses.

About the author

Alan is a Senior Lecturer in CAT, and teaches renewable energy systems on a number of our Masters degrees and short courses. He is a Chartered Energy Engineer, with 30 years’ experience in renewable energy and has taught at a number of universities, including Heriot Watt and Robert Gordon.
December 16, 2025
How story makes and changes the world
Sarah Woods recently gave a lecture to our postgraduate students and members of the public exploring the power of stories – how they inform not only the way we communicate but how we think in our increasingly complex world. Here she invites us to think more deeply about the role of story in our own lives and as a transformational tool for society.

The French philosopher Roland Barthes says narrative ‘is present at all times, in all places, in all societies… there is not, there has never been anywhere, any people without narrative; all classes, all human groups, have their stories’.

We make sense of the world through story. We use it to model and navigate the diverse and contradictory information that forms our lives. Story helps us relate and connect to the world and to each other, handle complexity, maintain our identity, rehearse new ways of being, manage change, place ourselves in time, and move through it. Story can serve as a thermometer, taking the cultural temperature of a time or group. I would argue that story isn’t just something we read or listen to, it’s a way of thinking, a language we’re fluent in. Like any language, story isn’t good or bad in itself – that depends on the individual story and on the teller.

We’re living in complex times, faced with what are often called ‘wicked problems’ like the climate crisis and global poverty and inequality, which are systemic, resist linear solutions, and require us to think and act differently.

Story should be able to help us work our way through them, yet more often it feels like story has become a blunt tool for attack and defence. Actively noticing the stories we tell and are told, and exploring our relationship with them, can help.

Understanding stories

We tend to think of story as singular, as something we watch or read, but story comes from lots of different places in our lives, so that at any point there are a number of different narratives playing out and intersecting for us. However, because they’re so much part of the fabric of our lives, we’re often less aware of them – and their power – than we might be. Having a better understanding of them can enable us to make clearer choices, to unhook ourselves from dominant social, political, cultural and personal narratives. The first step we can take towards that is to identify the topography of story in and around us, which I think can be usefully divided in to five kinds of story (see box overleaf).

As the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says:

‘I can only answer the question “What am I to do?” if I can answer the question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?”’

Behind his second question lie, I think, a series of questions that can help bring us towards an answer for the first, to bring us back into relationship with the stories we are swimming in.
- Who’s telling this story?
- Who do they want to listen to it?
- Why are they telling it?
- Does this story seek to divide or connect? And what or who does it want to divide or connect?
- Does it want to make enemies or friends? Of who?
- And what does this story want me to think or do, and why?
In taking this journey with story, we create space and the possibility for new stories and new kinds of story. As David Loy the American author and teacher reminds us: ‘It is not by transcending this world that we are transformed but by storying it in a new way.’

The topography of story

Stories we tell ourselves

We all carry with us an inner storyscape, stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our lives, about who we are and what our experiences are like. What’s possible for us is shaped by the life story we create for ourselves and the conversations we have with our inner voices, yet we’re often unaware of both.

Stories we share

We share stories with our friends, family and communities (whether they’re actual or online). From these bubbled worlds, it can be hard to see the range of viewpoints and positions that might help us better understand the motivations and experiences of others and to find ways out of polarity.

Stories we are told

Dominant narratives come from all sorts of agencies, including political parties and corporations. They surround us and are usually normalised to the point that they become invisible, part of the expected fabric of our lives.

Stories we know

We all carry with us stories from our cultural upbringings: myths, legends, religious stories and folk tales, versions of the history of our country and the world. These often guide our moral and cultural framework and are foundational for the stories we tell next.

Stories to guide us

At different times in history we have told different stories about our future. For a generation, our future visions have been dominated by dystopias and catastrophes, which can make it harder for us to imagine the better world we need to journey into.

Sarah Woods giving a lecture at CAT

About the author

Sarah Woods is an award-winning writer and thinker. She was part of the early Zero Carbon Britain Hub at CAT and is now a regular guest lecturer on our postgraduate module Communicating Transformational Social Change. Sarah is a research associate at Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavik.

She is currently writing a podcast series and book called The Story Crisis: how story makes and changes the world. Her dramatisation of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, Origin, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on August 24th.
December 11, 2025
Growing the value of homegrown timber
To address the urgent need for a carbon neutral and economically regenerative future, how we manage woodland systems and value timber desperately needs rethinking. CAT graduate Jemma Ho explores inclusive, holistic and regenerative actions to sustain and develop the use of homegrown timber.

Jemma Ho

The area of woodland in the UK is estimated to be 3.25 million hectares – 13% of the total land area. Forest Research breaks this down as 19% in Scotland, 15% in Wales, 10% in England, and 9% in Northern Ireland.

In Wales, two thirds of woodland is on privately owned land, while only a third is publicly owned by the Welsh Government and managed by Natural Resources Wales. This means a large proportion of Welsh woodlands are at risk of being fragmentally managed for wildlife conservation, biodiversity significance, and mitigation of diseases and invasive species. As a result of this fragmentation and a lack of holistic due diligence across the construction industry, the maintenance of a secure supply of homegrown timber for construction is at risk. Today, the UK imports 80% of its timber for the construction industry, making it the second largest net importer of timber in the world.

Delving into woodlands

To discover how the timber supply chain operates, I toured nurseries, woodlands and sawmills. I studied structural timber joinery at the Centre for Advanced Timber Technology. And I enrolled on a 12-week short-course in Timber Technology and Engineering Design for built environment professionals at the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE) in Herefordshire.

Through interviews with experienced ‘ground workers’, working with trees from the seed, through to plantation, all the way to felling and grading the tree for timber, I discovered that millions of UK-grown seedlings go unplanted simply because there isn’t a big enough workforce to plant them in the appropriate weather season. One operator at a nursery commented that there is a lack of government investment or subsidies in innovative forestry equipment to plant, maintain and grow trees to what is deemed as maturity.

I also interviewed several millers across Welsh sawmills, ranging from mainstream commercial operations to small cooperatives, and discovered that while various species of trees are measured and graded as to their appropriateness for construction, tonnes of tree thinnings go onto a “pile of waste” or are sold as firewood.

The UK can’t afford to keep throwing away these natural and precious resources. Woodland systems, land ownership, skills training, and innovation in timber development and its uses all urgently need collaborative rethinking.

Space to rethink timber

The findings from both my Master’s research and timber short course were steered not only by my interests in carpentry since a young age, but also from an awareness that in the last century the UK construction industry has been heavily influenced by steel production. This makes a major contribution to the overall impact of the built environment, emitting around 40% of greenhouse gases (GHGs). But this doesn’t have to be the way. It’s time to shift building in a more sustainable direction, where bio-based resources can be used in a regenerative way for the good of both communities and the planet.

In my final year of study on the M.Arch Sustainable Architecture programme at CAT, I was able to develop a project that responds to and reinforces the role of architectural design within the environmental debate. My proposal titled ‘Wood Culture Wales’ is a public centre that provides interdisciplinary learning environments and practical facilities, addressing the fragmentation and inconsistencies in the Welsh and UK timber industries. The aim is to catalyse activities across the timber production cycle that reduce our reliance on imports, boost skills, promote economic growth, and develop a truly sustainable future for Welsh timber production.

A new future for a derelict factory

My final design project includes a design proposal to uplift the derelict Wern Works factory in Briton Ferry, Southwest Wales, which was previously used for aluminium sheet rolling for British Airways Concorde jets, bringing significant economic benefit to this small Welsh town.

The theoretical scheme proposes celebrating and repurposing this historic building, reviving the existing heavyweight industrial steel frame, while ensuring minimal impact to the existing context by introducing innovative hybrid, reused and new-build construction strategies.

The four new-builds and two hybrid interconnected buildings aim to exemplify ways of using timber as a construction material – ranging from traditional timber frame, modern mass timber construction, and lightweight timber frame structures to adaptive reuse of other conventional construction materials. It’s a 21st century approach to industrial production and sustainable regeneration.

The project is driven by the development of six strategic concepts:
1. Uplift the economic context
2. Address forestry decline
3. Increase woodland creation and biodiversity
4. Innovate with waste
5. Catalyse timber craftsmanship
6. Develop and sustain a wood culture for Wales
Key spaces include:
- Three interconnected passively climate-controlled greenhouses to act as a living exhibition on how our trees could behave in future climates
- Makers’ gallery with hireable studios
- Conference centre, break-out spaces, nursery and accommodation
- Cabinet makers’ wood workshop, for adults and children
- Specialist boat-making workshop
- Visitor building for leisure activities, including a café and orientation gallery
- Outdoor exhibition space for various timber interventions
- Sawmill facilities (for local milling services)
- Reclamation yard for timber offcuts and exchange
Each building serves various user groups, ranging from young children to experienced professionals in the construction, timber and forestry industries to create a holistic knowledge-sharing environment.

The aim of this project is to advocate for urgent innovative actions within current Welsh supply chains to increase the industrial value of timber by creating a holistically streamlined supply of structural timber and better use of the ‘waste’ byproducts of production.

The Wood Culture Wales project highlights the pressing need to act now to use the knowledge our timber industries have to drive the development of lowercarbon construction materials. Timber is a resource that not only captures carbon but also creates greener jobs for future generations.

About the author

Jemma Ho is a graduate from CAT’s 2022– 24 Masters of Sustainable Architecture programme. She is an Architectural Designer at Architype, the UK’s leading architecture firm for sustainable buildings, primarily in the education and healthcare sectors.

In 2025, Jemma was recognised in The Architects’ Journal’s AJ100 Emerging New Talent list, recognising her rising influence within UK architecture. She is passionate about promoting the use of timber in construction.

Find out more about our M.Arch in Sustainable Architecture

Find out more about our M.Arch in Sustainable Architecture by looking at the programme description or by joining an upcoming open day.
November 14, 2025