At ARU, sustainability is embedded across the curriculum, helping students understand the environmental and social consequences of consumption in their own disciplines.
Students encounter these questions through interdisciplinary Ruskin Modules and specialist programmes, as well as through practical projects that connect learning with real-world challenges.
Current examples range from peat-free horticulture and circular fashion to sustainable supply chains and resource-efficient design, developing students' ability to contribute to the transition from linear patterns of consumption towards more sustainable and circular systems.
Turning waste into a resource through sustainable fashion
Students at Cambridge School of Art are putting circular design principles into practice through ARU's BA (Hons) Fashion Design. The degree includes circular fashion and sustainability, alongside contemporary design and production techniques. A particularly strong recent example is ARU's partnership with not-for-profit organisation Clean Sailors. Following a pilot in 2025, first-year Fashion Design students in 2026 worked with end-of-life boat sails as the primary textile for their Sustainable Design and Innovation Practice module. More than 97% of sails are currently sent to landfill at the end of their lives. Students instead used reclaimed sailcloth to produce garments employing minimal-waste pattern cutting, while examining material lifecycles, the environmental impacts of fashion and designers' responsibilities.
Student engagement in commercial-scale sustainability trials on sustainable horticulture
In December 2024, ARU in Writtle launched a new partnership with ICL focused on advancing sustainable horticulture through trials of peat-reduced and peat-free growing media. The collaboration provides students at Writtle with industry-standard growing media and products while enabling BSc and MSc Horticulture students to undertake commercial-scale research trials. Students are testing the performance of peat-free growing systems, including trials of ICL's biostimulant products and technologies designed to improve the performance of sustainable growing media. The research is generating practical evidence to support growers as the horticulture sector transitions away from peat-based growing systems, while providing students with hands-on experience of sustainability challenges facing the industry. The partnership explicitly combines industry-led learning, applied research and knowledge exchange to support more sustainable production practices in horticulture.
Last updated: October 2026
To request additions, corrections or changes to the information in these pages, please contact: Dr Zareen Bharucha: [email protected]. Please use the subject line ‘ARU SDG’.