Climate action and careers insights for students
News and Events
Climate action and careers insights for students
Providing careers insights is one of the most powerful ways we can support young people in our communities: it helps give equal opportunities and opens access to the workplace; it educates them about industries and roles they may not know from their own social circles; it also develops confidence, transferrable skills and experience of recruitment and the workplace.
It’s vital that we open our industry to more young people, so we welcome students to University Printing House, in Cambridge, throughout the school year. This includes during Work in Publishing Week in November, World Book Day in March and before the summer break, when students are encouraged to gain careers experience. Increasingly, the colleagues we introduce them to are in roles that involve sustainability and climate action.
This summer 2023 in the UK, we worked with Social Mobility Business Partnership, My Cambridge and Form the Future to reach more than 100 young people from local schools in Cambridge. Nearly 70 Year 10 and 12 students workshopped the design and launch of a new product around climate change and developed communications to inspire action to reduce our impact on the planet. They also took part in career carousels and a business ethics workshop.
Our aim with these events is to give students a chance to learn more about local careers opportunities, but our work with young people is always a huge learning experience for us too.
Christine Ozden, Cambridge’s Global Director of Climate Education, said: “One of the things that really stood out was how, in presenting solutions for issues of sustainability, students created other benefits for their school and local communities such as cost savings and service improvements. I urge them to take all those ideas out of a workshop and see what they can make happen.”
Julia Fusi, Commissioning Editor at Cambridge, who worked with students on the Climate Change product workshop, said: “Each team came up with unique and engaging product ideas and campaigns to support Climate Change Education and they presented with confidence and purpose.”
We’ve also seen some wonderfully insightful and mature work from 47 young people who worked on projects across forty teams at our University Printing House.
Tamsin Markina-Wastell, Cambridge Portfolio Manager, said: “Caitlin and Lily made great suggestions to help improve our overall environmental sustainability such as including instructions within our resources on how to reuse, repurpose, and recycle the books. We are now in conversation with the marketing team to see if we can make this happen.”
Caitlin said: “I loved the environmental project; it was nice to have such an open task. I also enjoyed managing my own time between the projects and being able to work independently.”
Another student, Alicia, said: "I felt like I was a member of the team. I was treated with respect and got invaluable experience. I feel that I can now confidently enter professional workplace environments.”
Cambridge partners with organisations that help us reach young people, especially those who otherwise might not have access to our industry, to help boost their confidence and transferrable skills.
Rose Firth, Head of Operations, Social Mobility Business Partnership, said: “We work with Year 12 / 13 students from less-advantaged backgrounds to give them an opportunity to engage with local businesses, learn about their organisation and get involved in business-like tasks to develop their key employability skills. This helps put them on a more level playing field, giving them stand out CVs and experiences to pull on when in an interview situation.”
Find out more about our community work.
By Heidi Mulvey, Head of Community Engagement
