Graduate School Archives - cat.org.uk

Graduate School Archives - cat.org.uk
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Graduate School
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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Keep up to date with all the latest activities, events and online resources by signing up to our emails and following us on social media. And if you’d like to get involved and support our work, we’d love to welcome you as a CAT member.
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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.
(more…)
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:
Uplift the economic context
Address forestry decline
Increase woodland creation and biodiversity
Innovate with waste
Catalyse timber craftsmanship
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
Inspiring, informing and enabling Green Careers at CAT
This Green Careers Week, we’re celebrating how CAT inspires, informs and enables impactful green careers.
As the climate and biodiversity emergency continues to shape our world, the need for skilled, passionate people in green careers has never been greater. This Green Careers Week, we’re exploring how the CAT helps people find their path into meaningful work that supports a sustainable future.
From sparking inspiration in young minds to equipping professionals with innovative skills, CAT’s work is rooted in a powerful mission to inspire, inform and enable humanity to respond to the climate crisis. For more than five decades, CAT has been a place where people come to explore bold ideas, launch meaningful careers, and connect with others working toward a more sustainable future
Inspire: Planting Seeds and New Ideas
Inspiration is often the first step toward a green career. At CAT, it begins the moment someone steps onto the site. Nestled in the UNESCO Dyfi Biosphere Reserve in the hills of Mid Wales, CAT’s immersive natural setting is a living example of sustainable living in action set in a stunning wooded valley.
Visitors frequently describe the experience as transformative. Teacher John Ridler from Queen Mary’s Grammar School in Walsall explains that while many students arrive with ambitions to pursue medicine, visits to CAT often broaden their horizons.
“A lot of our pupils come in thinking medicine is their likely path. But experiences like this inspire them to consider engineering – something they might never have thought was for them.”
John Ridler, teacher at Queen Mary’s Grammar School
Queen Mary’s now sees 15–20 students a year inspired to go on to study engineering at university.
Dr Dai Morgan, longstanding lecturer at the University of Cambridge, brings his group to CAT every year. Dai believes that the experience at CAT is a poignant moment of inspiration for his students.
“CAT offers something unique. It’s immersive and integrative-a real example of sustainability being worked out in real time. Being in that environment, around people who are doing things differently and showing what’s possible, creates space to reflect and reconnect with what really matters.”
Dr Dai Morgan, Lecture at the University of Cambridge
This sense of connection to nature, to community, and to purpose, is echoed in feedback from many young people’s visits. They describe the feeling of being “part of nature” during their time at CAT. That feeling makes them want to protect it.
CAT is more than a learning centre – it’s a community hub, a hive of action where people from all walks of life come together to imagine and create a sustainable future. Whether it’s a
school group
exploring renewable energy, a youth panel shaping climate action, or a volunteer discovering their passion, CAT helps people see themselves as part of the solution.
Inform: Developing Skills for a Sustainable Future
Inspiration is powerful, but it’s only the beginning. To turn passion into impact, people need knowledge, skills and confidence. That’s where CAT’s educational programmes come in.
CAT’s
Graduate School of the Environment
offers postgraduate degrees that blend academia with practical learning. Studying on one of seven postgraduate degrees helps students gain knowledge and networks to make a real difference in their chosen specialisms as they go on to have long and impactful green careers.
To date, over 2500 people have completed postgraduate awards at CAT. Students have gone on to make a real difference through a wide variety of careers and opportunities, from architecture and energy management to environmental policy and land management.
Graduates have gone on to launch innovative companies, lead sustainability initiatives, and shape policy across the UK and beyond. Their success stories are a testament to the power of education rooted in real-world application.
Clara Humphries came to CAT to study how she could integrate green building principles into real-world projects and now works as a
Retrofit Project Manager at Retrofit West, where she applies the knowledge she learned studying at CAT daily.
“
CAT gave me the hope and motivation to tackle complex climate challenges
“
Clara Humphries, Graduate of our MSc in Green Building and Retrofit Project Manager
But CAT’s commitment to green careers goes far beyond higher education. Through our
short courses
, CAT provides hands-on training in everything from green building and renewable energy to woodland management and organic gardening. These courses are open to learners aged 16 and above and increasingly integrate with the Graduate School’s academic modules, creating a pathway from interest to expertise.
CAT also supports
volunteers
, many of whom describe their time at CAT as life-changing. CAT’s cohorts of 6-month residential volunteers not only work in practical roles managing CAT’s gardens and woodlands, they also undertake various training courses to equip them with essential skills for careers in land management. Through the training, mentorship and valuable experience gained during their time living and working with the CAT community, volunteers gain the confidence and skills to enter green careers, often discovering new passions along the way.
Ella Catherall, who recently finished 6 months of volunteering in CAT’s garden team, has been able to take the next steps in her Green Career thanks to the skills she learned at CAT. She is now embarking on a placement with the
Adam Greathead Trust
, where she will spend a year training in two renowned UK gardens.
People in careers that aren’t traditionally seen as ‘green’ can become climate leaders too! One of CAT’s most impactful offerings is
Carbon Literacy Training
, which equips individuals with the tools to become climate leaders in their workplaces and communities. Whether you’re a teacher, builder, policymaker or student, CAT helps you understand the science, communicate the urgency, and take meaningful action.
Engagement with young people remains central to CAT’s mission. The organisation provides curriculum-linked workshops, day and residential visits, and practical sustainability sessions for schools, colleges and youth groups. Within a new funded project at CAT called “Next Generation Earth”, a new Youth Panel is being developed to ensure young voices are embedded in CAT’s work and in community-based climate action.
Enable: Supporting further action across the network
Once people are inspired and informed, the next step is enabling them to make a difference, whether that’s embarking on a new green career or embedding sustainability into their existing career. CAT’s work doesn’t stop at education, it extends into innovation, collaboration and strategic leadership.
The
Zero Carbon Britain Innovation Lab
is a prime example. It delivers facilitated innovation processes that help organisations, councils and sectors address the climate and ecological emergencies. Drawing on systems thinking and futures design, the Lab enables collaboration across boundaries and translates sustainability ambitions into practical action.
To date, over 70 organisations and nearly 200 councils have benefited from CAT’s innovation support. Recent projects include:
Growing into the Future: Supporting the growth of a resilient and economically sustainable horticulture sector in Wales through the LPIP project
Dyfed Powys Food Resilience Scenarios Lab: Co-developing local responses to food system challenges across the region.
CAT’s membership
network is another powerful enabler. It includes people at every stage of their green careers – from those just starting out to seasoned professionals and retirees. The annual
Members’ Conference
is a space for sharing experiences, learning from each other, and building collective momentum.
As a strategic leader in sustainability education, CAT plays a key role in shaping regional green skills development, working closely with the Regional Learning and Skills Partnership and other stakeholders to ensure Mid Wales is at the forefront of the green transition.
A Place Where Green Careers Begin
This Green Careers Week, we’re celebrating the many people who’ve found their way into green careers through CAT – students, volunteers, professionals, and changemakers. Their stories show that green careers aren’t just about jobs, they’re about making a difference, finding purpose, and helping shape a better future.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take the next step, CAT is here to support you. From hands-on learning to strategic innovation, we’re proud to be part of the journey.
Want to learn more about CAT?
Explore our
postgraduate courses
,
volunteering opportunities
, or
sign up
to our emails to keep up-to-date with all the latest from CAT.
November 7, 2025
Living architecture
Programme Leader
Dr Carl Meddings
shares a selection of our M.Arch Sustainable Architecture students’ final design projects showcasing regenerative design in a changing world.
Architecture matters. The ways we design, construct and adapt our homes, public spaces and infrastructure have deep environmental, social and cultural impacts. They shape lives, ecologies, landscapes and futures.
More than a qualification
The
M.Arch Sustainable Architecture course
at CAT is a challenge to the business-as-usual model of architectural practice. As an ARB-accredited Part 2 programme, it is a key step towards becoming a registered architect in the UK. But unlike conventional courses, it places the climate emergency, biodiversity loss and regenerative futures at its core. Our students learn not only how to build, but how to care, question and lead.
To build sustainably is not simply to reduce harm, but to actively do good; to repair, restore and regenerate. Students arrive with difficult, often radical, questions and leave with proposals that push boundaries. There is no token ‘eco-wash’ here; each project critically examines how humans (and more-thanhumans) can co-exist in inclusive and transformative ways.
We ask:
What does it mean to design for uncertain futures?
How do we retrofit not just buildings but mindsets?
How can architecture support community, resilience, biodiversity and beauty?
Who are we designing for?
The responses are ambitious: from low-impact, community-led retrofit to speculative visions of architecture as a catalyst for resilience. Students work with natural materials, circular economies, local craft and global systems thinking. Designs are rooted in place, culture and climate, yet speak to a world in need of repair.
Exploring how we must live, build and thrive
Each month, we gather at our spiritual home in the hills above Machynlleth for an immersive week of collaborative study. Students, staff and visiting tutors share a rhythm of inquiry, discussion, creativity and mutual support. We eat, build and learn together; from each other and from the place. CAT becomes, for that week, a microcosm of the types of communities we hope to inspire. The setting is both retreat and testing ground.
The dramatic landscape and shifting weather create a backdrop for exploration and shared purpose. In a world dominated by digital and dispersed learning, our time together is essential, giving texture to ideas and humanity to projects.
This year’s cohort has shown passion, intelligence and generosity. Their work is rigorous, imaginative and hopeful, rooted in research and sustained by solidarity. Architecture is inherently collaborative, and the students have demonstrated that community and care are vital tools of the profession.
In these projects, you will find technical skill, innovation and critical reflection, but also an ethic of care, a drive for justice, and a vision for a more balanced way of living. This is not an ending but a beginning, a contribution to the urgent conversation about how we must live, build and thrive in a time of profound ecological and societal challenge.
Student projects
Amelia Maddox – West Shore Kelp Desk, Llandudno, UK
The West Shore Kelp Desk is a coastal regeneration project in Llandudno, North Wales, combining seaweed cultivation with public education and environmental stewardship. Spanning two sites along the West Shore promenade, the scheme connects them through ecologically sensitive landscape interventions.
Central to the project is the cultivation of kelp and seagrass, species vital for biodiversity, carbon capture and coastal resilience, which are made visible and accessible as tools for climate education. Architecturally, it blends adaptive reuse with new-build structures. The West Shore Kelp Desk serves as a blueprint for sustainable coastal development.
Hannah Maxey – Holbeck Small Press Library, Leeds, UK
The Holbeck Small Press Library is a community-focused project situated between Holbeck and Holbeck Urban Village, just south of Leeds city centre. The project responds to the area’s poverty, poor living conditions and disconnection from the more affluent city centre by reimagining a disused library building as a grassroots cultural hub.
Rather than mirroring the British Library’s nearby expansion, which is geared toward research and business, the Small Press Library proposes a space centred on self-publishing, creativity and community participation. By questioning who regeneration truly serves, the Holbeck Small Press Library positions itself as a site of resistance, imagination and hope in the face of exclusion, inequality and environmental crisis.
Callum Lawlor – Acle Bridge Visitor Centre, Norfolk, UK
Located in the Norfolk Broads National Park, this project proposes a visitor and research centre that directly responds to the area’s pressing ecological challenges, including nutrient pollution, peatland degradation and biodiversity loss.
The centre supports habitat restoration, nutrient neutrality and public awareness of the Broads’ unique ecological and cultural value. The building is sensitively integrated into the landscape and ecological features are woven into the architecture, encouraging wildlife through nesting habitats and biodiverse planting schemes.
Functionally, the centre combines public education with scientific research, acting as a hub for learning, collaboration and long-term ecological care rooted in local knowledge and holistic systems thinking.
Millie Bush – Dowr Kernow, Water, Wellness and Knowledge, Cornwall, UK
Dowr Kernow (meaning ‘Water Cornwall’) is a project that reimagines our relationship with water in a world increasingly disconnected from natural rhythms. It challenges the narrative of pollution, industrial harm and ecological neglect, proposing instead a story of renewal, care and reconnection.
Dowr Kernow creates spaces where people can interact meaningfully with water: clean wild swimming spots; places of rest and convalescence; and learning environments focused on ecological awareness, water safety and self-care. The project advocates for a future in which water is treated with reverence, protected, shared and celebrated.
Thea Brooman – The Centre for Environment and Humanity, Kodaikanal, India
This project is situated in the high-altitude hill town of Kodaikanal in South India and is conceived as a catalyst for sustainable development for the town, its local community and the surrounding landscape.
The aim is to reconnect people with their local environment and promote stewardship of biodiversity. Developed on a site owned by a local international school, the proposal forms part of a broader initiative to transform an existing campus into a centre for ecological education, conservation and community engagement. Central to the vision is the restoration of the native Shola ecosystem, a unique and endangered montane forest that once thrived in the region.
Find out more about our M.Arch in Sustainable Architecture
More student projects can be viewed in our
2025 M.Arch Student yearbook
.
Find out more about our M.Arch in Sustainable Architecture by looking at the
programme description
or by joining an
upcoming open day
.
November 7, 2025
Inspiring Global Solutions Through International Study
Here at CAT, we offer a range of
postgraduate degrees in sustainability
and our
flexible learning options
allow students to study with us internationally. From Canada to Bermuda, the Netherlands to Lithuania, our students come from all over the globe and form a vital part of a growing network of changemakers.
Our international Graduate School students come to the courses with their own wealth of knowledge and experience. Whether this relates to politics or policy, ecosystems, the built environment or anything in between, when paired with the academic skills and understandings gained at CAT, they go on to make a real difference across the globe.
If you’re considering
postgraduate study at CAT
and live abroad, read on to find out why studying with us can be a unique and enriching educational experience.
Implementing positive solutions in real time
Studying internationally has allowed countless CAT students to work alongside their studies. In many cases this means that they can begin implementing the concepts and techniques they’re learning about in real time. For Ananya Jauhari, who has been studying our MSc in Green Building alongside her work as an architect in India, this has been one of the many positive aspects of studying from afar.
“Because I’m studying via distance learning I have been able to work alongside. That has been an amazing advantage because I’ve been trying to implement the concepts that I’ve been learning about to real world projects in my job. Being from India, I see that there is a lot of scope and potential for change in the built environment, and I’m trying to align my career in such a way that I’m able to contribute meaningfully through real world projects to attain sustainability in the built environment.”
Ananya Jauhari
Become part of a Global Community
Joining CAT’s
Graduate School
as an international student puts you at the heart of a global network working to enact change on different scales in a multitude of ways, across multiple sectors. It provides students with the skills and knowledge to bring a better future into being. For Gemma Young, who studied our
MSc in Sustainability and Behaviour Change
from abroad, her studies at CAT provided an uplifting experience that solidified her place within a larger network of change makers.
“CAT merged theory with real world action, connecting me to a global community and giving me the confidence – and tools – to turn ambitious sustainability ideas into practice. On a personal level, the experience reenergised my sense of purpose: rather than feeling I’m pushing against the tide, I now see a growing international network committed to systemic reform and I feel equipped to contribute meaningfully to it.”
Gemma Young
CAT’s global community is also multifaceted and includes not only our fantastic international students but also staff, spin-out businesses and graduates. The award-winning company
Dulas Ltd
was founded at CAT and now supplies solar powered vaccine fridges to remote locations all over the globe, providing communities with lifesaving medicines. The company’s Executive Managing Director, Ruth Chapman, is also a CAT graduate.
Lecturers and guest speakers also join us from over the ocean, including Senior
Lecturer Bryce Gilroy-Scott
, who is based in British Columbia, Canada. His location and specialist knowledge as a consultant and educator in the fields of sustainable communities, construction and energy brings a unique and enriching perspective to our courses. CAT graduates also go on to work in communities all over the world such as Peter O’Toole who is currently working on a sustainable practices project in Kenya with a Maasai community.
Flexible learning options
Most international students study with us via distance learning, and with round-the-clock access to all teaching resources via Microsoft Teams, students can join us from wherever they’re based. Flexible teaching hours and availability of staff like Bryce, who works from the Pacific Standard timezone, means that students can meet with graduate school staff at a time that works for them, and hands-on activities are tailored for both distance and on-site learners so that those learning from afar can also immerse themselves in hands-on practical teaching activities. With support from lecturers, including Bryce, students can be supported at times that suit them.
“Studying at CAT sitting thousands of miles away in Muscat… I’ve never been away from the tutors, and regular seminars allow me to have clarity on matters instantly. Seminars planned at different times allow me to select the time that suits me. Doing distance study helps me to continue working and studying at the same time. I would strongly recommend studying by distance at CAT.”
Sarath from Muscat
Inspiring global solutions through dissertation research
Recent graduate Anna Hartley studied with us from her home in France and as part of her dissertation, she developed a digital programme called
CELESTE
. The prototype provides French citizens with the specific information needed to visualise how small-scale renewable energy could work for their own regions.
The programme works by harnessing publicly available data such as the current population and electrical demand of a region, how feasible different renewable technologies might be for a geographic location, recommendations for consultants and much more. It then compiles and communicates this data giving users access to the specialised information they need to imagine how small-scale renewable energy might work in their communities.
Anna has since gone on to put CELESTE under a Creative Commons licence meaning that it could be adapted for communities all over the world; a heartening reminder that studying internationally at CAT can lead to global solutions.
Growing international demand for green careers
Factors such as global sustainability targets, policy changes and transitions towards renewable energy means that there is currently a rapid increase in international demand for a greener workforce. Studying at CAT allows students to gain highly desired skills and advance their careers whilst making meaningful changes. A growing understanding of the climate and biodiversity crisis is also evoking those already working across a variety of sectors to rethink how they are operating, as was the case for
Roshan Nageena Sabeer
, CAT graduate and Principal Architect at Ávása Architects in Kerela, India:
“Before joining CAT, I was struggling to run my firm as I felt I was doing more damage to the planet without understanding ways to change popular mindsets about the indiscriminate use of energy in buildings. My passion for influencing a sustainable lifestyle and search for solutions led me to CAT. I now intend to use the knowledge gained to further shift my firm to a more sustainable model and to share these ideas to influence others through sustainability consultant work in the future.”
Roshan Nageena Sabeer
Join us: Study sustainability at CAT
If you’re a prospective international student inspired to join a global classroom for climate action, why not explore our diverse range of postgraduate courses, join us online on one of our virtual open days or get in touch with our Admissions Team to
make an enquiry
today.
Note: If you would normally require a student visa to study in the UK, you can study our courses via distance learning (except
MArch Sustainable Architecture
) or alternatively, you can choose a mixture of residential (usually under 6 months) and distance learning if you are eligible. Check the
UK Government website
for your eligibility to see if you require a visa to study here in the UK.
We do not currently have a licence to sponsor students who would usually require a visa, which unfortunately means we can’t enrol students from outside the UK for full-time residential study. From September 2021 new students who previously would have been considered as EEA students will now be considered as Overseas students and will not be able to take full-time residential study at CAT and will need to study via distance learning or through the mixture of residential and distance learning as above if eligible.
October 27, 2025
Students take their first steps towards a green career
Last month, we welcomed our latest cohort of postgraduate students to CAT as they embarked upon a transformative educational journey delving into sustainability and solutions.
A unique approach to learning
CAT’s
Graduate School of the Environmen
t courses offer a big-picture integrated approach to sustainability, providing our students with the knowledge, practical skills and inspiration to take action on the climate and biodiversity crisis.
Our courses mix academic learning with practical workshops from academics who are experts in their fields and cover a wide range of sustainability-related topics, enabling CAT students to go on to make a real difference in a variety of
career pathways
, from researching solutions, advising on climate policy, sustainable architecture, and beyond.
During our taught modules, students join us for a week-long intensive teaching week, before continuing their coursework from home, with a distance learning option available for our
MSc and MRes courses
. This approach helps provide our students with the flexibility to fit their studies around work, their families and other commitments.
Sustainability in action
One of the results of having intensive teaching weeks is that there is always a special buzz around CAT when students are on-site, and this year’s first lot of teaching week, for both our MSc, MRes and M.Arch students, was especially electric.
For those students able to join on-site, they are not only treated to incredible views. They can also benefit from CAT’s more than 50 years of sustainability experience that has transformed the CAT site from a disused slate quarry into a living laboratory, showcasing sustainability in action, including:
Experimental sustainably designed buildings – including rammed earth and straw bale buildings.
Organically managed gardens that provide a useful teaching space and supply fresh fruit and vegetables to the CAT Cafe.
Sustainably managed woodlands providing both timber and rich habitats for a diverse range of wildlife, including bats, foxes, badgers, dormice, pine martens and more.
MSc and MRes courses
Our
MSc courses
and our
MRes Sustainability and Adaptation
all begin with a shared module,
Introduction to Sustainability and Adaptation
.
By bringing together students from all our MSc and MRes courses, from Sustainability and Behaviour Change, to Green Building, the first week sees a real cross-fertilisation of ideas, as students with different skillsets and backgrounds discuss what they have been learning.
Over the teaching week, students were introduced to sustainability and transformational adaptation concepts and theories ranging from systems thinking, behaviour change and climate policy to ecosystems, to land use and the built environment.
Highlights of the week included:
A workshop assessing the durability of timber buildings on-site at CAT.
An activity assessing the negative impacts of invasive plants such as Rhododendron ponticum on native flora and fauna.
A walk in the hills above CAT to collect and analyse wind data.
An activity assessing the negative impacts of invasive plants such as
Rhododendron ponticum
on native flora and fauna.
Guest lecturer Susan Steed gave a talk on transformation and economics.
A workshop exploring food systems from production, processing, distribution and consumption.
A film screening of Plan Z – with some of the filmmakers joining us online for a Q&A.
CAT graduates returned for a panel where they shared their experiences of studying with us, along with some of the incredible things they are doing now. One graduate who returned was Ruth Chapman, now Executive Managing Director of
Dulas Limited
, a company that originally started at CAT, which works on renewable energy and life-saving vaccine solar fridges.
Meeting and talking to our new students and making new connections!
M.Arch in Sustainable Architecture (ARB Part 2)
A course with sustainability at its core, alongside academic learning, our
M.Arch in Sustainable Architecture course
provides students with the chance to develop practical building skills, gain experience using a range of sustainable building materials, and learn from our five decades of experimenting with sustainable design.
If you ever visit CAT during an architecture teaching week, you are sure to see a host of students doing something interesting, and the first week for our 2025 cohort was no exception. Students could be seen across the site sketching, touring the many examples of innovative and experimental sustainable buildings at CAT, or in various spots discussing their lectures and other practical workshops.
Highlights during the week have included:
A site visit to Bangor, North Wales, where students familiarised themselves with the location ahead of their community engagement project, which will take place in the city.
A tour of CAT’s green buildings
.
Sketching workshops with architect Chris Loyn surveying CAT’s natural environment and sustainable buildings.
A ‘Banquet of Books’ workshop, where lecturer and architect Zoe Quick explored reading as a form of commoning, and the sociality, materiality, and political ecologies of ‘reading for resilience.’
Lectures exploring sustainability in the built environment from CAT staff, including a lecture from our
Zero Carbon Britain Innovation Lab team
.
Interested in studying at CAT?
Visit us either in person or online for one of our
upcoming postgraduate Open Days
. Our Open Days will give you the chance to hear from CAT staff, students and graduates about what it’s actually like to study at CAT, with plenty of chances for questions.
Join a CAT teaching week as a Short Course
We’ve opened up a few spaces on some of our upcoming teaching weeks, which is great if you want to delve into a specific sustainability-related topic or get a real taste of what it’s like to study a postgraduate course at CAT.
6 to 10 October 2025 – Buildings for People
6 to 10 October 2025 – Ecological Assessment
1 to 5 December 2025 – Cities and Communities
1 to 5 December 2025 – Food Systems and Sustainability
8 to 12 December 2025 – Low and Zero Carbon Buildings
Visit our
short course page
to see more upcoming courses.
October 3, 2025
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