What is the Environment Festival?
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A series of events focussed on environmental sustainability taking place from 1-7 November 2025. Sponsored by the Social Change Lab, the Network of Environmental Social Scientists, The Commons Social Change Library, Advocacy Research Network, Climate Club Queensland, and other environment groups.

What are our aims?

Around the world, environmental challenges are converging in ways that are increasingly complex and urgent. The climate crisis, biodiversity loss, pollution, and resource scarcity are not isolated issues — they are part of a broader polycrisis that intersects with economic instability, social inequality, and geopolitical tensions. As these pressures mount, the need for bold, collaborative, and justice-oriented responses has never been greater. 
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The festival aims to make groups working for a more environmentally sustainable future more visible to each other and to communities, and to draw new voices into the conversation.

Keen to host an event? We invite anyone - community members, scholars, students, and advocacy groups - to host an event as part of the festival! Please see our host guide for more info.

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Environment Festival 2025

• ​Monday 3 November:
  • 11am-3pm AEST (UTC+10) From Data to Decision: The Role of Climate Experts in Climate Law -  Register here (includes public lecture 11-12:30; lunch; workshop on giving expert testimony).
  • 3-4:30pm AEST (UTC+10) Students and the Polycrisis: An interactive workshop for students on interdisciplinary research. Room 24-S402 Social Sciences Building (#24) UQ St Lucia or online via Zoom. Register here to attend in person or online (you will be emailed the Zoom link). 
• ​Tuesday 4 November:
  • 9am-2:05pm AEST (UTC+10) National Interdisciplinary Conversation on the Environment. Room 24-S402 Social Sciences Building (#24) UQ St Lucia or online via Zoom. Register here to attend in person or online (you will be emailed the Zoom link). 
• Wednesday 5 November:
  • 9am-2pm AEST (UTC+10) A NESS/PEPSS symposium - Information wars: How misinformation, AI and conflict shape responses to climate change and the environment. Room 223, Level 2, UQ Brisbane City, 308 Queen Street, Brisbane or online via Zoom. Register here to attend in person or online (you will be emailed the Zoom link).
  • 3pm-4pm AEST (UTC+10) Political activism for social change: corporations, consumers and investors.  An online panel on consumer activism, boycotts and political investing, and attempts to ban/regulate these with A/Prof. Erin O'Brien and A/Prof Bree Hurst.  Email for link. 
  • 5:45pm-8pm AEST (UTC+10) Australian Conservation Foundation's (ACF) 60th Anniversary Celebration - Screening of Corals' Last Stand. Corals' Last Stand - a powerful documentary about the fight to save Scott Reef, which is home to 1200 species including sea turtles, corals, sea snakes and the pygmy whale on its annual migration, and where Woodside and joint venture partners want to sink 50 wells for oil and gas under the reef ecosystem. There will be an expert panel discussion after the film featuring Prof Ian Lowe AO, past ACF President, Emeritus Professor of Science Technology & Society, and renowned author; Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg AC FAA, Emeritus Professor, biologist and climate scientist, and one of the first scientists to identify the serious threat posed by climate change for coral reefs which predicted the loss of coral reefs by 2050; Robbie Porter, OzFish Senior Special Projects Officer; Piper Rollins, ACF Climate Campaigner​. Get your tickets here. 
  • 6pm-8pm AEST (UTC+10) QUEX Sustainable Food Systems Solutions: Research Development Workshops. Build a team with The University of Exeter to start a research project on sustainable food system solutions and compete for the chance to win $1,000 research funding! This is the first of 3 online workshops (2nd on February 11, 2026 and 3rd on April 15, 2026) and is suitable for UQ and Uni of Exeter researchers and collaborating partners. Get more info and sign up here.    
• Thursday 6 November:
  • 2:30pm-5pm AEST (UTC+10) Free climate action film screening - FINITE: The Climate of Change. Film synopsis: In Germany, concerned citizens step forward to save an ancient forest from one of Europe’s largest coal mines. They form an unlikely alliance with a frustrated community in rural England who are forced into action to protect their homes from a new opencast coal mine. This is a student-led event hosted by members of a Social Change Lab Student-Staff Partnership Project and will include a group discussion of the film afterwards. In person in Room S304, Social Sciences Building (#24), UQ St Lucia. All welcome, no need to register, just come along on the day - hope to see you there! 
• Friday 7 November:
  • 2 student-led events - participate in one or both!   ​
    • ​Culture and Environmental Sustainability Panel. 2:30-3:30pm, Room 275, Global Change Institute (#20), UQ St Lucia.
      This is an event developed by students to demonstrate the capacity of culture to adapt to and influence sustainability goals. The event will be a two-part engagement where students will first engage with a panel of youth leaders from various campus cultural groups on the topic of environmental literacy and speak about their motivations to decrease the impact of human activities on nature. Register here to attend in person or online (you will be emailed the Zoom link).
    • Clothes Giveaway. 3:30-4:30pm, next door in Room 273, Global Change Institute (#20), UQ St Lucia
      In addition, the potential of cultural meetings on sustainability will be demonstrated through a ‘clothes giveaway’ where participants can bring any clothes, including their cultural items, to swap with others and capitalise on their commitment to a waste-free economy based on recycling and trading apparel. Register here to attend in person.

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