About us
Transition University of St Andrews is a hub for sustainability activity in St Andrews. We support the community – not just students – in low-carbon living and practical activities to make our town more resilient. If you share our vision please get involved: our core projects are organised around smarter travel, zero waste, local food, and knowledge & skills.
Smarter Travel
Here we try to share the events, information and news surrounding all forms of sustainable transport in and around St Andrews. Whether it is walking, running, and jogging; cycling; car clubs; buses; trains; and local holidaying we have a wealth of ideas and support.
Zero waste
We are lucky to have a town & gown StAndRe-Use scheme which collects things from students, is sorted by students and returned to other students -all for free! From Zero Waste Scotland’s ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’ to beach cleans, we have a range of projects to clean up St Andrews and make the most of our resources.
Local Food
We are keen to improve and increase the production and consumption of local and affordable food in St Andrews. We now have a network of 14 community gardens, which are open to the public. Our Edible Campus scheme aims to teach skills and encourage interest in growing and the Tree is an online shop that allows local producers to sell their goods at a weekly pop-up shop.
Knowledge & Skills
Sharing skills and knowledge is key to the Transition movement, which is aimed at a more localised economy, because of a need to address the fact that we have lost, or never learnt, many of the skills that such a shift would require. We support this through practical skillshares, from hedge laying to quilting; our annual Bioblitz, to teach about our amazing biodiversity; Living Labs to link research with practice; and Carbon Conversations, a 6 session course guaranteed to help you reduce your carbon footprint.
Transition University of St Andrews is a constituted group of students, staff and members of the local community initiated in 2009 as a community response to climate change and economic uncertainty.
We undertake projects across environmental themes including biodiversity, food, energy, transport, local economy and re-use.
We currently employ 6 staff, through a complementary range of streams including the Scottish Government Climate Change Fund, Smarter Choices Smarter Places, Zero Waste Scotland, Cycling Scotland and the University of St Andrews. We also work closely with St Andrews Environmental Network, the St Andrews Botanic Garden and Cyclepath.
We are part of the Transition Towns movement, a much wider movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world. The Transition movement is about feeling like you can make a difference in the world – because it is more manageable to address the world’s challenges if we work together at a local scale. The movement is all about learning new skills, connecting with other people and creating a new story for their local area. Read more about the Transition Network.