Sally Chan interviewed by BBC on 'Walking to Zero' project
On 22 June, lecturer in Marketing Sally Chan and Business School student Mansi Singh were interviewed by BBC Radio Leeds on the ‘Walking to Zero’ project.
The project, led by Sally Chan and Student Sustainability Architect (SSA) Maureen Kewe, is part of this year’s Student Sustainability Projects and is designed to get students to reconnect to their landscapes. It is the brainchild of Steve Hoffman, a product designer, and educator with thirty years of experience in 3D design, photography, and graphics.
When asked about the origins of the ‘Walking to Zero’ project, Sally Chan commented:
We thought this year let’s do something a bit different, a bit artsy, something that’s going to really capture their imagination and get everybody involved. We thought you know what, get students walking.
MSc Management Consulting student, Mansi Singh, described her experience of the project as ‘amazing’. As an international student from India, Mansi noted how the humid weather at home often prevented her from being able to walk for long periods but that in Leeds she’s noticed a big walking culture. Mansi describes how she originally swapped her 15 minute bus commute to campus for a 40 minute walk, but now sets herself time ‘targets’ to see if she can do it in 30 minutes instead.
When asked what she would say to encourage other students to take up walking, Mansi says:
Just go for it, if I can do it, I think you can. It’s pretty, you get so much connectivity with the landscape… you get to see a lot more when you are not with your gadgets.
As part of the project, students collected images and words relating to their walks that were exhibited in the Maurice Keyworth building on 28 June. Sally Chan hopes that the exhibition will have inspired others to think differently about walking:
Hopefully that will kickstart some conversations about engaging with our environment, our landscape changing, doing your bit no matter how small you can actually contribute to your understanding of sustainability.
