British AU Student has Started a New Student Association With a Focus on Sustainability
A British AU student has started a new green student association, the Sustainability and Energy Club Aarhus, focusing on sustainability and energy. One of the association's goals is to establish contact between students and the business and industry, according to founder Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury.
Event with Arla on sustainability
Wednesday, 25 February, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Conference Centre, Frederik Nielsens Vej 2-4.
The registration link can be found on SECA's Instagram here.
When Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury scrolled down the list of student associations at AU, he was surprised to find that none of them focused on sustainability. But then it hit him:
"Why not try to create my own," says the 22-year-old Master's degree student in chemistry and biotechnology, explaining what sparked the creation of the Sustainability and Energy Club Aarhus (SECA).
The association aims to introduce students to how companies work with sustainability and is strongly inspired by its British counterpart in London called UCL Energy Society, says Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury, who himself has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from UCL (University College London).
“In the UK, student associations are very common, we call them ‘societies’. So, you can join a student society in anything," he says.
His impression is that student associations don’t play as significant a role at AU as they do in England, and he’d like to help change that.
INSIGHTS FROM THE BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY
The association, which consists of a board of eight students, will therefore organise and hold a series of events where students can learn more about various companies' work with sustainability.
“In university, you learn about theory, but you're not really getting real world application. So it would just be really cool and help students to get a sense of how things work in practice," says Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury about his vision of building bridges between students and companies, especially those in the energy sector.
STARTING WITH ARLA
SECA will hold its first event on Wednesday, 25 February, where two representatives from Arla will give a presentation and there will be an opportunity to ask questions and network with both the speakers and fellow students.
One of the two speakers is Morten Vagner, who is Energy Manager at Arla.
“He is an energy and utility manager and is responsible for nine dairies across Jutland. In terms of decarbonising the whole supply chain process. So, he is like a really good contact to have to speak about his experience with sustainability in a global company,” says Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury, who currently spends around 10 hours a week on the initiative alongside his studies at AU.
The second speaker is Charlie Eke from the UK, who’s currently participating in Arla's Future15 Graduate Program.
“Charlie is an excellent addition to the event, because he’s a recent graduate from the University of Leeds and brings that student’s touch,” says Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury, pointing out that there will be coffee, cake and snacks at the event, which is supported by the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering with DKK 3,000.
No Rolls-Royce, yet
SECA is still in its infancy, but that doesn’t prevent Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury from dreaming big about what the association can develop into in the long term. The hope is, first and foremost, that it can be expanded to other universities, including panel discussions and case competitions inspired by England and UCL.
"UCL are in collaboration with other student associations from other universities like Oxford and Cambridge. They had one recently where it was a case competition for Rolls-Royce. Students had to compete to come up with a solution for their energy-related problem for Rolls-Royce and then present it to a panel," says Thomas Thinggaard Rowbury, who also hopes that company visits can become a reality in the future.
In addition, he expects SECA to host at least one more event before the semester ends.
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen.