With the 2026/27 academic year just around the corner, we're delighted to launch the upcoming member webinar series for September to December 2026. Our member networking webinars were previously known as the Green Office Movement member networking calls. With the recent launch of our SOS Chapter institutions membership program, our member community is growing!
With a wider, global reach, we're excited to be integrating Green Office and Chapter member institutions under 'one roof' to broaden horizons, forge new connections and share knowledge in our unified global purpose to transform higher education for sustainability and environmental justice.
Our member networking webinars take place monthly, via Microsoft Teams. Each meeting runs for 1hr 30 mins, with plenty of time to cover a range of agenda items:
- News and updates from SOS International
- Member updates and upcoming events or campaigns
- Keynote presentations and guest speakers
- Q&A and general discussion, debate and sharing.
With this enhanced program, we're also publishing the theme for each webinar further in advance. This will enable our members to reflect on topics in advance, bring ideas to share or questions to ask. See below the schedule of themes for the upcoming September - December 2026 webinars (please note all stated times are UTC, please adjust for your local time zone):
Wednesday 23 September 2026, 10:00 - 11:30 UTC
Theme: Business as un-usual: maintaining our collective impact in challenging times
With parched and charred earth, intense heat in the oceans, collapsing glaciers and permafrost, the unsusual is now the usual. It is no longer a case of how we fit business as usual around natural environment but how we respond as a keystone species and 'manage' Planet Earth. We will welcome guest speaker, Katrin Muff, President of The Positive Impact Rating Association, an independent, student and faculty driven assessment that helps business schools worldwide evaluate their commitment to sustainability and ethical practices. We will then discuss our collective plans for the year and share examples of upcoming events and developments across the SOS International membership.
Wednesday 14 October 2026, 11:00 - 12:30 UTC
Theme: nature on the front-line
After a European summer with extreme heat on land and in the oceans, extensive wildfires, drought and crop failures, nature is under immense pressure from the rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 and associated warming that has happened in post-industrial time. This month's webinar is scheduled ahead of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP 17) in Yerevan, Armenia [1] where global leaders will debate the progress on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
We will discuss nature, biodiversity and regenerative agricultural practices already happening across our campuses and on the land that they own and use this as a source for inspiration to promote greater focus from our institutions on restoring nature.
Tuesday 10 November 2026, 11:00 - 12:30 UTC
Theme: mitigation..., adaptation..., we need it all, and more urgently than ever
Temperature records have been repeatedly broken in the 2020's, with 2023-25 being the three warmest years in all eight global long-term datasets. In the world's oceans, with their increased heat-carrying capacity in comparison to land, the data is even more staggering. A super-El Nino in 2026 has super-charged heat-waves and other extreme weather events around the world.
With vast proportions of the global population suffering from multiple extreme heat events each year, the evidence is clear, we are already experiencing the consequences of global carbon emissions, and it is only set to worsen if no action is taken.
We will discuss the progress of the climate mitigation and adaptation strategies of our institutions and ensure that we continue to hold them to account on decarbonization efforts.
This webinar aligns with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference (UNFCC COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, where global leaders will assemble to debate progress on the 2015 Paris agreement and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC's) to this, the 'loss and damage' fund among other climate financing strategies ratified at previous climate COP's.
Thursday 10 December 2026: 12:00 - 13:30 UTC
Theme: why we learn, what we learn, how we learn; re-framing the concept of 'learning' in a hyper-complex world
Volatility, Unpredictability, Complexity, Ambiguity, the VUCA world acronym was first coined by economists and university professors Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus.
Now, more than ever, this concept and framework sets the scene for the purpose of education and learning at a time of multiple global-crises and ambiguous strategies for adaption and mitigation.
We will discuss the extent to which our institutions are adjusting teaching and learning to prepare and equip learners with the skills and competencies to act and thrive as leaders and citizens of Planet Earth in the 21st century.
This webinar takes place ahead of the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development (WCESD), in Nairobi, Kenya, 13-15 January 2027. Ministers, education specialists and youth leaders will review UNESCO's 'agenda 2030' ESD framework and determine priorities for the future.
Our member webinar series is open to all Green Office and Chapter institution members of SOS International. Joining links are issued by email to lead contacts on our member database. Lead contacts can cascade the joining link to students and staff engaged in your Green Office or SOS Chapter. If you have not received or have misplaced your joining link, please get in touch with us at contact@sos.earth.
