SEDA Conference 2025
3-5 October, Edinburgh
About this event
Sufficiency is not about austerity, deprivation, or resignation. Sufficiency is about knowing what is enough. Efficiency is not enough, no waste is not enough. Understanding that material abundance and selfish hoarding, extraction, and expansion is the antithesis of ethical, ecologically sound manner of behaviour.
IPCC Report 2022 defines Sufficiency as, “a set of policy measures and daily practices that avoid the demand for energy, materials, land, water, and other natural resources while providing wellbeing for all within the planetary boundaries.”
Note: There will not be an official recording of this event.
We need to challenge our status quo of the consumption mindset. Embracing “Lagom” and the true meaning of “wellbeing economy” in its deeper ecological intent, understanding healthy limits, rather than using it as the appropriated terminology to rebrand, and justify more growth.
We need to believe in regeneration – which in turn would restore the ecosystem and grant us clean air, clean soil, and clean water. That sufficiency is the foundation of regeneration. Sufficiency is what would enable us all to thrive.
We will explore:
social and community sufficiency in our built heritage; exploring empty homes as opposed to ‘build build build.’
materials on land and in oceans, soil, and food dynamics.
world sufficiency from energy to water, with a closer look at global variations and contexts.
reimagining future settlements, neighbourhoods, and fair accessibility in infrastructure.
equity and disability in the sufficiency equation.
scientific understanding; learning from how Nature does sufficiency.
All of this, together with much discussion and inspiring workshops, led by provocateurs, we hope to reconnect ourselves with nature and the planet. Challenge our thinking and behaviour with a positive take home message to spread to others.
We have a great line up of speakers who are listed further down this page. You can read their bios to find out more about them!
We believe in site visits and hands-on workshops, unique qualities of a SEDA conference! This conference site visit is on Sunday 5th October. We will be looking at a wellbeing community that provides food boxes from a walled garden for those who cannot afford food, where the soil is enriched by biochar as a circular system. We go on from there on a guided trip to learn the skills of foraging, and what it means to do it in a sufficient manner and not strip nature bare.
Krystyna and Jim Johnson Award for Sustainable Architecture, will have the shortlisted students present their projects for the Judges to award the winner on Saturday 4th October.
This conference will be an exploration of the wider issue of “Sufficiency.” As always, it will be full of thoughtful and insightful discussions!
This page will be regularly updated in lead up to the event, so check back over the coming weeks to see a detailed event programme and speaker biographies.
Event details
Friday 10am - Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge Edinburgh EH1 1EL
Optional Friday Dinner 6pm - Guru Bali - Guru Balti 4-8 Lochrin Buildings, EH3 9NB
Saturday 10am – Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue, 16 St Mary's Street Edinburgh EH1 1SU
Sunday 10.30am – Visit to Sustainable Thinking Scotland*, Walled Garden, Kinneil Estate, off Provost Road, Bo’ness, EH51 0PR
*Transport is self organised, car share with other conference guests, or public transport (Scotrail from Waverly to Falkirk Grahamston and Bus 2/2A).
Books with the Author
We will be selling (cash only) the following books with the opportunity for signed copies of:
Friday:
Material Cultures - Material Reform - Amica Dall
https://materialcultures.org/material-reform/
Common Treasures - vol 1 Land, Food and Farming & vol 2 Housing, Planning and Contruction - Edited by Amica Dall, Giles Smith, James Binning & Sara Pereira
https://www.commontreasures.org/
Form Follows Function - Florian Urban and Barnabas Calder
Saturday:
The Story of Upfront Carbon: How a Life of Just Enough Offers a Way Out of the Climate Crisis - Lloyd Alter
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-story-of-upfront-carbon/lloyd-alter/9780865719927
Ticket details
In Person Event Ticket Price
Student and unwaged one day - £35
Members one day - £176
Non Members one day - £220
Student and unwaged two day - £70
Members two day - £195.64
Non Members two day - £268
Student and unwaged three day - £90
Members three day - £215.35
Non Members three day - £295
Sunday Only (Site visit and foraging including lunch) - £35
Optional Dinner (6 pm Friday only) - Guru Balti - £30
Online Event Ticket Price (Days 1 & 2 only)
Online Student per day - £10
Online Member per day - £80
Online Non Member per day - £100
Children under the age of 12 are free to attend - let us know by emailing conference@seda.scot
Speaker Bios
Day 1 Speakers
Katherine Trebeck
Co-founder of the the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll)
Katherine is writer-at-large and co-director of the Compassion in Financial Services hub at the University of Edinburgh and Economic Change Programme Director at The Next Economy. She is a member of the Club of Rome and co-founded the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and WEAll Scotland. She is Distinguished Visitor at ANU’s Planetary Health Hothouse and was 2024 thinker-in-residence at the Australian Health Promotion Association.
“The dominant economic system relies on people feeling they can never have enough money and material goods; but whenever people are asked what really matters to them, they talk of relationships, health, dignity, and nature. This important gathering is diving into that paradox - the gap between what people identify as important and the logic of today's economy. Hard to think of a more critical conversation"
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ktrebeck123/
https://www.instagram.com/ktrebeck00/
Tahmina Nizam
National Manager at the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP)
Tahmina Nizam is the National Manager at the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP), which is hosted by Shelter Scotland and funded by Scottish Government. With 10 years of experience in housing and homelessness she and her team work with councils and third sector partners looking at how empty houses can become full time homes, contributing to the housing ecosystem.
“Homes weren’t built to sit empty and we know from our work that they can be an energy- and cost- effective way of providing homes for families and households across the country. I look forward to speaking to and hearing from others on how we can work together to maximise the properties we already have.”
https://www.instagram.com/scottishemptyhomes/
David Nugent
Chief Executive of Canopy
David is Chief Executive of Canopy Housing in Leeds. They use bio-based materials to retrofit Victorian terraces with teams of volunteers from the local community. They house homeless families, teach green construction skills, and help diverse neighbourhoods thrive.
“At Canopy, we are evangelical about the use of more natural materials in construction, particularly in retrofit. I’m thrilled to be heading to Scotland, where so much ground-breaking research into sustainable materials is happening.”
Lewis Jones
Co-Founder of Assemble Studio and part of the Assemble team to develop the Turner-Prize-winning retrofitting project Granby Four Streets.
Lewis Jones is a designer working across architecture, craft, and hands-on construction. Co-founder of the design collective Assemble, he jointly led a long-term collaboration with residents of the Granby Four Streets in Liverpool to help rebuild their neighbourhood, a project awarded the Turner Prize in 2015. In 2016, he moved to Liverpool to oversee the growth of Granby Workshop, an employee-owned ceramics manufacturer rooted in the neighbourhood producing architectural ceramics for local renovations and export further afield. In 2025, Jones established Matter at hand, a research-based design studio, guided by the belief that inventive and unexpected solutions to the problems at hand can be found in a deeper understanding of the materials and resources around us.
Assemble Studio:
https://www.instagram.com/assembleofficial/
Granby Four Streets:
https://www.granby4streetsclt.co.uk/
https://assemblestudio.co.uk/projects/granby-four-streets-2
https://assemblestudio.co.uk/projects/granby-winter-gardens
https://www.instagram.com/granbywintergarden/
Matter at Hand:
Amica Dall
Lecturer and author for Material Reform: Material Cultures and Common Treasure - vol 1 Land, Food and Farming & vol 2 Housing, Planning and Contruction
Co-Founder of Assemble, mixed disciplinary collective working in and around architecture, design and the built environment.
Michaela Girvan
Global environmental law and governance researcher, environmental consultant, and legal anthropologist
Michaela Girvan is a global environmental law and governance researcher, environmental consultant, and legal anthropologist specialising in international environmental law and the law of the sea. She has spoken on British Seas restoration in Strasbourg in 2021, and attended the 2023 UN General Summit advocating for a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights. After which, she co-founded The Ocean Rights Coalition (UK) to continue the work already started in 2022 and 2023 as an individual to further Ocean Rights, regionally and nationally in the UK.
“Recognising Ocean Rights means acknowledging that the ocean gives us enough—and that our responsibility is to protect its integrity so it can sustain all life and livelihoods, for current and future generations.”
Wendy Russell
Professor of Molecular Nutrition at the Rowett Institute
Professor Wendy Russell leads the ‘Microbiome’ and ‘Food Innovation and Security’ themes for the University of Aberdeen Rowett Institute and ‘Sustainable Food Security and Supply’ for the Scottish Government’s Strategic Research Programme. Wendy is a chemist specialised in molecular nutrition researching the complex interplay between diet and health. Major research themes include understanding the role of the gut microbiome in preventing non-communicable diseases and the potential of plant-based crops, particularly in protein provision for the future, as well as the exploitation of underutilised species for food security and improving bio- and dietary diversity. Wendy works across the food supply chain to develop healthy and sustainable food through innovation, reformulation, nutraceutical development, promotion of novel crops for improved nutrition and revalorisation of agri-food waste streams to address both climate, nature and dietary targets and was awarded FDF ‘Food and Drink Scientist of the Year’ and the Green Gown Award for ‘Research with Impact’ for this work. As well as researching new opportunities for the UK Food and Drink industry, research has been translated to benefit small-scale rural farmers and co-operatives in sub-Saharan Africa and South America.
Sean Kerr
Co-Founder of Sustainable Thinking Scotland
Sean Kerr is Co-Founder and Director of Sustainable Thinking Scotland CIC, a social enterprise based in Falkirk. With a background in environmental innovation and community development, Sean leads projects exploring biochar’s role in carbon capture, sustainable construction, and food security, while delivering impactful social support across education, wellbeing, and climate engagement.
“This conference is a brilliant opportunity to connect grassroots action with big-picture thinking — aligning material innovation, community-led change, and climate-positive construction. I'm excited to share how nature-based innovations like biochar can help us reimagine our built environment — not just reducing harm, but actively restoring balance and locking carbon into the future we build.”
https://www.instagram.com/sustainablethinkingscotland/
Day 2 Speakers
Lloyd Alter
Teacher at Toronto Metropolitan University
Lloyd Alter has been an architect, real estate developer, and writer. He teaches Sustainable Design at Toronto Metropolitan University. Lloyd is the author of Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle from New Society Publishers, and The Story of Upfront Carbon, which describes “how a life of just enough offers a way out of the climate crisis.” He currently writes a popular Substack newsletter, Carbon Upfront!
“We have to use less stuff. Making stuff without cooking the planet with upfront carbon emissions is hard, and we have to spread what we have more equitably.
https://lloydalter.substack.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lloyd-alter-827ba7/
Yamina Saheb
Co-founder of the World Sufficiency Lab
Yamina SAHEB is a lecturer and researcher at Sciences Po (Paris), a co-founder of the World Sufficiency Lab, a lead author of the IPCC AR on climate change mitigation, a Senior fellow at OpenExp.
Prior to this position, Yamina was a Senior Fellow Researcher at the University of Münster and previously a Senior Researcher at the University of Lausanne. In 2018, Yamina was the head of the energy efficiency unit at the Energy Charter Secretariat. Before that, she was a Policy and Scientific Officer at the Renewables and Energy Efficiency Unit at the Institute of Energy and Transport of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC). She also worked as a senior buildings energy policy analyst at the International Energy Agency.
Yamina holds a Ph.D in Energy Engineering, Master’s degrees on Landscape Architecture and Development Economics and an Engineering degree in Building technologies.
Paolo Cherubini
Postdoctoral Research Associate at Heriot-Watt University
Dr Paolo Cherubini is a postdoctoral research associate at Heriot-Watt University, based at its Orkney campus. He joined the Transition Engineering research group in 2022 as part of the Island Centre for Net Zero, where he contributes to place-based, action-oriented research addressing the Wicked Problems of the energy transition.
Originally trained as a chemical engineer, Dr Cherubini began his career in the oil and gas industry before completing a PhD at the University of Pisa. His doctoral research focused on off-grid renewable energy solutions for remote rural areas, with fieldwork conducted in Central America and East Africa. Following his PhD, he worked outside academia as a renewable energy engineer, specialising in off-grid systems and local energy communities.
Amina Batagarawa
Chair, Gender and Energy Session of World Renewable Energy Network
Amina Batagarawa is an Associate Professor and academic leader with expertise in education, energy, and gender. She leads research projects, chairs the Energy Transition Programme at Women in Renewable Energy Association of Nigeria, and represents Africa and Gender on the World Renewable Energy Network, hosting the annual Gender and Energy Session at the World Renewable Energy Congress.
A global perspective gives a better vista for situating local problems. I am working hard to align local energy and environmental problems with effective solutions.
Nigel Linacre
Founder/Director of WellBoring
Nigel Linacre BEM is founder and director of WellBoring, a charity which has got safe water to 500 African schools, via a low energy solution, transforming half a million lives. A singer and poet, he is the author of the Grief Opera. Nigel believes we can all transform our world.
"I'm excited about discovering - and even together generating - more sustainable solutions to human development. This is a great opportunity to work with a range of visionary thinkers." Nigel Linacre BEM.
https://www.instagram.com/well.boring/
Jonathan Smales
Founder and CEO of Human Nature (Places)
Jonathan is Founder and CEO of Human Nature (Places), a developer of new-generation sustainable places and developments, ranging from new types of village and small-town housing, through large-scale urban neighbourhood regeneration and new settlements. Human Nature’s mission is to provide uplifting, practical answers to the question, ‘How Shall We Live?’ in this second quarter of the 21st-century, inspiring and making it far easier for all to live well and sustainably.
Human Nature seeks to demonstrate that places made well via excellent urbanism and design, with good infrastructures and shared spaces, services and facilities, are one of the most effective tools for addressing social injustice and division. They can enable access for all to good homes, step-change improvements in public health and economic productivity, and squarely address the cost-of-living, climate and nature crises. In fact, our work suggests that taking these challenges head on and translating them into constraints that must be faced and opportunities to be seized are not just the key missions of place but drivers of quality, longevity and sound investment.
We say, ‘there is a far, far better world, but it has to be seen to be believed.’
Jonathan is a geographer, former MD and international trustee of Greenpeace (UK), founder of the Earth Centre landmark millennium project, an experienced consultant working across place, comprehensive sustainability, policy and development strategy (on many of the UK‘s largest, most complex development projects), and entrepreneur. He is a trustee of the Towner galleries, Eastbourne, and lover of wild places in nature and cities.
“This is a fascinating event coming at a time when there is a big push to meet housing need, but in so doing, risk perpetuating place-lessness, adding to the carbon crisis through embodied carbon and missing the opportunity to supercharge the bio-based construction and design sectors”.
Calum Grevers
Disability Consultant
Calum Grevers is a disability consultant, transformational speaker and postgraduate student researching the intersection of disability and climate justice. His commitment to advancing disabled access and inclusion began with 2021’s #HelpCalMoveOut campaign, raising £55,000 for an accessible home in response to multiple barriers in the social housing system.
Kathy Li
Founding member of Missing In Architecture
Kathy Li is a founding member of Missing In Architecture, an collaborative comprising architects and educators, all teaching at Mackintosh School of Architecture. Their interests lie in filling in the gaps in education and practice, particularly in areas of equality and diversity. Kathy has been part of practices such as Hoskins Architects, StudioKAP and Stone-Opera, she has taught for the last 21 years starting at Strathclyde University, then moving to Glasgow School of Art. Kathy's research interests include design for ageing, learning from live build, and currently diversity in a low carbon construction workforce. In 2023 students of GSA recognized her contribution to their education by giving her the Creative Citizenship Award and Future Practitioners Awards. Kathy also contributes to activities of the RIAS Education Committee and is a trustee for New Future Construction.
“This is such an interesting vital theme to cover, I'm very much looking forward to hearing all the SEDA Speakers and meeting the attendees, We don't know what our future holds, but we should keep informed to allow us to do what we can to reduce our impact on our planet and help others to do the same.”
Sarah Bell
Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter
Sarah is a Senior Lecturer in health and disability geography at the University of Exeter, who is currently working on ‘Sensing Climate’; a five-year UKRI-funded project that aims to understand how the climate crisis – and prominent societal responses to it – is shaping the everyday lives and adaptive capacities of disabled people (www.sensing-climate.com). Sarah’s work is underpinned by a passion for qualitative methodological development, designing sensitive approaches that promote critical awareness of alternative ways of embodying, experiencing and interpreting diverse everyday geographies.
Dr Martin Quirke
Chartered architect and researcher
Dr Martin Quirke is a chartered architect and researcher who specialises in design for age-related health, physical and cognitive impairment.
Dr Quirke is currently working as Research Fellow on the UKRI funded Designing Housing for Healthy Cognitive Ageing (DesHCA). This project aims to identify scalable innovations in housing design to support longer and healthier lives for people experiencing cognitive change including dementia.
He holds a substantive post as Senior Architect at University of Stirling’s internationally renowned Dementia Services Development Centre. This multi-disciplinary centre for knowledge exchange provides research informed consultancy and training on the design and management of dementia inclusive environments.
Martin recently led the environment strand of ‘Our Connected Neighbourhoods’, a pilot dementia friendly neighbourhoods project that piloted innovative methods of empowering people living with dementia to influence the design of their neighbourhood environments.
Martin is a founding co-developer of Iridis, a suite of digital technologies designed to support evidence based design that improves the independence and wellbeing of people with dementia and other age related impairments.
Martin’s doctoral research, carried out through the University of Newcastle, Australia, evaluated the dementia design quality of building layouts in residential care settings.
Caitlyn Johnstone
Nature-based Solutions Scientist, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE)
Caitlyn is an ecosystem scientist working at the intersection of scientific understanding and human action with particular interest in ecosystem interactions, lichens, and biodiversity.
At RBGE, Caitlyn co-leads an action-research programme developing nature- and community-based solutions for urban environments. Her interdisciplinary work seeks to understand the intricacies of ecological interactions and use that research to optimise how humans interact with their surroundings.
Caitlyn's international experience includes federal advising, community engagement, and science communication covering broad ecological areas encompassing the interactions of environmental contaminants, adaptive blue-green infrastructure, and the impact of native and nonnative plants on other organisms. She is a frequent invited speaker and trained master naturalist.
In her life and her work, Caitlyn seeks comprehensive strategies to human and environmental wellbeing through the interconnected world of nature.
Panel Chairs
Day 1
Florian Urban
Professor of Architectural History, and Head of History of Architecture and Urban Studies
Florian Urban is Professor of Architectural History, and Head of History of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Glasgow School of Art. He was born and raised in Munich, Germany, and holds an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA and a Ph.D. in History and Theory of Architecture from MIT. He is the author, among others, of the books Tower and Slab – Histories of Global Mass Housing (Routledge, 2012), The New Tenement – Architecture in the Inner City since 1970 (Routledge 2018), and Form Follows Fuel – 14 Buildings from Antiquity to the Present (Routledge 2025, co-authored with Barnabas Calder).
The history of architecture can be told as a history of energy (F. Urban/B. Calder, Form Follows Fuel)
https://bsky.app/profile/florianurban.bsky.social
Day 2
Dr. Arno Verhoeven
Director of Sustainable Development at the Edinburgh College of Art | University of Edinburgh
Dr. Arno Verhoeven (Sr. Lecturer / Associate Professor) is Director of Sustainable Development at the Edinburgh College of Art | University of Edinburgh. As part of the Design for Change group at ECA, his studio teaching and research-creation practice examine tensions between social and technical approaches to a core societal challenge of achieving a just renewable energy transition. His design work incorporates low-fidelity prototyping and their performative use in deconstructing existing narratives of energy practices, uncovering assumptions and presenting provocations that lead to new narratives and scenarios for increasingly just energy futures.
“Sufficiency is such an important topic and a relevant, humanistic counterpoint to machine-oriented concepts such as efficiency. But we live in a society that values the individual above the collective, and as such, we struggle to realise what sufficiency means if it requires wealth re-distribution to ensure that others also have enough. What do each of us actually need? What constitutes sufficiency for all?”
Jessica Noel-Smith
Founder of Beyond Access and PhD Researcher
Jessica is an architect specialising in design ethics and accessible and age inclusive design practice. She is founder of Beyond Access, PhD Researcher at the University of Stirling, an Associate of DSDC (Dementia Services Development Centre), and a proud member of SEDA’s Health and Wellbeing Group.
When we think of living with 'just enough' are we considering how notion of sufficiency might look different for each of us? This panel session will discuss the intersection of disability, ageing, rights, and what it means to live with 'just enough' in a world where disabled people remain the world's largest marginalised minority group.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-no%C3%ABl-smith-578886167/
Artistic contributions
day 1
Zoë Bestel
Musician
Ethereal vocals, poignant melodies and stirring lyrics describes 25 year old award winning Scotland based nu-folk musician, Zoë Bestel, hailed as one of the country’s most fascinating young singer-songwriters. As well as numerous BBC radio and TV performances,
Bestel has captivated audiences across Denmark, Germany, Finland, Norway, and the Czech Republic, with festival highlights including Orkney Folk Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, and Celtic Connections.
https://www.instagram.com/zoebestel/
https://www.facebook.com/zoebestel
Day 2
Samuel Tongue
Poet
Samuel Tongue's first collection is Sacrifice Zones (Red Squirrel, 2020) and he has published three pamphlets: The Nakedness of the Fathers (Broken Sleep, (2022), Stitch (Tapsalteerie, 2018) and Hauling-Out (Eyewear, 2016). Poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Magma, Under the Radar, Finished Creatures, Anthropocene, And Other Poems and Berlin Lit. He works as Project Coordinator at the Scottish Poetry Library.
“Much of my creative work moves in the space between academic conversation and poetic practice. SEDA's conference programme offers many exciting opportunities to deepen my understanding of 'sufficiency' across new disciplines and reflect that back into my own research and writing.”
https://www.instagram.com/samuel.tongue