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.”
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 - Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge Edinburgh EH1 1EL
Optional Friday Dinner - Guru Bali - https://www.instagram.com/guruedinburgh?igsh=MXh2djI1cmNhZDFxeA
Saturday – Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue, 16 St Mary's Street Edinburgh EH1 1SU
Sunday – 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).
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
Optional Dinner (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
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/
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:
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.”
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
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
More bio details of confirmed speakers coming soon
Tahmina Nizam
National Manager at Shelter
Amica Dall
Author of Material Cultures
Lorna Dawson
Head of Soil Forensic Science at Hutton Institute
Lloyd Alter
Teacher at Toronto Metropolitan University
Yamina Saheb
Co-Founder of World Sufficiency Lab
Jonathan Smales
Executive Chairman of Human Nature Places
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