SUSTAIN returns to Birmingham this Thursday, bringing up to 100 people together for a sustainability event where the audience isn’t expected to sit quietly and listen. They help shape the conversation.
Sustainability can feel like something that belongs to somebody else.
Climate activists. Government policy. Net zero targets. Scientists and experts.
Yet it is also much closer to home. The air we breathe. Our health. The places we live and work. The businesses we build. What we consume and waste. What we leave behind for the next generation.
This Thursday, 17 September, SUSTAIN, The Midlands Sustainability UnConference, returns for its third year at the University of Birmingham with a simple premise: expertise matters, but so does experience.
Unlike a traditional conference, participants don’t spend the day sitting quietly while a succession of experts tells them what they need to know. They help create the conversations themselves, bringing together people from business, academia, the public sector, sustainability, education and communities as peers.
You don’t need to arrive with the answers. A question, an experience or simply seeing a problem differently may be exactly what someone else in the room needs to hear.
SUSTAIN was founded by Beate Pesian, after becoming frustrated with conferences where large numbers of knowledgeable people could spend an entire day together while most of the conversation travelled in one direction.
Beate said: “I’d been to too many conferences where incredibly knowledgeable people spent most of the day sitting and listening. Some of the most useful knowledge in the building never made it into the conversation.
“That’s why we have the Law of Two Feet. If you’ve got everything you need from one conversation, get up and find another one. You don’t have to stay in a room simply because the session hasn’t finished.
“Maybe there’s another conversation where you can learn something. Maybe there’s one where you have something to add. Maybe the best thing you can do is grab a coffee and talk to someone you’ve just met.”
For Harun Rabbani, Partner at SUSTAIN, the event is also about bringing sustainability back down to a human scale.
He said: “I’m not a sustainability scientist. I got involved because I’ve spent much of my working life bringing together people who would not normally find themselves in the same room.
“Right now sustainability can feel enormous. Climate change, human health, pressure on businesses, government policy. It’s easy to look at all of that and wonder what influence one person can possibly have.
“SUSTAIN starts somewhere more useful. Nobody is expected to save the planet. But everyone brings an experience, a question or a perspective somebody else doesn’t have. Sometimes progress begins simply by connecting those people.”
That experience is one reason people return.
Kam Bola, CEO of ecobirmingham, attended last year’s UnConference and will be back this Thursday.
She said: “I’m returning to Sustain Unconference because last year reminded me of the magic that happens when people come together without a set agenda and create one collectively. It was a chance to meet new people, reconnect with colleagues, and spark ideas that simply wouldn’t have emerged otherwise.”
Another previous attendee described leaving SUSTAIN feeling “energised, empowered and reconnected with people who are working to bring about positive change.”
The conversations at SUSTAIN are not restricted to climate change. Topics can range from nature, food and waste to human health, technology, business, education and the communities people want to live in.
The 2026 event is being held in partnership with the Centre for Responsible Business at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham.
SUSTAIN, The Midlands Sustainability UnConference, takes place on Thursday 17 September 2026 at the Arts Building, University of Birmingham.
