Reduce, Reuse, Regenerate | Libraries and Positive Climate Action

This event, originally titled 'Libraries and Positive Climate Action Webinar Series 2025-26: Reduce, Reuse, Regenerate', took place on 26 February 2026. The information below is correct as of the publication date.

This webinar explores how libraries can contribute to and raise awareness of a wider circular economy.

The British Library is hosting a series of webinars focused on libraries and the climate crisis. The aim of the series is to bring together international library leaders to share their different responses to the climate emergency.

With libraries representing the ultimate circular and sharing environment, this session explores how we can contribute to and raise awareness of a wider circular economy. We are familiar with the high level of waste created by different industries that supply us with our clothes, food, household items and other everyday products. The reuse and sharing of resources is what libraries are all about. Libraries are organisations that help people to share books, music, newspapers, video games, and increasingly other types of items such as tools or seeds. As many different industries, such as fashion or electric goods manufacturers, look how to adopt circular models that integrate re-use of materials, repairing and sharing into their processes, this session looks at how libraries can encourage circular economy developments.

Discover more of our climate webinar series at our playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcM3hEgp2RYA

To understand more about the British Library's work on sustainability and climate change, visit our website: https://www.bl.uk/about/sustainability

The speakers for this event include:

Andy Appleyard is Senior Director of Operations (North) and Commercial at the British Library, the UK’s national library and home to more than 170 million collection, itemsincluding books, journals, newspapers, maps, sound recordings, and patents . He also oversees the Library’s £100 million development programme at its Yorkshire site, which includes the construction of a third high-density, automated, low-oxygen print storage repository, scheduled for completion in summer 2026.

Onyebuchi Ekpolomo is an information and knowledge management professional with over 17 years of experience in information literacy, modern libraries and sustainability, research support, library management, and digital repositories. She is a lecturer and the Chief Librarian at the African University of Science and Technology, where she led several initiatives, including the implementation of the Library Management System (Koha) and the institutional repository (DSpace). She has organized international conferences and seminars including the just concluded Rsif Knowledge Sharing Seminar, in Nairobi Kenya, with the theme, Building Bridges and Breaking Barriers to Empower Knowledge Futures; published articles on information source preference by postgraduate students, Strengthening Nigeria’s Innovation System through Collaborative Triple Helix Digital Libraries; AI literacy; and owner of the weekly LinkedIn newsletter, titled The Professional Librarian. Her interests include knowledge management for sustainability, user-centered library services, systems thinking, digital repositories, strategic policy implementation and review.

Marion Kunderan is Principal Officer at the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), overseeing SLIC’s funding programmes as well as a number of national projects, including Lend and Mend in Libraries, a pioneering project that positions libraries as vital contributors to the circular economy. Marion played a key role in the research and development of Forward: Scotland’s Public Library Strategy 2021-25 which is deeply rooted in the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The session is chaired by Maja Maricevic, Director of Science and Innovation at the British Library. Maja is particularly interested in the big challenges of our time, such as the continuing digital transformation and climate change. Maja chairs the UK Green Libraries Campaign, a partnership of UK libraries working towards a better future for planet and people. She is also Interim Chair of London’s Knowledge Quarter. She has previously worked in universities, government departments and as a professional consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers.