Sustainability and ethics
The college has a strong environmental ethos and has gained a reputation as the 'green' college of Oxford through a number of environmental initiatives over the years including an official sustainability policy. Linacre has been ranked greenest college by OUSU in a number of years. The common room executive hosts an environment officer and there is an active green society since 2007 as well as an allotment society. Linacre's Abraham building won Green Building of the Year 1996 and as well as the BCE Environmental Leadership Award. In 2006 Linacre became the first carbon neutral college in Oxford by offsetting carbon emissions with a three-year contract with ClimateCare but stopped being carbon neutral in 2008.
In 2010 Linacre committed to the 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon emissions 10% that year. It has more recently set a target of 40% reduction over ten years until 2020. A photovoltaic system was installed on the roofs of Abraham and Griffiths Buildings in 2011. In 2016 Linacre invested £100,000 into Low Carbon Hub, a renewable energy social enterprise. Linacre was the first Oxford college to achieve fairtrade status in September 2006. In 2016 Linacre also hosted a seminar series on the sustainability and ethics of banking.
Linacre runs two major public lectures each year:
Throughout its history the college has run an annual series of Linacre Lectures open to non-members, the first of which were given by Brian Aldiss, Robert Graves and Isaiah Berlin. Since 1991 these public lectures have focused on environmental challenges.
2017: John Knox, "Global Threats to Environmental Human Rights Defenders".
2014: Michael Oppenheimer, "Migration, Interconnection, Conflict: Emergent Issues and Indirect Impacts in IPCC's Fifth Assessment"
2013: Mike Gidney, David Heath, and Gordon McGranahan on "Food Security and Sustainability"
2012: Carl Folke, Robert Costanza, and others on "Environmental Governance and Resilience"
2011: Lester R. Brown, Paul Ekins, and others on "Riding the Perfect Storm"
The college also holds the Tanner Lectures on Human Values.
2026: Yuval Noah Harari, "AI bureaucrats, AI religions, and AI boyfriends: What happens when a non-human intelligence hacks the operating system of civilisation".
2025: Volker Turk, "Cooling a Planet on Fire".
2019: Strobe Talbott, "A President for Dark Times: the Age of Reason Meets the Age of Trump".
2018: Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, "Economics for the Human Race".
2017: George F. R. Ellis, "On the Origin and Nature of Values".
2016: Shirley Williams, "The Value of Europe and European Values".
2015: Peter Singer, "From Moral Neutrality to Effective Altruism: The Changing Scope and Significance of Moral Philosophy".
2014: Shami Chakrabarti, "Human Rights as Human Values".
2013: Michael Ignatieff, "Representation and Responsibility: Ethics and Public Office".
