In February 2020, UCC ran its first climate assembly. Build Back Better was a series of workshops, based on the themes in the college’s sustainability strategy, that gave students and staff a chance to have their say in shaping future policy. An accompanying survey was also sent to students and staff.

In 2020 the Higher Education Authority (HEA) launched a pathfinder program under Project Ireland 2040. The pathfinder program was set up to find strategic pathways for energy efficiency and decarbonisation programs within higher education buildings. UCC applied for and obtained grant funding under the program for the decarbonisation of the O’Rahilly building (ORB) heating systems.

The objective of the project is to demonstrate the retrofitting of a low temperature Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) into a 1990’s building without the need for significant intervention on the building fabric or heating system arrangements.

When first getting involved with environmentalism, it’s not unusual for people to feel overwhelmed, and at times, even intimidated, because these are complicated issues and it’s easy to feel like everyone else is an expert, especially when you're only at the beginning of your sustainability journey.

It’s important to keep in mind that no one is born understanding the ins and outs of climate science or environmental policy. We all have to start somewhere. Anthropogenic climate change is a complex topic. It can be hard to figure out what exactly the problem is, especially when you consider that the climate crisis overlaps with a great deal of social justice issues.

There is a lot of information out there, whether it be online, in the news, or in your local library, and that can often make it harder to find straightforward answers to your questions. This is especially true in the context of climate justice.

On the 9th of August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I released a report on the scientific basis of climate change entitled: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis1. This monumental report has triggered international outcry from climate activists who have been calling for political leaders to wake up and take substantial action to combat the climate crisis for years.

With the recent fine weather and sunshine what better time to check in on our existing PV installations across the campus which are outlined in the table below.

In February UCC students and staff came together to run a climate assembly in UCC. This was the first assembly of its kind to take place in an university in Ireland. The assembly was inspired by the Citizens’ Assembly, and was based around the need to “Build Back Better”.

Welcome to our energy update covering UCC's energy use in April 2021...read on 

Between the winding boreens and the coastal highways of Cork, UCC’s Electric Bikes have travelled them all over the past 10 months and not without the help of our friends at the Cork Bike Store who serviced and maintained our E-Bike fleet of three Raleigh Motus Tour E-Bikes throughout. Following on from a successful pilot in 2019, our UCC Green Campus “Building Back Better” E-bike trial, started on Monday 29^th June 2020.  The objective of this initiative was and is to provide UCC staff with E-bikes for a trial period, allowing the individual staff member to determine if an E-bike is a suitable method for commuting to/from work.

Welcome to our March Energy newsletter. This month, we sat down with Pat Mehigan, UCC's Energy Manager, to discuss UCC's Energy Story.

The UCC Dark Skies Project.

As the move to electrification of cars gathers momentum UCC has invested in its charging infrastructure to provide our staff with the facilities to charge on site, should they require a charge to complete their return journey. 

Read more about UCC Green Week 2021

Welcome to the first of our monthly energy bulletin where we summarise the energy performance of our Estate. In the coming months we hope to inform you of the energy trends across the Estate, the measures that the UCC community are undertaking to reduce and conserve energy as well as an update on ongoing energy conservation projects.

At the start of this year we were visited by Primary School students from all over Cork County as part of our 10 Year Green Flag Anniversary. We were inspired by the hopes that these students have for the future and they challenged us to do better!

Between the winding boreens and the coastal highways of Cork, UCC’s Electric Bikes have travelled them all, over the past 6 months and not without the help of our friends at the Cork Bike Shed who serviced and maintained our fleet throughout. Our E-Bike trial has continued to be a resounding success, both in and out of the varying levels of Covid-19 Lockdown. Happy staff have enjoyed the benefits of the E-Bike trial and restricted their excursions in line with the travel limits.

Needless to say the closing of the campus in March 2020 due to the COVID pandemic had a big impact on our energy performance for the Academic year 2019/20. Our weekly electrical consumption reduced by 40% while our natural gas consumption, used to heat our buildings, reduced by over 50%.

By the end of the academic year the University reported that the total energy load reduced by 11%, when compared to the 2018/19 academic year.

Every year UCC, like other public bodies, are required to undertake an exercise to calculate the energy performance of our buildings and display that performance through a Display Energy Certificate (DEC). The original intent of the DEC process was to give building owners an idea of how their buildings are performing in comparison to othe

Our beautiful campus is not only a place of learning and independent thinking but is also a home to 27 different forms of biodiversity habitats.

As we head into the 2020/21 Academic Year, we are acutely aware of the difficulties faced by many of our staff and students over the last six months. We wish everyone the very best of luck over the next year and hope that Green Campus can continue to be a valuable asset to the campus community in these tough times.

UCC recently launched a new project (funded by the National Forum for Teaching and Learning) to strengthen our institutional commitments towards sustainability by developing a suite of digital resources to assist teaching staff with the integration of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into UCC curricula.  The project is being jointly led through Green Campus and UCC’s Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CITRL).  It builds on the success of our University Wide Module in Sustainability run through the Department of Sociology and Crimnology, with input from all four Colleges in the Univeristy.

Every day our Estates Office actively track and monitor 95% of the Universities energy load through its online energy metering platform. It records data from 192 energy meters across the estate. Working with our significant energy users to promote energy conservation, the University was on target, pre closure, to reduce its annual energy load by 1% absolute, a 6^th straight year of reducing our energy use.

Following on from a successful pilot in 2019, our UCC Green Campus “Building Back Better”  E-bike trial starts on Monday 29^th June 2020.  The initiative is a collaboration between UCC Green Campus and our friends at The Bike Shed, Dennehy’s Cross.

We began this year with the excitement of celebrating our 10th anniversary. The aim was to reflect on the positive things that have been achieved over the last ten years, whilst also looking forward to what needs to be achieved over the next decade. Little did we know that this reflection would come during such an unprecedented global crisis as the COVID-19 pandemic. First and foremost, our thoughts are with our UCC community as well our partners, at home in Ireland and across the globe.

Earth Day 2020 (April 22^nd) will be remembered by many for a variety of reasons, not least because, while we all continue to be divided by distance during this difficult time, we remain very much united in the global fight against climate change. As one of the most sustainable universities in the world, UCC aims to lead by example and encourage action against climate change in all of its activities and operations. Faced with this complex challenge, UCC quickly realised the need for a clear roadmap to a sustainable future, leading to the establishment of the 2019-20 Climate Action Project, aimed at developing a Climate Action Plan for UCC.

We have learned a lot during lockdown; one of the most striking aspects has been the way that we humans have turned to the natural environment to help us cope with the mental anguish that COVID-19 has brought to our lives.  The link between time spent in green space and mental health and wellbeing is well established.  In taking time for nature we are also taking time for ourselves. 

On Wednesday 19th February, UCC will celebrate 10 years of becoming the first University in the world to be awarded a Green Flag from the Foundation for Environmental Education.  UCC ran the pilot Green Campus programme, with support from An Taisce, after a group of students, who had come from Green Flag schools, came up with the idea.  The students wanted to have a say in how the university managed its environmental impact and saw the Green Flag programme as the ideal opportunity to engage with management.

In June 2019, the Department for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment published Ireland’s All of Government Plan on Climate Action. The Plan puts an onus on public sector institutions to lead the way in reducing carbon emissions. Academic Year (AY) 2018/19 saw University College Cork become the first campus in the world to be awarded the Green Flag from the Foundation for Environmental Education for the 4 th time. The University also took part in the pilot year of the new Times Higher Education Impact Ranking, being ranked 21st overall and number 1 for SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production. This ranking brings together our operational performance and the research, teaching and engagement activities of the university. Our STARS gold award was a key part of the submission

It’s been another busy few months for UCC Green Campus; we are particularly excited about the fact that, in June, we became the first University in the world to be awarded a fourth Green Flag from the Foundation for Environmental Education.

Find out how UCC are responding to the Climate Emergency.

Read more about how UCC recieved it's 4th Green Flag.

On Monday April 22nd is International Earth Day 2019 with this year’s theme being “Save our Species”.  From the smallest insects to the largest mammals, alarming facts are being reported daily on the decline of the world’s species.  Ireland is not immune, with for example 37 of our bird species and 30 of our 98 species of bee at risk of extinction.  The primary causes of species declines are habitat destruction, exploitation, and climate change.  Here are some things that we can all do in our everyday lives to make a difference in our local environment.

UCC played host to the 2019 Annual International Workshop on UI GreenMetrics which addressed the theme of “Sustainable University in a Changing World: Lessons, Challenges and Opportunities.”

The year has gotten off to a busy start with the launch of our Green Campus “Living Laboratory” Fund. We are also in Year 4 of the University’s hugely successful University Wide Module in Sustainability and are gearing up to welcome colleagues from across the globe to the UI Green Metric International Meeting in April of this year.

Academic year 2017 /18 marked ten years since UCC students embarked on the Green Campus programme . Those ten years have seen many changes, both on our campus and globally . Our FTE of students has increased by approximately 2 ,000 , while our campus has grown to include many of its largest and most energy intensive buildings e . g . the Western Gateway building . Despite this, 2017 saw the university reach its Public Sector Energy Efficiency target of a 33 % reduction in consumption, three years ahead of schedule .

University College Cork has become the first institution outside of North America to achieve a gold star rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

UCC now joins Princeton, Cornell and UC Berkeley in receiving the highest standard, Gold ‘Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System’ (STARS) for excellence in sustainability.

UCC Green Campus has had a particularly exciting Summer. In May, our Sustainability Summer School welcomed students and staff from the USA, Columbia, and El Salvador. In late Spring, we welcomed seven honey bee hives to the North Mall Campus.

As the month of July comes to a close, so too does the ‘Plastic Free July’ challenge which saw people attempting to reduce, or completely eliminate single-use plastics from their shopping lists the entire month of July.

UCC Green Campus Intern, Killian Kelly, on what the new EU-wide ban on neonicotinoid pesticides might mean for UCC’s newest residents.

From a distance, I assumed it was a seal. I’d seen one a few weeks back down by Grand Parade. Floating along, it then plunged its head under, hunching its back upward, and lifted its long pointed tail into the air behind it, before following the rest of its body beneath the water.  Staring at ripples left behind I reached for my phone. It didn’t take long until it popped back up with what appeared to be an eel between its paws – a solid favourite in the otter diet. What followed was an extremely impressive display of hunting skills by one of Cork’s resident otters.

On the East Side of the Berlin wall, there once stood a symbolic green plant sprouting from a mural (seen above), accompanied by the words ‘Wachsen lassen’, meaning Let Grow. Today, in the plant’s absence, sits a display of single-use water bottles, fast food containers, disposable coffee cups and other plastics, reflecting an all too familiar scene.

UCC’s position as a globally leading “green” university has once again been recognised with a top ten position in the UI Green Metric World University Ranking.  Achieving an impressively creditable 9th out of a total of 619 universities worldwide, UCC’s position in the UI Green Metric represents a global ranking of sustainability activities across operations, research, education and engagement.  The result reflects both the commitment and action in UCC to advance sustainability across the entire university. In addition, UCC was again the top ranked Irish university for the 7th year in a row, endorsing our reputation as Ireland’s “green” university.

Welcome to UCC’s Green Campus Newsletter for Spring 2018. It has been another busy term for the Green Campus Committee. We have launched a new farmer’s market on campus, and continue to partner with staff and students across the university to run campaigns and events. UCC’s university wide module in Sustainability has had another successful run and UCC continues to lead the way in sustainability with the recent decision by the university to sign the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment.

“Meatless Monday” is a global movement aimed at encouraging everyone to eat meat-free one day a week.  44 countries worldwide take part in this campaign, and UCC is playing its part.  On Meatless Monday, the main restaurant will offer meatless meal options for students and staff that wish to take action to help our environment.

Welcome to the UCC Green Campus Newsletter for Christmas 2017. As the year draws to a close we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been a part of our Green Campus journey in 2017. This year has once again seen UCC make significant reductions in our energy usage and waste generation; this trend of continual improvement is at the heart of the Green Campus Programme.

The last number of months have been busy for UCC Green Campus.  Highlights have included the launch of our “Ditch the Disposables” campaign, as well as welcoming a new group of UCC Green Campus interns to the programme.  We are also celebrating ten years since UCC began the journey to becoming a Green Campus, with the launch of this new website.

Like the An Taisce Green schools programme, the Green Campus involves students and staff who are passionate about the environment and sustainable living, from all disciplines, working together in areas such as: Food, Health & Well-being; Heritage & Natural Resources; Recycling & Waste Management; Energy; and much much more.

Work began on Wednesday 6th July on a one-stop shop for most student services in an extension to one of University College Cork’s oldest buildings – the Windle Building.

More can be read about the extension on the Irish examiner

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/ucc-to-create-student-hub-in-15m-extension-408693.html

Follow: http://studenthub.ucc.ie/ to keep up to date with all aspects of the development.

On Friday 17th June, President Michael Murphy launched the 2016 UCC Sustainability Strategy.  UCC is regarded as Ireland’s ‘Green University’ and in combination with the University’s Strategic Plan 2013-2017 the implementation of this Sustainabilty Strategy will further enhance this reputation and performance.

Birgit Greiner recently became the 700th person to purchase a bike through the Cycle-to-Work Scheme here in UCC since the scheme started in 2009.

UCC are proudly supporting Cork Bike week 2015 which runs from 13th June to 21st June 2015 as part of National Bike Week.

UCC retains 2nd place in University of Indonesia Green Metric University Rankings 2015

UCC’s efforts in the area of sustainability have resulted in the Universitas Indonesia (UI) Greenmetric World University Ranking awarding a second in the world ranking for the second year in a row.

The first climate justice topic that we’re going to delve into is food. Yes, believe it or not, food is a climate justice issue. Food security and climate change are inherently linked, and therefore, environmental degradation and social justice issues are linked.