Green Week 2022

30 Mar 2022

Green Week has been a long-running initiative at UCC. It was originally founded by the UCC Environmental Society (previously called Earth Week), and it has grown exponentially over the years.

In 2020, Enviro Soc organised the first university-wide Green Week in conjunction with UCC Green Campus, UCCSU, and UCC Societies which involved over 25 events being run by a range of groups across the university. The following, the Enviro Soc committee put in a tremendous amount of work in order to build on what had been achieved in UCC and helped to coordinate the first National Green Week in March 2021 with the Green-Campus Network.

Green Week ran from March 7th -11th 2022. Over the course of this week, campuses from across the country came together to promote climate action and environmental justice. This year, the theme of Green Week was climate education.

Green Week is a week of climate activism, and it is a great opportunity to highlight the sustainable initiatives and innovative projects being run by staff and students in the university. As well as that, it’s a chance to encourage students, staff, and the wider community to learn more about the current climate crisis and highlight the importance of climate action and systemic change.

The week began with the launching of an upcycled sculpture sign made from single-use plastics created by Reframe Plastic and UCC Enactus. The aim of this project was to draw attention to the current plastic pollution crisis and the work that has been done at UCC to tackle waste production. While we have taken great steps to reduce waste on our campus, we still have a long way to go.

Following the launch, the President’s Picnic event took place in the ORB Garden. This was a roundtable meeting with UCC President John O’Halloran where students had the opportunity to discuss what sustainability initiatives they wanted to see implemented across the university.

Some other events held over the course of the week include the UCC Community Market, a Self Care is Climate Care workshop with Melanie O’Driscoll, an urban trail walking tour led by UCC head gardener Jack Murphy with artist Cassandra Eustace, poster painting with Enviro Soc, and a Green Zone talk ‘Modelling Ireland’s Decarbonisation Targets’ with Dr. Hannah Daly.

The Glucksman Gallery collaborated with UCC Enviro Soc on a great initiative that involved creating an interactive wall where people had the opportunity to voice their opinion on the ever-growing climate crisis. A series of online competitions were also run over Greek Week where students had the opportunity to win a refurbished Samsung phone and MacBook Pro.

With such a wide array of events and campaigns, there was something for everyone and we can’t wait for Green Week 2023. Green Week is a fantastic initiative that allows the UCC community to come together to celebrate what we have achieved, and acknowledge that more action and change are still needed if we are to reach our climate targets and continue to lead the way in sustainability in Higher Education.