54 Overview of UCD’s Strategic Sustainability Approach

Professor Tasman Crowe provided an overview of UCD’s Sustainability Plan to 2030, launched earlier this year to complement the university’s Breaking Boundaries strategy. Sustainability is embedded as a cross-cutting theme throughout the institutional mission, with UCD positioning itself as a “thought and action leader” in sustainability across education, research, operations, and community engagement.

UCD has already been recognised as a global leader, ranked in the QS World Top 50 for Sustainability in 2024 and 2025, awarded a Gold Smarter Travel Mark, and designated an Irish SDG Champion Institution. Professor Crowe emphasised the importance of combining bottom-up enthusiasm within the university community with strategic top-down frameworks to drive transformative change.

Governance structures underpinning the plan include the Vice-President for Sustainability at management level, a central sustainability unit, and core working groups of staff and students addressing areas such as operations, research, and education. The participatory approach ensures that recommendations are well-researched and widely supported.

Six high-level objectives guide UCD’s plan, with “empowering staff and students” particularly central to ESD. This involves enhancing sustainability education, training, and student experience while linking teaching with campus operations as a living lab for change.

Professor Crowe also highlighted UCD’s seed funding programmes, supporting interdisciplinary research, staff-led campus initiatives, and student-led projects such as repair cafés, carbon literacy training, and sustainable fashion campaigns. These schemes illustrate how the university is fostering innovation, collaboration, and ownership of sustainability challenges at every level.

About the author

name: Professor Tasman Crowe

institution: University College Dublin

Professor Tasman Crowe is the Vice-President for Sustainability at University College Dublin.