John talks about his early background living in Miami and the how the environmental degradation in the area started his interest in ecology. He outlines the history of the UN SDG goals and how these goals are a strategic plan towards sustainability. He talks about how research funding is looking for relationships between universities, communities and business partnerships.

He goes through UCC’s connected curriculum and how the SDG toolkit he designed is directly supporting the connected curriculum in the sustainability element. He outlines how the toolkit works and how it enables educators to incorporate the SDGs into their teaching. He finishes by talking about the different challenges educators face in respect of funding and his hopes for the toolkit in the future.

Stephan talks about his role as UCC’s Commuter Plan Manager and his background as a transport planning engineer. He moves on to talk about being part of the transport mobility forum where he liaises with various transport authorities to promote sustainable transport. He talks about our existing commuter plan that runs to 2023 and the statistics on the travel habits of our students and staff.

He moves on to our carbon footprint in relation to staff and student travel and how Covid impacted this and the opportunities that arose from the pandemic. He explains the various schemes in UCC from car-pooling to park and ride, electric bikes, and the bike to work scheme. He talks about the benefits of cycling and the need for education and infrastructure to support cycling. He finishes by talking about facilities available to cyclists on campus and the various cycle routes available around Cork City. 

The 9th installment of the UCC Green Campus podcast is now available where we talk to facilitator, coach, and celebrant Melanie O’Driscoll.

Melanie begins by telling us about her journey from studying zoology to acting as a facilitator with The Green Step, and training as an interfaith minister. She moves on to talk about what eco-grief and climate anxiety means and how it can impact a person's well-being and tells us the importance of strong community links when tackling climate issues.

She goes through what her ‘Self Care is Climate Care’ workshops entail, which are run monthly through UCC Green Campus. She talks about how she works to create shared experiences in this space to help people express their emotions and increase their climate resilience.

The 8th installment of the UCC Green Campus podcast is now available where we talk to Dr. Hannah Daly, lecturer and researcher in energy, economy, environment and engineering systems in UCC.

Hannah begins by telling us about her time studying in UCC and her experience as the Agency Lead on Energy Access and SDG7 collaboration in the International Energy Agency in Paris. She moves on to give us an overview of sustainable energy modeling systems and what these models work to achieve.

She talks about the intensification of the agriculture industry in Ireland and the practical and societal difficulties associated with creating a sustainable agriculture model. She moves on to discuss the potential for district heating in Ireland and how that can play a role in a collective solution to decarbonising our heating systems.

Hannah discusses LNG in Ireland and how we should be striving to transition away from natural gas as quickly as possible to sustainable energy and removing barriers to offshore wind and solar panels. She finishes by talking about the need to improve our public infrastructure to help create cleaner cities and improve sustainable transport methods.

Fáilte ar ais go dtí an Campus Glas podchraoladh!  Welcome back to the Green Campus podcast! The 7th installment of the UCC Green Campus podcast is now available where we talk to climate activist, language student, and Gaeilgeoir, Síofra Nic Risteaird. Tá Seachtain na Gaeilge anseo, agus in onóir na hócáide, bímid ag caint faoin nasc idir ár dteanga agus an timpeallacht. In honour of Seachtain na Gaeilge, we’re discussing the connection between our language and the environment. 

During this episode, Síofra tells us about environmental communication and the role that Irish could play in communicating the importance of climate action. Finally, Síofra tells us about some of the resources that are available to people who want to start learning Irish or who want to find ways to practice their cúpla focail.

Annalisa talks about the benefits of nature for your attention, your stress levels and how it increases vitality. She moves on to how the Covid pandemic has affected people’s relationship with nature. She talks about collaboration with the University of Bologna to capture people’s relationships with nature and to capture ideas on new green spaces and how we can improve existing ones.

She talks about the planning of green spaces and her involvement in Go Green Roots, an EU funded, and Irish based project looking at making green areas more accessible in European cities. She finishes by talking about “Success It’s in Our Nature”, an initiative between Annalisa, Graduate Attributes and Green Campus. It showcases all the ways students and staff can engage with nature on our campus to relieve stress at exam time, to enhance mental and physical health and wellbeing, enhance their academic and personal success and build their graduate attributes and values.

Gerard talks his early background and his role as Director of IT services. He outlines the carbon footprint of UCC’s IT infrastructure in relation to cloud services and data storage and the energy savings achieved. He talks about the circular economy and how IT recycles its hardware infrastructure both in donating to local charities and recycling the hardware with local organisations. He moves on to talk about what is being done to make IT services more energy efficient and how the Covid pandemic has impacted remote working in UCC. He then talks about how server virtualization is being used to lessen the impact of physical servers on campus by reducing the number of servers by up to 95%.

He moves on to how sustainability factors into IT today and how strategic planning and sustainability are being incorporated into procurement practices and purchasing policy.  He talks about how we use the Irish environment to cool our data centers. He finishes by talking about how we can use the data IT produces to design a better campus experience.

Timothy talks about how he first got interested in sustainability and the environment. He talks about his role in Enactas, using the power of entrepreneurial action. He moves on to talk about how precious plastics globally and in UCC are helping to reduce plastic waste, through recycling, biodegradable materials and zero waste lifestyles. He talks about how there is now a UCC precious plastics workshop to start making products from rulers to coasters.

Following on from this Timothy talks about setting up ReFRAME where they will be reusing plastic to make skateboards, longboards and moving up to bicycles. He finishes by talking about making UCC a recycling hub and how education and community involvement is key to dealing with the problem of plastic waste.

3rd episode of ‘The Green Campus Podcast’ with UCC’s head gardener Jack Murphy. Jack talks about his early career, the various habitats in UCC, the sustainable practices employed by the UCC grounds team and much more.

The 2nd Green Campus podcast with UCC's Director of Buildings & Estates Mark Poland