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.

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