Trinity joins European Network project UNI-ECO to advance campus sustainability
Posted on: 11 November 2020
Trinity is now part of a European Network project called UNI-ECO, working together with four other Universities: University of Montpellier, Utrecht University, University of Barcelona and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest. These are also the members of the CHARM-EU partnership.
The purpose of this initiative is to improve campus sustainability and to share the learnings widely. This three-year project is in the process of achieving the following:
Survey and report – Thanks to a communal effort on the part of UNI-ECO partners, the universities surveyed staff and students and reported on current practices at each University, including staff and student behaviours and perceptions of sustainability. This was led by ELTE.
Educate- This section is led by Trinity and will create new on-line educational tools and training modules to enable more sustainable behaviours and operations.
Engage – This part of the project will create an on-line platform involving students and staff in identifying and setting sustainability challenges that can be tackled in an individual University or shared across sites (developing a shared, on-line living lab).
Share and Inspire- This will capture the learnings and share them as widely as possible with other campuses, developing a roadmap for other universities to follow, led by Utrecht University.
Above: Sustainability Advisor Michele Hallahan and Professor Paula Murphy, former Registrar and Sustainability Champion who led on the project.
In the campus-wide survey a total of 1,046 responses were received from Trinity’s population of 21,476, a response rate of almost 5%. This is a very good rate of response for a voluntary survey across the entire college community, which, together with the content of the responses shows a high level of positive engagement with sustainability issues.
This is an exciting initiative for Trinity to be a part of, to create these tools and to participate in this collaborative project on sustainability with other top European universities.
To get involved in sustainability issues on Trinity’s campus or to find out more about the project contact Sustainability Advisor Michele Hallahan.