Sustainability Charter

The aim of this charter is to identify clearly that DCU aims to undertake a holistic approach to sustainability embedding it as a fundamental aspect of all University activities and as a core value.

This Charter applied to all units of the University, both academic and professional units, including the research centres and its wholly owned campus companies.  These are all hereinafter collectively referred to as the ‘University’.

DCU is a young, dynamic and ambitious university with a distinctive mission to transform lives and societies through education, research and innovation. Since admitting its first students in 1980, DCU has grown in both student numbers and size and is now a multi-campus university located just north of Dublin city centre.

This charter includes the following principles and commitments:

• We will embed sustainability at the core of our University, in its teaching and learning, research, development and innovation, its operations and promoting it through its national and international engagements,
• We will communicate and promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and will encourage all staff and students to engage in the delivery of these goals,
• We will actively advocate for climate action through all our circles of power and influence, encouraging and supporting our staff and students in their actions,
• We will demonstrate our commitment through our own actions,
• We will measure our environmental impact and publish an annual carbon footprint,
• We will establish and work to achieve them science-based targets to meet the 1.5 degree scenario requirements as per the Paris Climate Change Agreement,
• We will identify and implement, in so far as possible, all measures to reduce our carbon footprint,
• We will share knowledge and best practice with national and international partners and communities and work together to reduce all our impacts,
• We will encourage and promote progressive actions undertaken elsewhere and where possible emulate these,
• We will identify the carbon footprint of goods and services consumed by our university and work with our suppliers to reduce these,
• We will assess the institutional risk associated with climate change/sustainability and include where deemed necessary said risk on the DCU risk register and examine all our policies, practices and major decisions on a systematic basis to ensure that they do not lock us into future high carbon pathways but identify a pathway to a zero-carbon organisation,
• We will support our staff and students in the identification of their personal carbon footprints and identify and support measures to reduce our impacts,
• We will actively communicate, both internally and externally, about climate change and our actions to mitigate our impact and adaptation measures needed for a sustainable future for all.

This charter will be actively communicated and promoted to staff and students and will also be made available to the public.