Maynooth Green Campus Committee Team

Maynooth University

Established in 2012, Maynooth Green Campus (MGC) has developed vibrant and lasting links across our campuses and the wider community. In fact, our vision for the MGC is not limited to staff and students of Maynooth University and St Patricks Pontifical University, but Trócaire and our local community. Maynooth is a university town and both communities integrated seamlessly, and what affects one affects the other. This fact is considered constantly by the MGC in terms of our ethos, projects and campaigns, and every event organised by the MGC is always open to members of the wider community (unless impractical).

The MGC committee has been a vigorous agent for bottom-up and top-down change in the environment, with cross-campus representation, and widespread buy-in by staff and students in a broad range of actions that link local sustainability work and best practice on campus with national and international leadership on environmental sustainability and climate justice issues. As a cooperative venture between the Pontifical University, MU and Trócaire, MGC has, from the outset, made for a natural alliance, combining practical action on campus with e.g., external climate justice work.

MGC effort has focused on raising awareness among and engaging its staff and students and reducing its environmental footprint on all fronts. Given the breadth of expertise available among the three partners, a decision was taken early on that MGC would not specialise in a restricted number of topics for its Green Campus work but would instead engage the full spectrum of relevant topics that best capture the interests and expertise of our members. Currently, the committee comprises of 76 members in total with a core group of only four members, all except one are working on a voluntary basis.

Top 3 Learnings

1. Including all the members of our community: staff, students and the wider community is vital to identify their needs and wants and how we can help our community to achieve them.
2. The bottom-up approach has worked for us. However, it is important to get the buy-in from the University’s Executive team to accelerate the processes.
3. Be mindful of your well-being as the climate & biodiversity crisis requires a long-term strategy.