Towards a Generous University: UCD’s pathways to Embodiment of Sustainability

The climate and ecological emergency is already causing irreversible changes to our biosphere and is projected to reach crisis points in the coming decades, exacerbated further with each year of uncurbed GHG emissions. Universities with comprehensive curricula, those based in wealthy countries, and those attracting funding based on sustainability scholarship have the capacity and responsibility to embody environmental sustainability across their whole organisation. Using a growing scholarship base, this research investigated how UCD’s stated ambitions on environmental sustainability (particularly climate change) have been achieved through its autonomous governance instruments to date and how these could be further advanced. A case study was undertaken using all relevant strategy and governance documents, adopting a mixed method approach of content and thematic analyses. The theoretical framework used involved McCowan’s framework for universities’ actions on climate change and Raworth’s corporate responses to environmental sustainability. Despite a stated ambition to embed environmental sustainability across its governance, a significant disparity between strategy and governance for sustainability was found. 90% of planning and strategy documents assessed in this research contained explicit references to environmental sustainability, compared to 5% of the 190 governance instruments. Some policies lacked information about relevant environmental sustainability obligations and most references were general in nature. Further, no governance instrument assessed contained the term ‘conservation’, ‘climate’, or ‘mitigation.’ This potentially poses challenges for the organisation, including missed opportunities to empower its sizeable community. Examples of ‘above and beyond’ were found in other areas of UCD’s autonomous governance but were not present for environmental sustainability. The findings informed an actionable framework through which UCD could begin to embody generous sustainability with an initial emphasis on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Key actions for UCD’s board, executive management, and the academic community were provided in this framework through statutes, regulations, policies, and roles. A balance of updated and new governance instruments across student, research, finance, IT, and other corporate functions was proposed for an integrated, ‘whole of organisation’ approach to a Generous University. With the planetary emergency unfolding, this framework was proposed as a starting point to urgently consolidate ambition to transparent action.