Development of the Green-Campus Programme in Ireland: Ensuring Continuity of Environmental Education and Action for Sustainable Development Throughout the Irish Education System

Ensuring education for sustainable development (ESD) programmes deliver meaningful action within society presents significant challenges including systemic integration, consistency of methods, and safeguarding relevance and quality. The Eco-Schools Programme, intended initially as an international environmental educational initiative, has developed, through thematic implementation processes and extensive collaboration with governmental agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to embrace both environmental education and ESD. Eco-Schools evolved from the Blue Flag Programme for beaches and marinas and is coordinated at an international level by the Foundation for Environmental Education. The Programme has operated in Ireland since 1997 with over 93 % of all primary and second level schools currently participating. Students from Eco-Schools progressing further through the education system demanded ESD action on reaching university leading to the development of the Green-Campus Programme (GCP). All Irish Universities and more than half of Institutes of Technology are involved to some extent in the programme with many awarded Green-Campus status, meaning these sites engaged with the GCP, committed to continual improvement and self-elected for verification through detailed assessment processes. The GCP was successfully implemented in Cork University Hospital, Ireland’s largest teaching hospital and has formed strategic partnerships and action platforms with governmental agencies, supporting NGOs and relevant policy initiatives. The evolution and development of the GCP in Ireland was mainly an organic process, however, evaluation of this case study reveals a flexible, dynamic framework which international policy makers and NGOs can imitate in order to champion enduring ESD programmes that are responsive as well as responsible.