University College Dublin

UCD’s Big Zero Programme is making climate literacy a meaningful part of students’ study abroad journey, as they combine hands-on learning with accredited qualification, allowing students to take what they are learning about and apply it to real challenges in their own communities and beyond.

Over the last two years, 98 students from more than 25 countries have taken part in the Big Zero Programme; a programme that can be shared as a model across institutions all over the world. Students take part in a variety of hands-on activities in Ireland during their time at UCD. For example, students volunteer with the Hometree program in County Clare, Ireland, contributing their time to helping establish and restore natural habitats in native rainforests, incorporating more trees into the Irish landscape. They also have visited Airfield Estate, a sustainable food-hub in Dublin, where they have attended zero-waste cooking workshops, learning valuable tips and tricks to incorporate into their own kitchens!

The students also create personal Climate Action Plans, to take what they’ve learned and apply it to their lives beyond their study abroad experience in Ireland. They finish their programs with Carbon Literacy credentials from The Carbon Literacy Project. The UCD Sustainability Unit runs this programme alongside Big Pond and Zeroverse, creating a collaboration of efforts to give students an amazing opportunity to embed sustainability into their day-to-day lives, and give them a meaningful study abroad experience. Former exchange student, Olivia Gbato, who took part in UCD’s Big Zero Programme, says that earning her certification was the point at which she knew she wanted to dedicate her life to this work. “UCD, Dublin, and Ireland were my domino effect,” she says. UCD’s programme helped to shape Olivia’s direction outside of her time studying abroad, and can create the same sense of empowerment in students for years to come.

The program’s demonstration of creating a momentous semester or full-year for exchange students to remember, is clear. Judges valued that UCD shares the model with the rest of the international education sector. It was presented at NAFSA 2025, the world’s largest non-profit organisation dedicated to international education. Another judge said that UCD’s Big Zero Programme was an "amazing example of institutional collaboration, embedding education and accountability." This judge thought that the impact of their efforts was clear. Big Zero is an exceptional example of co-curricular programming, combining experiential learning, qualifications, and ongoing impacts on students and the international education sector. Judges expect its impact to grow even larger as the programme reaches a bigger share of UCD’s international students in coming years.

Big Zero aligns with the CANIE Accord through giving students practical skills and climate education. “By sharing this model with institutions globally, UCD is amplifying the impact, creating, demonstrating and sharing best practice to enable progressive system wide improvements in embedding climate action into study abroad,” says one of our judges. UCD’s achievements through the establishment of this program have shown amazing potential for influencing climate literacy beyond just their initial cohort.

Congratulations to UCD on their inspiring contributions to more sustainable international education and winning of one of the CANIE awards!

Congratulations to University College Dublin. Would your organisation like to join them as a CANIE Accord signatory?