Education for Sustainable Development

• Trinity College Dublin

• Education
• Teaching and Learning

• Responsible Futures International

11 students across fields in Natural Science, Biomedical Science, Business Economics and Social Studies, Mathematics, and Humanities, were engaged and played a key role for the audit.

There were 10 student auditors and one student intern studying:

• Sustainability Intern – Environmental Science
• Biological and Biomedical Science
• Mathematics
• English
• Business Economics and Social Studies
• Geography and Geoscience
• Environmental Science
• Climate Entrepreneurship
• Business Administration
• Global Challenges for Sustainability
• Geography

Responsible Futures is a programme partnering universities and colleges with their students to embed sustainability throughout all student learning, including what students learn and how through their courses, extra-curricular activities and the culture and values of their institution.

For over a decade, Responsible Futures has worked closely with 53 universities and colleges around the world to mainstream Education for Sustainable Development, ensuring that all learners are supported to develop skills and knowledge to shape a more just and sustainable world.

The programme supports universities and colleges to work with their students on a framework to encourage actions, initiatives and approaches to embedding ESD. The framework is designed to be applied in different institutional contexts while maintaining rigorous approaches to evaluating university and colleges’ progress in embedding ESD. It is flexible in responding to dynamic changes in the Further and Higher Education sector and provides bespoke support for each institution while working closely with student unions, academic and professional services staff, senior leadership teams, and more. Every two years, students are trained and empowered to lead an audit to explore ESD activities within their institution and determine whether it can gain or retain the Responsible Futures accreditation, as well as provide recommendations for further work and collaboration. Findings from students’ evidence review, interviews of staff, and focus groups are then consolidated into an individualised audit report outlining findings, successes, and opportunities for improvement. The programme is therefore cyclical and iterative in nature, providing opportunities throughout for institutions to monitor and reflect on progress.

In 2023, SOS UK and the International Association of Universities (IAU) partnered to deliver an international pilot of Responsible Futures, having signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly advance ESD at the international level. SOS UK and the IAU worked closely with seven selected universities and their students to co-design the pilot, including co-creating the Responsible Futures international framework, and developing the student-led audits. In the pilot year, over 30 student auditors were supported to assess their institutions’ progress in embedding sustainability in learning, receiving positive feedback from students and institutions involved. Trinity College Dublin was one of the seven institutions invited to the pilot and has made an impressive start to its engagement on the programme.

As Órla Fitzgerald, an ESD Intern and Environmental Science graduate who played a key role in gathering evidence for the audit, describes, “the Responsible Futures framework is what every [university] should strive for. This is our first year participating, meaning that it is our baseline and we can build on this over the years. It also serves as a support for those who wish to create change, which is something we need more of.”

In addition, common feedback from students highlights how the audit enables them to learn more about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of education and sustainability in their places of learning as well as greater appreciation of the importance of students in taking an active leadership role for this. For example, one Trinity College Dublin student reflected on how taking part in the audit improved their understanding of “how staff and students care deeply about climate change and sustainability and how much the student body are doing to raise awareness around complex environmental and social justice issues.”

Finally, when reflecting on their experience with the audit at Trinity College Dublin, one student auditor describes how “[the] Responsible Futures accreditation is important because it embeds sustainability across an institution's curriculum, culture, and operations. Hopefully, this accreditation can help foster a culture of accountability and continuous improvement, ensuring that the institution aligns with global sustainability goals while engaging in meaningful action.”

Trinity College Dublin students and staff have played a significant role in the success of its first-ever Responsible Futures audit. The collation of audit evidence by Sarah Murphy (Sustainability Assistant) and Órla Fitzgerald, (Student Intern) are a testament to the importance of student-staff collaborations in the run-up to the audit. In October 2024, 10 students led a two-day in-person audit of the college's efforts to embed sustainability throughout the curriculum. They played key leadership roles in analysing documentary evidence submitted and in conducting interviews of staff and Students’ Union student officers. Student auditors shared a variety of excellent feedback and recommendations to inform the institution’s audit feedback report and accreditation. A Senior Programme Officer from the International Association of Universities, Isabel Toman, also attended the audit and shared insights into the IAU, while Sarah Murphy provided students with valued perspectives into the behind-the-scenes of sustainability at the institution.

1. Improved whole-institution approaches for sustainability

• Increased collaboration and buy-in from students, staff and senior leadership.
• Greater continuity of ESD work despite turnover of staff and students within institutions.

2. Increased student leadership for ESD

• Stronger working relations between student groups and the institution.
• Enhanced students’ employability through developing their critical thinking, analytical, auditing, and communication skills.

3. Mainstreaming innovative sustainability learning across institutions

• Embedding ESD throughout formal, informal, and subliminal curriculums.
• Co-creating course content with students and applying coursework to inform campus sustainability projects / living labs.

4. Increased collaboration between institutions for sustainability

• International knowledge exchange and sharing of good practice, guidance, and resources to progress ESD.
• Collaborations between different institutions on funded projects such as ESD in academic quality processes and green skills.

The Responsible Futures audit exemplifies real-world, experiential ESD in practice and holds participatory methods, interdisciplinary learning, and student leadership at its heart. Trinity College Dublin students were supported through active learning techniques to engage critically with the Sustainable Development Goals, understand the importance of ESD for democratising education, and what green skills are needed for high-quality auditing. Teamwork is an essential aspect of the student-led documentary evidence review, thus enabling students to benefit from an interdisciplinary experience by learning from the disciplines, perspectives, and lived experiences of their fellow auditors. Students continued to work in teams to co-create questions for interviewing Trinity College Dublin’s Sustainability Manager, an ESD Academic Fellow, and the President of the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union. Students enjoyed taking ownership to lead the interviews, which enhanced their understanding of the wider narratives of evidence reviewed.

During the audit, students are trained and supported with how to analyse evidence, score, conduct professional interviews, and provide constructive feedback to institutions on their efforts to embed sustainability. On both days of the audit, students complete feedback forms about how the audit has improved their knowledge and skills for employability and what they have learnt from being an ESD auditor and interviewer. Focus groups and interactive discussion are also conducted to enable students to share their perspectives, ideas, and lived experiences in different ways while also enabling opportunities to gather qualitative findings on their experience with the Responsible Futures programme. Following the audit, students had the opportunity to attend a debrief about results from the audit and next steps for progressing sustainability in their institution. The programme also measures impact through peer learning events and bespoke support for each participating institution.

Trinity College Dublin achieved Responsible Futures accreditation in February 2025 and key findings and recommendations from the audit were shared with the student and staff body during Trinity Green Week in March 2025. Surveys demonstrated that students developed skills in delegating responsibilities, leadership, time management, communication, and data analysis. Furthermore, Órla Fitzgerald, the ESD Intern who played a key role in gathering evidence, among wider ESD initiatives, was awarded the Trinity College Dublin Sustainability Leadership Award 2025.

Feedback from students included:

• “I learnt how to interview someone for the first time while developing leadership skills by delegating sections of work to each member in my group.”
• “I have developed a deeper understanding of sustainability practices and the role of educational institutions in this. I can apply these insights to my PhD research on climate justice, particularly in fostering interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability.”

• Include student auditors from a variety of disciplines and course levels, beyond those already knowledgeable and engaged in sustainability issues. This allows for richer insights and discussions during the student-led audit. It can also be enlightening for institutions and other students to hear about alternative perspectives and feedback on, for example, how to increase student engagement with sustainability, from the eyes of those outside the ‘green echo chamber.’ Student auditors also reflected on how this experience enabled them to learn how different disciplines approach sustainability challenges, hence interdisciplinarity is an invaluable aspect of any approach to Education for Sustainable Development.

• 1) TCD Green Week and Responsible Futures accreditation announcement blog
• 2) Responsible Futures International news story about TCD joining the pilot
• 3) Responsible Futures International Pilot impact report

Institutional funding through Trinity Sustainability allowed for student auditors to be paid for their work.