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Dr. William Horan
University of Limerick

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0 Carbon Footprinting
0 Environmental Policy
0 Environmental Science
0 Sociotechnological Transition
0 Sustainability assessment tools

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Journal article
Published: 11 January 2021 in Sustainability
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Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) sustainability assessments are receiving significant attention in the academic literature, with ever more complex grading and ranking systems being developed. This paper aims to provide national policy makers with a simple set of indicators to facilitate measuring progress towards sustainability for the HEI sector, within the context of national sustainability data collection efforts. Candidate indicators were identified and assessed from the two most subscribed to HEI sustainability assessments, namely, the UIGreenMetric and STARS, to develop a sector specific indicator set. This resulted in a final set of 12 indicators, covering on-site energy, greenhouse gas emissions, solid waste, water, travel, education, research, and governance. The proposed indicator set was then compared to publicly available data for Irish HEIs, to identify gaps in data collection, which found that direct campus energy use and associated Scope 1 and 2 emission data alone were collected with sufficient rigour. The described indicator set has the potential to be applied to guiding national sustainability transitions globally and offers a template for accelerating sustainability data collection efforts for the HEI sector.

ACS Style

William Horan; Bernadette O’Regan. Developing a Practical Framework of Sustainability Indicators Relevant to All Higher Education Institutions to Enable Meaningful International Rankings. Sustainability 2021, 13, 629 .

AMA Style

William Horan, Bernadette O’Regan. Developing a Practical Framework of Sustainability Indicators Relevant to All Higher Education Institutions to Enable Meaningful International Rankings. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (2):629.

Chicago/Turabian Style

William Horan; Bernadette O’Regan. 2021. "Developing a Practical Framework of Sustainability Indicators Relevant to All Higher Education Institutions to Enable Meaningful International Rankings." Sustainability 13, no. 2: 629.

Journal article
Published: 07 February 2020 in Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments
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This paper describes a framework for estimating the effectiveness of photovoltaic and rainwater harvesting technology deployment on industrial and commercial zoned buildings to facilitate reducing national GHG emissions. Decarbonisation technologies pathways were investigated which may aid in meeting national decarbonisation targets, and their potential role at local administrative area scale evaluated. A finding arising from application of this method was that a small number of larger industrial and commercial buildings, representing only 4% of the sectors buildings, were found to account for 38% of its decarbonisation potential. Future carbon emission scenarios identified that electricity demand may be expected to increase for the industrial and commercial sector up to 2030, and that the technological potential for current photovoltaics systems have the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 4% more than currently planned Irish grid-scale decarbonisation trajectories. The method may be adopted at European scale, using local data on climate and building attributes, and is applicable at national, regional and local scales. The paper concludes with a review of technologies which may aid further decarbonisation studies, which include improved data availability for 3D building generation, and enabling technologies such as machine learning algorithms applied to satellite imagery.

ACS Style

William Horan; Susan Byrne; Rachel Shawe; Richard Moles; Bernadette O'Regan. A geospatial assessment of the rooftop decarbonisation potential of industrial and commercial zoned buildings: An example of Irish cities and regions. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 2020, 38, 100651 .

AMA Style

William Horan, Susan Byrne, Rachel Shawe, Richard Moles, Bernadette O'Regan. A geospatial assessment of the rooftop decarbonisation potential of industrial and commercial zoned buildings: An example of Irish cities and regions. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments. 2020; 38 ():100651.

Chicago/Turabian Style

William Horan; Susan Byrne; Rachel Shawe; Richard Moles; Bernadette O'Regan. 2020. "A geospatial assessment of the rooftop decarbonisation potential of industrial and commercial zoned buildings: An example of Irish cities and regions." Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38, no. : 100651.

Chapter
Published: 04 June 2019 in World Sustainability Series
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University Campuses (UC) have the capacity to experiment with and demonstrate innovative sustainability solutions in a ‘real-world’ context that may serve as possible pre-configurations of sustainable societies. While there is potential for universities to improve their own operational sustainability by experimenting with innovative sustainability solutions on campus, the greatest potential of the sector is their multiplier effect on catalysing wider society’s transition towards sustainable communities. To evaluate UC potential contribution towards catalysing wider society’s transition towards sustainable communities, no single perspective is adequate due to the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability transition pathways. As a result an integrated approach titled the Higher Education Advancing Development for Sustainability (HEADS) approach was developed and applied to the UC sector in Ireland utilising the perspectives of initiative-based learning (or living lab), sociotechnical analysis and quantitative systems modelling. By utilising this integrated approach, a fuller picture is achieved by bridging the partial understanding obtained from each of these perspectives as to how UC may contribute to national transition towards sustainability.

ACS Style

William Horan; Rachel Shawe; Richard Moles; Bernadette O'Regan. National Sustainability Transitions and the Role of University Campuses: Ireland as a Case Study. World Sustainability Series 2019, 255 -270.

AMA Style

William Horan, Rachel Shawe, Richard Moles, Bernadette O'Regan. National Sustainability Transitions and the Role of University Campuses: Ireland as a Case Study. World Sustainability Series. 2019; ():255-270.

Chicago/Turabian Style

William Horan; Rachel Shawe; Richard Moles; Bernadette O'Regan. 2019. "National Sustainability Transitions and the Role of University Campuses: Ireland as a Case Study." World Sustainability Series , no. : 255-270.

Journal article
Published: 22 January 2019 in Sustainability
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Ireland is currently considered a laggard within Europe in relation to decarbonisation of its society, with future projections estimating increases in greenhouse gas emissions up to and beyond 2030. To accelerate Ireland’s transition towards a low-carbon society, there is a need for leadership in deployment and experimentation of low carbon technologies. As Higher Education Institutions (HEI) currently play a major role in generation of human capital and the associated impact on societal development, HEIs are ideal locations to focus resources in terms of deployment and experimentation of decarbonisation technologies to demonstrate best practice for further replication within wider society. To guide Irish HEIs in this regard, a novel integrated approach titled ‘Higher Education Accelerating Development for Sustainability’ (HEADS) has been developed and applied to the sector. The HEADS approach utilises the perspectives of quantitative systems analysis, sociotechnical analysis, and living lab learning to inform HEIs of their potential roles within national sustainability transitions. Applied to solar photovoltaic transitions in Ireland, the HEADS approach has identified HEIs as vital locations to deploy low-carbon technologies due to their amplification effect in signalling to wider society the attractiveness of these technologies.

ACS Style

William Horan; Rachel Shawe; Bernadette O’Regan. Ireland’s Transition towards a Low Carbon Society: The Leadership Role of Higher Education Institutions in Solar Photovoltaic Niche Development. Sustainability 2019, 11, 558 .

AMA Style

William Horan, Rachel Shawe, Bernadette O’Regan. Ireland’s Transition towards a Low Carbon Society: The Leadership Role of Higher Education Institutions in Solar Photovoltaic Niche Development. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (3):558.

Chicago/Turabian Style

William Horan; Rachel Shawe; Bernadette O’Regan. 2019. "Ireland’s Transition towards a Low Carbon Society: The Leadership Role of Higher Education Institutions in Solar Photovoltaic Niche Development." Sustainability 11, no. 3: 558.