President's Foreword

I am delighted and honoured to introduce Mary Immaculate College’s Climate Action Roadmap 203 (CAR 2030). In addressing the ecological crisis that is the defining challenge of our generation, MIC embraces its role as a leader in higher education and to shaping sustainable futures through education, research, and systemic networks of collaboration.

CAR 2030 signals MIC’s strategic and mission commitment to the principles and practices of climate justice, sustainability, and global citizenship. It is a coordinated, collaborative, and courageous plan that prioritises transformative action and measurable progress across teaching, research, campus life, and community engagement. The Climate Action Roadmap provides an objective framework for advancing our commitment to national and international mandates such as Ireland’s Public Sector Climate Action goals, and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It simultaneously furnishes a dynamic and interactive platform that nurtures the type of ecological conversion that is detailed by Pope Francis in Laudato Si’.

Our Climate Action Roadmap demonstrates how collaboration and innovation can drive transformative change; of ourselves, our relationships with others, and the world we share together. It celebrates the collective and connected efforts of our students, staff, and partners, whose commitment to climate action inspires hope and progress. Through research, education, and outreach we empower individuals to think critically and creatively, to act responsibly, and to lead courageously in the face of the ecological crisis that impacts our common home.

The Climate Action Roadmap is both an aspiration and a commitment - a commitment to measurable action, to personal and public accountability, and to a campus and community that embraces sustainability not simply as a goal, but as a way of life. Together, we will ensure MIC is a model for ecological leadership in Ireland and beyond.

I commend all those involved in developing this ambitious plan and invite the entire MIC community to join us in creating a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient future.

Professor Dermot Nestor

President, Mary Immaculate College