Universities will be required to phase out the use of car parking for most staff and students in areas where there is a range of public transport options.
The requirement, under the State’s public sector climate action mandate, comes at a time when many students say they are forced to commute long distances due to accommodation shortages.
The further and higher education section sector has the third-largest carbon footprint in the public sector, after schools and health, and produces about 18 per cent of public sector emissions. The State has legally enforceable targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51 per cent by 2030.
Anecdotally university presidents say they are concerned more students are commuting longer distances due to high rental costs and a shortage of affordable accommodation options.
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The requirements are likely to have a significant impact on colleges such as University College Dublin (UCD), the largest higher education institution in the State, which has about 3,500 car parking spaces.
However, UCD estimates more than 80 per cent of journeys to its campus are now by sustainable means, and it has recently provided more than 5,000 bike parking spaces, making it “one of the largest cycling destinations in Ireland”.
In a statement the Department of Further and Higher Education said car parking policy was a matter for higher education institutions themselves as they are autonomous bodies and receive funding from a variety of public and private sources.
However, the spokesman confirmed that the State’s public sector climate action mandate directs phasing out of the use of parking in buildings that have access to a range of public transport services.
Accessible parking should be retained for staff or students with mobility issues.
The Public Sector Climate Action Strategy tasks public bodies with encouraging sustainable transport use and obtaining a “smarter travel mark”, which demonstrates “robust incentives and supports” in favour of sustainable commuting. Individual universities are required to produce annual climate action roadmaps, setting out how they are achieving carbon-reduction targets.
Other policies aimed at cutting transport emissions for the sector include the development of student accommodation, cheaper public transport fares for those aged under 26, as well as supports for part-time and blended learning which will reduce the number of days in classrooms and have a knock-on effect on the transport of students.
It is also Government policy to ensure any new facilities or sites in the further and higher education sector have access to public transport to reduce reliance on private cars.
Separately, other records show a large-scale retrofitting programme is being considered in the context of the age and condition of buildings and budgetary constraints.
The estimated cost of retrofitting buildings across the higher education sector is just over €2 billion. Records note that this estimate is “heavily caveated” as data is still being collated in the further education and training sector and does not include “co-occurring costs” associated with retrofit.
Retrofitting, or making older buildings more energy efficient, will be crucial to meet State climate action targets.
The further and higher education sector’s current target is to remove about 32,000 tonnes of CO2 from the State’s annual emissions profile by 2030.
The most recent available data – 2021 – suggests that across third level about 85 per cent of the emissions in the sector are in the higher education sector and around 15 per cent in further education.
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