People and nature centered campus spaces.
Through active partnership with students and staff, safeguard, enrich and restore the natural environment across our campuses, cultivate a healthy campus, champion green spaces, embed nature-positive practices, and establish SETU as a living landscape for learning, innovation, ecological restoration, and community engagement.
Biodiversity on Campus
SETU is commited to nature restoration and enhancing Biodiversity across all of its campus locations. The West Campus, Carriganore is developing as a hub for biodiversity and nature restoration education and outreach, enhanced through partnerships with the wider local community and industry. Since 2022, over 2000 trees have been planted at Carriganore creating a native tree arboretum, a pollinator-friendly hedgerow, an Ogham calendar forest and a mini native woodland.
Living Lab
The SETU Living Labs programme positions both the university and the wider South East region as a testbed for real-world sustainability solutions. Bringing together academia, enterprise, government and society to address complex challenges from climate change and biodiversity loss to the clean energy transition, Living Labs create collaborative environments where ideas are co-developed, tested and applied. Through challenge-based and experiential learning, students engage directly with real sustainability issues, developing critical skills in systems thinking, innovation and collaboration. Living Labs form a connected ecosystem that integrates teaching, research and regional development.
Two examples of SETU Living Labs are:
- The Land Science Living Lab is progressing Ireland’s Climate and Biodiversity Action Plans through coordinated action across regions, communities and sectors. Based at SETU’s 68.7 ha West Campus, the Land Science Living Lab provides both a framework and physical space to collaboratively develop, pilot, and showcase innovative nature-based solutions for regionally embedded sustainability, supporting climate action, biodiversity enhancement, and sustainable land use. Home to Ireland’s National Biodiversity Data Centre, a community and educational garden and serving as an access point to the Waterford Greenway, the Lab also hosts the Biodiversity and Sustainability Forum, fostering a collaborative space for a bioregional approach to nature.
- The Clean Energy Transition Living Lab supports Ireland’s renewable energy system transformation and the region’s role in decarbonisation, energy security, and renewable energy deployment. The Lab connects SETU expertise across engineering, business, cybersecurity, and supply chain with industry, infrastructure, and community stakeholders, reflecting real operational constraints and opportunities.
Biodiversity and Sustainability Forum
The SETU Biodiversity and Sustainability Forum, established in 2024, fosters interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together researchers, students, industry leaders, policymakers and other regional stakeholders to co-develop integrated sustainability solutions. Active participants include the agri-food and biopharmaceutical industries, academics and policy stakeholders such as Teagasc, Waterford Council, and DAFM.
Healthy Campus
At SETU, ‘Healthy Campus’ represents a commitment to cultivating an environment in which all members of our community can thrive physically, mentally, socially, and environmentally and is a key part of our sustainability strategy.
SETU Arena
At the SETU Arena, we are committed to minimising our environmental footprint and maximising our positive impact on the planet. Through various initiatives and collaborations such as reducing chemical usage, tree planting, promoting wildlife habitats, energy efficiency, reduce, recycling and reusing initiatives and sourcing local food we foster and create a greener and healthier environment and future.