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Ctrl + Alt + Deleting Our Digital Clutter: UCC's Digital Tidy Towns Initiative

Michelle Nelson

Katie Sandham

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Claire

Maurice

Speaker: Michelle

"What do Irish peat bogs, university websites, and Tidy Towns have in common?"

Meet Clare and Maurice. Clare is a postdoc at UCC, researching peatland restoration. Maurice is our web content strategist, and has been quietly working on trimming the digital fat from UCC’s website.

One day, over coffee (as all good stories begin), Clare and Maurice were chatting about their work and discovered a common theme.. Peatlands store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined. Both peatland restoration and responsible digital management contribute to environmental sustainability. Yet while we are VERY aware of our green campus and have successfully implemented initiatives such as banning single use plastic,s we don’t often think about our digital footprint.

They wondered if, as a UCC community, we could do something practical in the form of a digital clean-up to extend our sustainability ethos to our digital spaces? And so a seed was planted.

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Promote awareness on our digital carbon footprint

Connecting the dots across campus

Speaker: Katie

And that’s where we come in. Maurice thought the Continuous Improvement team (that’s us!) might be able to help nurture the seed (ironic, given that neither Michelle nor I are terribly good with plants). We are good with people though, and we coordinate a University-wide CI Network.

Sustainability isn’t just one of our core values – it’s something we’re all incredibly proud of. We knew that Claire and Maurice had hit on something that all staff and students could relate to, regardless of where they worked or what they studied.

But we hit the usual barriers. Time and Money. Everyone’s busy. Budgets are tight. So we asked ourselves how could we make it easy, fun and keep costs to a minimum? What if it felt like a community clean-up, but for our digital spaces?

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Volunteers for the Committee

University-wide Representation

Leadership Sponsorship and Engagement

Speaker: Michelle

We wondered if something similar already existed And it did, in a uniquely Irish way. Many of us are already familiar with the Tidy Towns Initiative and that was what provided the inspiration for a volunteer-led event with people who had skills, expertise or enthusiasm to contribute.

That led to the creation of our Digital Tidy Towns organising Committees made up of staff, students, some IT staff (who needed us to reduce our cloud storage so were ALL in), and sustainability champions from our Green Campus who helped us plan a day of events.

We also found an “Inbox Zero Hero” in the form of our VP for Learning and Teaching who championed the initiative and encouraged other senior leaders members to get involved. Introducing an element of healthy competition helped. And a variety of workshops, events and resources started to take shape.

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Over 1200 hours pledged

Culture, Connection, Community

Online and In-Person Events and Resources

Disconnecting from Digital

Speaker: Katie

And so in April 2025, during Green Week, we held UCC’s first Digital Cleanup Day.

Members of the Digital Tidy Towns ran practical sessions to support staff in different ways - Maurice ran an “Inbox Zero” workshop. Claire led a digital detox walk through the arboretum - we encouraged staff and students to walk away from screens and reconnect with each other.

Through our online form, over 1,200 hours were pledged by individuals, teams and functions to clean up inboxes, drives, and shared folders. We ran focussed accountability sessions so that staff had dedicated time and could share their progress with others.

But more than that - we sparked conversations about our digital footprint, a concept that was new to many and is becoming even more urgent now that AI is part of the mix. We explored how to balance innovation with sustainability through small, practical steps we can all take, without overwhelming anybody

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Digital Tidy Towns: The Sequel

Join the Movement