Carbon Accounting & Life Cycle Assessment

Climate change, environment, and Corporate Social Responsibility are creating an ever increasing demand for employees with skills in carbon footprinting, GHG accounting, and Life Cycle Assessment. Drivers of this demand are the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (particularly understanding and managing scope 3 emissions), the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (2021) Act, Future Jobs initiative “transition to low carbon economy’ and Ireland’s National Plan on Corporate Social Responsibility. This programme provides the competency, knowledge and skills required to work with ISO standard methods for carbon footprinting, GHG inventory and life cycle assessment in a commercial environment.

Modules: The Graduate Diploma in Carbon Accounting and LCA comprises 60 credits over a calendar year. In the Autumn students take BSEN30360 Life Cycle Assessment, BSEN40820 Carbon Footprinting and BSEN40720 Carbon and Sustainability (15 ECTS in total), in the Spring, BSEN40400 LCA Applications and BSEN40810 Greenhouse Gas Accounting (15 ECTS in total) and in the summer BSEN40800 Industry Project (30 ECTS).

Delivery: All lectures, tutorials and practicals can be completed online, with the option of attending some on campus if desired. Practicals are offered in the late afternoon to facilitate online attendance. Most learning activities can be completed at a different time if necessary.

Course Hours: The programme is delivered over three trimesters, starting in September, January and May. Each trimester is 12 weeks of teaching plus 3 weeks for final assessments. The workload is around 6-9 contact hours plus time to work on assignments per week between September and April. In May a similar amount of time is dedicated to project work.

Stage 1 - core
Life Cycle AssessmentBSEN30360
LCA ApplicationsBSEN40400
Carbon & SustainabilityBSEN40720
Industry ProjectBSEN40800
GHG AccountingBSEN40810
Carbon FootprintingBSEN40820

Level 8 honours degree in a relevant subject or >5 years relevant professional experience.

Application Assesment: Applications will be assessed before the end of June and may include a short 10 minute interview.

How to apply?
The following entry routes are available:

Grad Dip Carbon Accounting & Life Cycle Assessment PT (T384)
Duration 1 Years
Attend Part Time
Deadline Rolling*

* Courses will remain open until such time as all places have been filled, therefore early application is advised

1 Year Part Time.
MODE OF DELIVERY: Blended

NEXT INTAKE: 2024/2025 September.

There is an ever increasing demand for employees the with skills that this Graduate Diploma provides. While theoretical knowledge of GHG and other emissions is important, there is a clear demand in Ireland for people with the skills necessary to complete Carbon Footprint, GHG Inventory and Life Cycle Assessment of product and organisations. This skill is transferable across sectors and can be aligned with the different parts of a business, be that process and production, management, health and safety, sustainability or even marketing. This graduate diploma will be ideal for professional development or for reskilling by those looking for a new career opportunity.

Graduates progress into:

Sustainability team member or leader
Corporate Social Responsibility
Energy management
Consulting
Sourcing and Procurement
Employers include, Veolia, Arup, Codema and RPS.