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.



Delivery: All lectures and tutorials can be completed online, with the option of attending some on campus if desired. The lectures are recorded to accommodate students' needs, so you can review them at your convenience if you're unable to attend live sessions



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.

Course Content and Structure:



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).

NFQ Level 8 honours degree (or international equivalence ) in a relevant subject or >5 years relevant professional experience.



You may be eligible for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), as UCD recognises formal, informal, and/or experiential learning. RPL may be awarded to gain Admission and/or credit exemptions on a programme. Please visit the UCD Registry RPL web page for further information. Any exceptions are also listed on this webpage.

https://www.ucd.ie/registry/prospectivestudents/admissions/rpl/



Application Assessment: Applications may include a short 10-minute interview.

Apply online



Who Should Apply?

Part Time option suitable for:

Domestic(EEA) applicants: Yes

International (Non EEA) applicants: No

1 Year Part Time.

MODE OF DELIVERY: Blended

T384 Graduate Diploma in Carbon Accounting & Life Cycle Assessment (Graduate Diploma) Part-Time

Commencing September 2026

Graduate Taught

Career & Graduate Study Opportunities

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.