Sustainability training in Ireland has moved from the margins to the mainstream. Irish businesses face growing pressure from regulators, investors, customers and employees to demonstrate genuine commitment to environmental responsibility. The Climate Action Plan sets ambitious targets. The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is expanding disclosure requirements. And a new generation of workers expects their employers to take climate action seriously.
But knowing you need to act on sustainability and knowing how to act are different things. That’s where an experienced training partner comes in. Effective sustainability training helps organisations move beyond good intentions to meaningful action, equipping employees at every level with the knowledge and skills to make a difference.
At The Learning Rooms, we’ve been helping Irish organisations build sustainability capability through engaging digital learning. We know that real change happens when training connects with people’s daily work and gives them practical tools they can use immediately.
Why sustainability training matters
Every employee makes decisions that affect your organisation’s environmental impact. From the person who leaves lights on in empty meeting rooms to the procurement manager choosing suppliers, from the facilities team managing waste to the leadership team setting strategy. Sustainability isn’t just a job for the sustainability officer. It’s everyone’s responsibility.
Training plays a crucial role:
- It builds awareness of environmental issues and their business relevance.
- It explains your organisation’s sustainability commitments and what they mean in practice.
- It gives people concrete actions they can take.
- It creates a shared language and culture around sustainability.
Without training, even well intentioned employees don’t know what to do differently. With the right training, they become active participants in your sustainability journey.
Our approach to sustainability training
We offer several ways to build sustainability capability across your organisation, from ready to deploy courses to fully customised programmes.
Bespoke eLearning development
When your sustainability training needs are specific to your industry, your operations or your sustainability strategy, bespoke eLearning development delivers the best results. We work with your sustainability team to understand your priorities, your targets and the behaviours you need to change.
Our instructional designers then create engaging, scenario based content that connects sustainability to your specific workplace. Learners don’t just learn abstract principles. They practice making decisions in situations they’ll actually encounter. This might mean choosing between suppliers, planning travel, specifying materials or dozens of other everyday choices that collectively determine your environmental footprint.
Rapid eLearning development
Sometimes you need sustainability training delivered quickly. Perhaps you’re rolling out a new sustainability strategy, preparing for a certification audit, or responding to stakeholder expectations. Our rapid eLearning service creates professionally designed content on shorter timelines. It’s fast to develop but doesn’t sacrifice instructional quality or engagement.
Off the shelf sustainability courses
Our off the shelf eLearning catalogue includes ready to deploy sustainability courses that cover essential topics. These provide a cost effective way to build baseline awareness across your organisation. Our sustainability courses include training on reducing energy consumption in the workplace, reducing waste through the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle, setting up and running effective green teams, and developing a culture of sustainability throughout your organisation.
These courses can be deployed immediately through your LMS and are ideal for reaching large numbers of employees quickly.
Tailored eLearning
Sometimes you want the speed and affordability of off the shelf content, but with your own branding and context. Our tailored eLearning service takes eLearning courses from our sustainability catalogue and adapts them to your organisation. We can incorporate your sustainability policy, your specific targets, examples from your workplace and your visual identity. This gives learners content that feels relevant and connected to their experience.
Build your own with eXcolo
If your organisation wants to develop sustainability training in house, our eXcolo Toolkit provides everything you need. It includes Instructional Design training, Articulate Storyline training, Â Articulate Storyline templates, resources and ongoing support to help you create engaging eLearning content yourselves. This approach works well for organisations with ongoing sustainability training needs or those wanting to build internal L&D capability.
Topics we cover
Sustainability is a broad area. We can help with training on specific topics, including:
- Carbon footprint awareness — Understanding what contributes to organisational and personal carbon footprints
- Energy efficiency — Practical steps to reduce energy consumption in the workplace
- Waste reduction — Implementing reduce, reuse, recycle principles effectively
- Sustainable procurement — Making environmentally responsible purchasing decisions
- Green teams — Setting up and running effective sustainability champions networks
- Sustainable travel — Reducing the environmental impact of business travel and commuting
- Circular economy — Understanding and applying circular principles
- Climate literacy — Building foundational understanding of climate science and business implications
- Sustainability reporting — Understanding disclosure requirements and how to contribute to accurate reporting
What makes sustainability training effective?
Based on our experience, the best sustainability training shares several characteristics.
- It connects to business reality. Abstract environmental facts don’t change behaviour. Training needs to show how sustainability connects to your organisation’s operations, strategy and success. When people understand why sustainability matters for the business, not just the planet, they engage more deeply.
- It’s practical and actionable. Awareness is a starting point, not an endpoint. Effective training gives people specific things they can do differently, starting immediately. The smaller and more concrete the actions, the more likely people are to take them.
- It’s relevant to the learner’s role. A facilities manager needs different sustainability knowledge than a marketing executive or a delivery driver. The best training is tailored to what each person can actually influence.
- It builds over time. Sustainability isn’t a one off training event. It’s an ongoing journey of improvement. Effective programmes build knowledge progressively, reinforcing key messages and introducing new concepts as the organisation’s sustainability maturity grows.
- It engages rather than lectures. Sustainability can feel overwhelming or preachy if handled poorly. Good training takes a positive, empowering approach. It helps people see themselves as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
The business case for sustainability training
Beyond the moral imperative, there’s a strong business case for investing in sustainability training.
- Regulatory compliance. The CSRD and other regulations are expanding sustainability reporting requirements. Training helps ensure your workforce understands and can contribute to accurate disclosure.
- Cost reduction. Energy efficiency, waste reduction and sustainable procurement often deliver direct cost savings. Training helps capture these benefits across the organisation.
- Talent attraction and retention. Employees, particularly younger workers, increasingly want to work for organisations that take sustainability seriously. Training demonstrates genuine commitment and gives employees a way to contribute.
- Risk management. Climate related risks are business risks. Training helps employees understand and respond to these risks in their areas of responsibility.
- Reputation and stakeholder relations. Customers, investors and partners increasingly expect evidence of sustainability commitment. A well trained workforce supports credible sustainability claims.
Getting started with sustainability training in Ireland
If you’re looking to build sustainability capability across your organisation, we’d love to help. Whether you need a comprehensive programme covering multiple topics, focused training on specific areas like energy efficiency or waste reduction, or support building your own sustainability training content, we have options to suit.
We’ll work with you to understand your sustainability priorities, your workforce and your learning culture. Then we’ll create training that engages your people and drives the changes you need.
Get in touch to discuss your sustainability training needs.
