Expressions of Interest sought for participants of the 2025-2026 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Champions Programme

The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment is seeking Expressions of Interest for participants of the 2025-2026 SDG Champions Programme.

Established in 2019, the SDG Champions Programme is a non-funded programme, developed to raise public awareness of the SDGs and to demonstrate, through best practice examples provided by the SDG Champions, that everyone in society can make a contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Under the Programme, the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment will appoint several organisations as SDG Champions for a period of 18 months, from September 2025. The organisations will be selected from a wide range of geographic areas and sectors of Irish society, representing the commitment to sustainable development across the public, private, community, voluntary, youth and NGO sectors. Applications will be accepted from organisations/groups based in Ireland. This can include cross-border, multi-national organisations with Irish operations.

Role

• Advocate and promoter of the SDGs and sustainable development
• Acts as a good practice example of how an organisation or group can contribute to the SDGs and integrate the SDGs into their work or activities
• Shares learnings with others

Responsibilities

• Ongoing promotion of and linking of work to the SDGs
• Quarterly updates on related work and activities, including information on outreach. activities among communities, stakeholders or customers.
• Organisation of an SDG-related or promotional event during the lifetime of being an SDG Champion (ideally to take place during SDG week)
• Contribution at end-of-term showcasing event

Role of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment

The Department will provide support to the Champions in promoting the SDGs through:

• Organisation of an introductory workshop, quarterly meetings, end-of-term showcase and other SDG-related events
• Providing Champions with an information pack, including guidance on the Programme, quarterly reporting templates and brand assets for promoting the SDGs
• Inclusion of information and activities relating to Champions’ initiatives on Ireland's SDG Geohive
• Providing guidance and information on SDG mapping tools for Champions to map projects and activities to the SDGs

• Applications will be accepted in written, email or video format
• Please submit your application on behalf of your organisation as a whole. Applications submitted representing an individual/individuals will not be considered.
• Please limit applications to no more than 600 words or no longer than a 4-minute video. In the interest of fairness to all participants, applications that exceed this limit will not be judged in their entirety and a penalty will apply to the final score. Please note that this word count also applies to slides/presentations within video applications.
• Please use clear and concise language and ensure that responses are focused and specific
• When providing examples of how your activities or work contribute to the SDGs, you can also refer to individual SDGs and targets – these can be found on gov.ie or on sdgs.un.org/goals
• Please feel free to include relevant links to support your examples of your work and promotion of the SDGs. Please note, however, that these supporting materials will not form part of the judging criteria and will only be used as illustration of your examples.
• To ensure a broad representation of sectors of society, applications will be drawn from a wide range of sectoral areas and geographic locations. Please also include in your application, which category your organisation / group falls into:
  • Business – large (250 employees or more)
  • Business – Small medium and other (less than 250 employees)
  • Education
  • Local authority and state agency
  • Tidy towns and community group
  • NGO/charity/social enterprise
  • Tourism, sport and media
  • Youth
  • Other (Please specify/give a brief description)

If you feel your organisation or group falls into more than one of these categories, please indicate this.

If your organisation or group is interested in applying to become an SDG Champion, please answer the following questions in your application. (Total 50 marks)

1. Why is your organisation/group interested in becoming an SDG Champion? (5 marks)
2. How does the work of your organisation/group contribute to the SDGs? Please provide two examples of activities or work that your organization/group does or has done, which help to achieve the SDGs, also identifying which SDGs in particular they are contributing to. Identify any factors which may make your organisation unique in its approach, or may make your impact as a Champion particularly meaningful. (25 marks)
3. If you were selected as an SDG Champion, how would you intend to:

(i) promote and raise awareness of the SDGs outside your organisation (for example, among the community, stakeholders, customers, club/society/branch members)? (10 marks)

(ii) promote and embed the SDGs into the internal operations and work of your organisation (for example, with regard to operations, strategic planning, among staff/volunteers)? (10 marks)

Please provide specific examples of activities or work that you would undertake.

Please send your application to SDGs@dcee.gov.ie and include your preferred contact details.

Please send written applications to:

SDGs Team,

Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment,

Tom Johnson House,

Haddington Road,

D04 K7X4

All Expressions of Interest must be received by 5pm, Wednesday, 30 July 2025.

If you would like a Word version of this document, please contact SDGs@dcee.gov.ie