GAP Ireland has been named one of Ireland’s SDG Champions for 2025–2027 by the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment.
The recognition highlights our work helping people rediscover their power to act on climate change and biodiversity loss.
At a time when climate progress depends on local leadership, GAP shows how change begins when people are supported to believe in their ability to make a difference.
For nearly 30 years, GAP has worked with communities, schools and businesses across Ireland to make sustainable living practical, inclusive and achievable. By starting with local needs and lived experience, GAP helps people build confidence, skills and collective agency, turning concern about global challenges into meaningful local action.
Through education focused on climate justice and a just transition, GAP supports communities to reduce consumption, protect biodiversity and develop community-owned solutions.
This work comes to life in initiatives such as the GLAS community gardens in Dublin, where volunteers grow food, build intercultural connections and strengthen wellbeing. These gardens are everyday examples of the Sustainable Development Goals in action, showing how climate responsibility, food security and belonging can grow side by side.
The ‘SDG Champion’ designation reflects national priorities on community-led climate action, justice and resilience. GAP’s work demonstrates how these ambitions take root when people are trusted and supported to lead change themselves.
The recognition aligns with Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O’Brien’s emphasis on community-led action, justice and resilience as cornerstones of Ireland’s climate transition. GAP’s impact shows what’s possible when communities are supported to shape solutions themselves.
Minister O’Brien said:
“The world faces huge challenges in achieving the SDGs, with only 18% of the goals currently on track globally. However, this year, as we mark the 70th anniversary of Ireland’s membership of the United Nations, we are committed to achieving the vision and ambition of Agenda 2030, a roadmap for a fairer, safer, more prosperous, and sustainable world. In fulfilling the ambition of the SDGs, we have made considerable progress, but more is needed, and faster, from all stakeholders – locally, nationally and internationally.
Over 90 organisations applied to take part in the Programme this year, demonstrating the continued commitment of Irish society to help achieve and promote the SDGs. Partnerships play a crucial role, and it is great to have such a diverse range of organisations working collectively towards a better future for everyone. The SDG Champions Programme recognises that everyone has a role to play, and everyone can contribute to achieving the SDGs.”
As an SDG Champion, GAP will continue doing what it does best: supporting communities to learn, organise, grow and lead. In communities across Ireland, GAP is proving that sustainability is not abstract policy but a lived, shared and joyful practice.
Alex Whyatt, Global Citizenship Coordinator at GAP Ireland, said:
“The most powerful solutions emerge when people feel they can make a difference. Education is a powerful tool to help understand how huge global forces, like climate change and development, affect people all over the world differently. Our work is about turning that awareness into local action.”
“When groups come together to learn, discuss, and act, issues of human rights, justice and solidarity become alive, tangible and transformative. The SDG Champion designation affirms what our communities have shown us for years: local action is world-changing action.”
About the SDG Champions Programme
Established in 2019, the SDG Champions Programme was developed to raise public awareness of the SDGs and to demonstrate, through the examples provided by the SDG Champions, that everyone in society can make a contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The role of an SDG Champion is to act as an advocate and promoter of the SDGs and as a good practice example of how an organisation can contribute to the SDGs and integrate the SDGs into their work and activities.