Sustainability

The shortlist for the 24th annual Allianz Business to Arts Awards has been announced today. The awards, which will be presented by Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys on 1 September at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, seek to recognise the importance of arts and business organisations working together on projects that impact the partners and benefit society as a whole. “Looking at the breadth of the projects shortlisted this year, the importance and relevance of arts education is clear,” said Brendan Murphy, CEO of Allianz Ireland. “We’ve seen fantastic examples of companies leveraging their own knowledge and experience in business to help students from national schools,…

The public sector is to be the focus of a new campaign to encourage healthy workplace policies. The campaign is being prepared by Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, and will be driven by the Healthy Ireland initiative, which aims to improve the country’s physical and mental health. As part of the campaign, employers across the public sector will be required to develop healthy workplace policies. This is also the requirement of the proposed Health and Wellbeing (Workplace Wellbeing) Bill, which was signed off at Cabinet recently. “We are putting this on a statutory basis to send a clear message that we mean business in improving the nation’s health,” said the…

The world’s first purpose-built purely electric double-decker bus is to enter passenger service in London later this year. The Mayor of London Boris Johnson made the announcement this week as he hosted representatives and bus manufacturers from around the world for the first ever global Clean Bus Summit. Bus manufacturers including BYD, Volvo, Wright Bus, Optare Mercedes Evo Bus and Alexander Dennis attended the summit and committed to supporting cities in delivering fleets of new ultra-low emission buses. The World Bank and Green Investment Bank have also signed up to this commitment. Since 2008, London has rolled out more than 1,300 hybrid electric buses, retrofitted more than 1,400 buses to…

Visual artist Kevin Gaffney was last night named the Irish winner of the Sky Academy arts scholarship. The 28-year-old Dublin artist, who works in photography and film, will receive £30,000 (€38,000) towards the development of an artistic project and the cost of living for one year, along with mentoring from Sky and the arts industry. Gaffney’s work has been shown in exhibitions and film festivals internationally, including the Sapporo International Art Festival (Japan, 2014) and the Poetry Project at the Royal Hibernian Academy (Dublin, 2013).  For his Sky Academy arts scholarship project, he plans to create and exhibit a new body of work titled ‘Tectonic Plates of Conversion,’ exploring areas…

The 2015 Sustainability Gathering is taking place on 24 June in Dublin Castle with the theme of ‘Capital working for sustainability’. The main aim of the event will be to facilitate the transactions that will steer capital towards investments that are both environmentally and socially sustainable, and make a healthy return. On 22 and 23 June, separate events will focus on the financing of Irish clean-tech start-ups and see the launch of Docklands 21, a partnership between the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, Dublin City Council and Green IFSC to ensure that at a business level Dublin’s Docklands are undertaking best-in-class resource efficiency measures. There will also be a number…

Fujitsu Ireland has been announced as the first company to achieve the Business Working Responsibly Mark in 2015. Certifying excellence in responsible and sustainable business practices across company operations, the mark is operated by Business in the Community Ireland and audited by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI). Fujitsu Ireland is the 17th company in Ireland to achieve the standard, which examines a range of areas including sustainability, customer relations, supply chain management, workplace, community and environment. To achieve the mark, Fujitsu Ireland initially completed an online questionnaire with over 290 questions analysing operations on over 27 different indicators. A one-day audit was then conducted by the National Standards…

A team from Maynooth University has won the 2015 Enactus Ireland National Competition for Social Entrepreneurship and will now represent Ireland at the 2015 Enactus World Cup in South Africa in October. The team won the competition for its Access Earth project. Access Earth is an app that allows users to find reliable and up-to-date accessibility information about places and businesses. Last July, the team won third place in the World Citizenship category of Microsoft’s international competition, Imagine Cup, also for Access Earth. Enactus is an international organization that encourages university students to make a positive difference to their communities and develop the skills to become socially responsible business leaders…

The Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark and An Taisce Green Schools Travel, in conjunction with the Burren Ecotourism Network, have developed a scheme to promote sustainable travel throughout the region. The ‘Free cup of tea if you cycle to me’ scheme will see cyclists offered a free cup of tea when cycling to participating businesses. Among the local business and attractions taking part is Aillwee Cave and Birds of Prey centre, Doolin Hostel, The Burren Smokehouse, Wild Kitchen, The Burren Centre, Hotel Doolin, The Boghill Centre, Kilfenora Hostel and the Farmyard in Corofin. This latest scheme is building on previous initiatives such as the introduction of the Geopark sustainable…

Microsoft is to become an official European partner for the CoderDojo Foundation and movement. The aim of this new collaboration is to support the CoderDojo movement across the region and to further encourage young people to learn to code. Microsoft has pledged its support to the CoderDojo Foundation as part of the Microsoft YouthSpark initiative, a global, company-wide initiative that aims to improve education, employability and entrepreneurship opportunities for young people worldwide. “In addition to the corporate grant Microsoft will be providing we are also ambitious about how our employee base can support the growth of the CoderDojo movement,” said Microsoft Ireland managing director, Cathriona Hallahan. “In Ireland there is…