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Clare festivals, Source: clarecoco.ie

Clare’s Green festivals form a network to better target climate change

Clare’s Green festivals form a network to better target climate change

The locally funded Green Festival Programme is the first of its kind in Ireland

Festivals are tourism boosters and a terrific way for towns and small businesses to showcase their products to visitors and locals alike. But attracting crowds of people to one place for a short time poses numerous logistical, financial and environmental problems.

With these concerns in mind, existing Green Festivals in County Clare, Ireland, are coming together to develop as a network under a local programme fully funded by Clare Local Development Company (LDC). LDC’s Martina Minogue made this announcement on 4 November, inviting new festivals’ organizers to complete training and participate in the network.

The Green Festival Programme was originally an initiative of Clare Tourism in 2017.  11 festivals from across Co. Clare received Green Festival and Ambassador and Leader training throughout 2017 and 2018. The selected festivals were the Kilmurry Harvest Festival, Clare Garden Festival, Clarecastle Regatta & Clarecastle Tidy Towns, Great Irish Garden, Doolin Festivals, Bodyke Festival, Kilrush Traditional Music Festival, Mountshannon Arts Festival, Fleadh Cheoil An Chláir, Lissycasey Music Festival and Festival of Finn. 

The programme, which is the first of its kind in Ireland, is now led by Clarecastle Tidy Towns in collaboration with Clare County Councils Greener Clare programme.

Reduction of costs and carbon footprint

Participating Clare Green Festivals have successfully reduced their carbon footprint by up to 40% to date under the programme. They have also abolished all single use individually wrapped items and replaced single use plastic food and drink utensils with reusable or compostable options. Waste segregation was also achieved. The overall goal is to have a number of Carbon Neutral Festivals in County Clare by 2021.

“In addition to preventing and managing waste at festivals this initiative has community involvement, sustainable travel, green purchasing, water conservation and energy conservation at its heart. This is in essence climate action at a local community level and fully supports the objectives of the Climate Action Plan 2019,” pointed out Raquel Noboa from Fifty Shades Greener, quoted by www.clarecoco.ie.

“This programme is an excellent step by step programme, individually tailored for participating festivals. It will not only assist festivals with reducing their environmental impact but will also assist with the reduction of costs associated with running a festival,” concluded Karen Foley, Environmental Awareness Officer with Clare County Council.

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