Winners of an innovative nationwide climate challenge for businesses were announced this week.
Participants at the Irish Funds Industry Association’s annual conference, taking place in Dublin on 18 May, were told which staff team from among Ireland’s funds and asset management companies has made the greatest effort to try and reduce their carbon footprint.
More than 2,300 people, in 23 different companies, took part in the Funds Industry Climate Challenge, which was organised by the sector’s own Green Team Network, in partnership with the environmental NGO Global Action Plan.
The teams that prevented the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions were from the following companies:
- Kroll: Staff from this company saved an average of 132 kgCO2e per participant;
- Gemini Capital Management, with an average per participant saving of 120.2
kgCO2e; - IQ-EQ Ireland, whose ‘Team Green’ achieved an average saving of 120.1 kgCO2e
per participant.
The Funds Industry Climate Challenge invited teams from a wide range of companies across the sector to challenge each other to make the greatest reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions.
Participants were provided with an online interactive platform that allowed them to log a range of small everyday activities, based on the four main areas of individual greenhouse gas emissions: Transport, Food, Consumption and Energy. Each activity was translated into an amount of CO2 equivalent emissions savings, enabling people to see the impact of their actions, and allowing for a comparison of per capita emissions savings of each participating team.
“The first Funds Industry Climate Challenge has been a great success,” said Aedín O’Leary, from the Green Team Network, a voluntary organisation promoting sustainability initiatives in the funds industry.
“Over a 12 day period, 2300 staff in the sector logged more than 200,000 small
climate smart actions, resulting in a savings of 173 tonnes of CO2 emissions; the equivalent of not burning 64,000 litres of diesel, or not using the total amount of energy consumed by 33 households during an entire year,” said O’Leary.
Organisers estimate that, if the people taking part in the challenge had sustained their actions for the full year, they would each have reduced their annual emissions by 2.25 tonnes, or roughly 20% of the average Irish person’s carbon footprint.
“The Funds Industry Challenge has shown the power of grassroots action to help fight climate change. Not only did participants discover the impact of relatively small changes to their daily habits, they also got inspired to take further climate action. The feedback from the Challenge is that many of the people who took part are now feeling energised and inspired to take further action,” said Hans Zomer, CEO of Global Action Plan, the environmental charity facilitating the Challenge.
The Funds Industry Climate Challenge ran from 17 to 28 April, and is part of the sector’s ongoing commitment to sustainability and empowering employees to help address the climate crisis.
