green_opera

As part of the greening of the Wexford Festival Opera 2010, which is being managed by CTC, 16 Wexford businesses were certified ‘green’ at an awards ceremony at the Wexford Opera House on Tuesday, 5th October.

The 16 premises have met with environmental standards set down by the Green Hospitality Programme (GHP) and €concertive and are leading the way to making Wexford a green destination for visitors and business.

Examples of exemplary savings – both monetary and resource efficiency – include the Riverbank Hotel which has cut it its water bill by €35,000 per annum through leak detection and improved water efficiency and the Maldron Hotel, Wexford, which has taken measures to cut its waste bill by 50% and has recently reduced water consumption by 40%.

The Green Hospitality Eco Label was presented to the following businesses:
•    National Heritage Park
•    Maldron Hotel Wexford
•    Cappuccinos Restaurant
•    Kelly’s Hotel, Rosslare
•    Riverside Hotel, Enniscorthy
•    Artramon Guesthouse
•    Riverbank House Hotel
•    Carlton Millrace Hotel, Bunclody
•    The Wexford Opera House.

The €concertive ‘Eco-cert’ – presented to businesses outside of the Hospitality Sector – was presented to –
•    Danone Nutricia Wexford
•    Charles Pierce Menswear
•    Martins Jewellers
•    Paragon Power Tools
•    Liam Ryan Engineering
•    RDA Accountants
•    Asple & Co.

Funded by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Waste Prevention Programme, the project has proven extremely successful to-date, with more than 30 businesses around Co. Wexford signed up to the ‘Green Aware’ programme.

All of these businesses are striving to achieve environmental certification, in the form of the Green Hospitality ‘Eco-label’ or the €concertive ‘Eco-cert’. Both of these labels are EPA recognised environmental management programmes for small businesses.

If the participant businesses can reduce water and energy use and cut the amount of waste they produce, they will assist in reducing the environmental impact of the Wexford Festival Opera, whilst also saving significant amounts of money for their businesses.

Since the programme commenced in June of this year many properties have identified significant savings.

“The dedication of businesses in Wexford to green Wexford Festival Opera has been phenomenal,” said Dr Gerry Byrne, EPA Programme Manager. “We believe it is just the start of a process to move Wexford towards becoming a ‘green destination’ and promote itself as being more sustainable for future visitors and businesses.

“I offer my congratulations to everyone involved. We see this project as providing a template for similar prevention interventions elsewhere.”

Businesses which participated in greening Wexford Festival Opera will be listed in a ‘Green Trail’, which maps out a route for visitors to the festival so that they can choose to support the Green Businesses and make their own Opera experience a more environmentally friendly one.