Greener Clare Festivals Programme

The greener festival programme was originally an initiative of Clare Tourism. In 2017, ten festivals from across the county of Clare received green festival and ambassador and leader training throughout 2017 and 2018. The programme is the first of its kind in Ireland and is now overseen by the Clarecastle Tidy Towns committee in collaboration with Clare County Council's Greener Clare programme from 2019 to 2021. This initiative is also supported by Clare Volunteer Centre, Limerick Clare Energy Agency, Southern Region Waste Management Office and the EPA Local Authority Prevention Network and fully funded by Clare Local Development through the LEADER Programme.

To date, participating greener Clare festivals have successfully reduced their carbon footprint by up to 40% as part of their involvement in the programme. Other achievements include the abolition of single use individually wrapped items, where an estimated total of 17,600 items were prevented from going to landfill.  An estimated 5,900 plastic crockery items were saved from going to landfill by replacing them with reusable or compostable options. Waste segregation - which includes separation of waste to three streams - food waste and compostables, recycling and general waste was also successfully realised by all participating green festivals.

Our goals for the next 18 months are:

• To strive to abolish as many single use items as possible from our events in 2021.
• To establish a system of metrics to allow us to calculate each festival's carbon footprint.
• To aspire for carbon neutrality in 2021/22.
• To use our festivals as a platform to create awareness of waste prevention and sustainability, so that our visitors bring the message home and live by it in the long-term.