Fingal’s Businesses Encouraged to Go Green with Two New Programmes

The Green for Micro programme, which was launched this week as part of Local Enterprise Week (LEW), is an initiative from the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs), with support from Enterprise Ireland, and is being rolled-out nationwide to help prepare small businesses for the low-carbon, more resource-efficient economy of the future.

With the help of a Green Consultant, small businesses with up to ten employees can get free advice and technical support on resource efficiency, how to better understand their carbon footprint and how to implement an environmental management system to reduce costs and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

An Tánaiste Leo Varadkar T.D. officially launched Green for Micro on the opening day of LEW 2021 as part of a ‘Spotlight’ event on the new programme. He said; “I’m really happy to launch this year’s Local Enterprise Week. I know this past year has felt like constant firefighting for many businesses. I hope this week is an opportunity to take a bit of time out, to reflect, network and grow. This year’s theme is ‘Making It Happen’. Our Local Enterprise Offices across the country are always there to help no matter what challenge a business is facing. I’m also launching a new ‘Green for Micro’ initiative to help small businesses decarbonise and become more sustainable. Making your business more sustainable, is not just the right thing to do from an environmental point of view, it also makes good business sense.”

In conjunction to the Green for Micro, Fingal County Council (FCC) has launched a Sustainable Business initiative which aims to encourage SMEs across Fingal to embrace sustainable measures in their businesses, with a series of practical tools and resources to help them. This initiative includes a dedicated sustainable resource hub for SMEs, as well as a competition to inspire businesses on their sustainability journey with an opportunity to win a Sustainability Assessment & Action Plan from Balbriggan based Patel Tonra Ltd. Environmental Solutions.

Mayor of Fingal, Cllr. David Healy warmly welcomed the new move towards encouraging sustainability in the commercial sector: “Fingal County Council is committed to supporting SMEs to become more sustainable and providing leadership at a local and regional level in achieving Climate Change Action targets. Focusing on sustainability can help businesses to become more resource efficient by using less raw materials, less energy, and less water.”

Speaking on the green initiatives for Fingal businesses, Head of Enterprise in Fingal, Oisín Geoghegan: “The new programmes are an opportunity for small companies to change the way they do business and to benefit significantly from those changes.  Companies becoming more sustainable is very much the future of how we will do business and if businesses can make those changes now then they will see the benefits down the road. It is becoming more and more prominent within business that companies want to work with companies that have sustainability at the core of what they do and that is the same with customers. This new programme will put companies on the right track and in many cases will significantly improve their bottom line, so green for business is definitely good for business.” 

To find out more about the new Green for Micro programme contact LEO Fingal or go to www.LocalEnterprise.ie/Green. For more information on the Sustainable Business initiative from FCC, please visit: https://www.fingal.ie/sustainablebusiness