Sustainable Kildare invited businesses in the county of Kildare to participate in an online climate challenge with the aim of reducing employees’ carbon emissions. A total of 65 different teams from 36 businesses participated in the championship with a staff participation rate of 86% across the businesses.
In total, employees saved a total of 56,106 kgCO₂e during the campaigns by completing 41,716 climate friendly activities.
The climate challenge not only resulted in big savings in CO2 emissions, but also saw unprecedented levels of employee engagement with. As such, the programme is both fun, effective and educational. County Kildare now has hundreds of new climate ambassadors, showing the power of individual action and collective behaviour change.
Leadership
“Sustainable Kildare” formed as partnership between Kildare Chamber, Intel Ireland, Ducky AS and Global Action Plan. Together we successfully delivered Ireland’s first-ever climate competition for businesses.
The programme initiated by Kildare Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by Intel Ireland, was a way to engage staff in member companies with corporate and county-wide sustainability initiatives.
A high-profile public launch, involving Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade, and Employment, Leo Varadkar, and Martin Heydon, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Kildare South TD. This resulted in media attention for the initiative. In addition, Kildare Chamber and Global Action Plan promoted the competition on their social media platforms.
At County Kildare Chamber, we take great pride in our “Sustainable Kildare” programme, which was supported by Intel Ireland and ran in partnership with Global Action Plan. Sustainable Kildare succeeded in mobilising staff in 65 different businesses, who took over 41,000 actions to reduce their impact on the climate. Our climate challenge not only resulted in big savings in CO2 emissions, but also saw unprecedented levels of employee engagement with possible solutions to the climate crisis. We found the competition to be fun, effective, and educational: County Kildare now has hundreds of new climate ambassadors, showing the power of individual action and collective behaviour change
Jennifer Forster, Kildare County Chamber
How did Sustainable Kildare run?
The competition ran in three separate stages, in November, February and May. This allowed for different companies and different staff members to engage at a moment of their choosing. As a result, the flexibility supported overall participation rates being extremely high.
The Ducky challenge app engaged staff in the participating companies. developed specifically for businesses, the project demonstrated the measurable, vital difference people can make. The learning acquired through the competition allowed participants to discover the important role businesses can play in regards to the climate crisis.
Speaking at the launch of Ireland’s first-ever Climate Competition, in November 2021, Kildare Mayor Naoise Ó Cearúil remarked:
“We need to look at environmental actions from a personal perspective and not just from a business perspective, but what this challenge has shown is that businesses can set the example and are stepping up to the mark when it comes to sustainability.”
Business setting the example in Climate Action
This is exactly what the programme achieved. During the three 2-week competition rounds, the participants in Co. Kildare achieved:
- A reduction in CO2 emissions of 56,106 KG;
- A total of 41,716 climate actions taken and logged by participants;
- 65 multi-member staff teams engaged in the competitions;
- Staff of 36 different companies took active part;
- 86% of signed up staff members participated daily the programme.
If everyone in Ireland had taken up these challenges and achieved the same results and a result 780,000 tonnes of CO2 would have been saved. This is equivalent to over 11 million trees planted and grown for 10 years.
“We are delighted to have participated in the Sustainable Kildare campaign, it was a very worthwhile team initiative which helped us look at our habits from an environmental perspective and reduced our environmental impact. Learned knowledge has become a part of our everyday life.” – A participant in the Sustainable Kildare challenge |
Senior managers in participating companies also reported increased engagement with corporate sustainability strategies and initiatives.
Some key learnings from Sustainable Kildare
The Climate Competition has had an impact at a number of levels:
- Through results showed that climate actions are simple to do and make an impact immediately. They are more powerful when they are done as a collective.
- Feedback and signals on the platform showed other participants that they are not alone in caring for the climate. The Ducky challenge platform provided a visible tool to show people they can work together and having measurable impact.
- The Climate Competition created a window for participants to engage with global issues, creating awareness of important global-local linkages. The app, and the subsequent workshops, helped individuals contextualise their consumption within a global framework. This enabled reflection in the disparities between wealthy and poorer countries, and creating starting points for further discussion and reflection.
- Data generated by the logging of participants’ daily actions created an evidence base for each team. This helped to inform teams as to what actions are easy to achieve and which ones are more difficult due to barriers.
- The project ended up being a perfect fit for all partner organisations who wish to support climate actions in businesses