Cúl Green at Croke Park Conference Centre
Croke Park Stadium is Ireland’s largest stadium and the fifth largest stadium in Europe. In addition to hosting Gaelic Games it is currently the venue for international soccer and rugby during the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road in Dublin. The stadium is also one of Ireland’s largest conference and event centres and recently announced a major environmental initiative - Cúl Green (Cúl means Goal in Irish) - aimed at making Croke Park a carbon-neutral stadium. The initiative is a partnership between the ESB (Electricity Supply Board) and the GAA (Gaelic Athletics Association). The Cúl Green plan sets ambitious environmental targets for Croke Park, dramatically reducing the carbon footprint at Ireland’s largest sporting venue over the next six years and becoming the first stadium to achieve carbon neutrality.
The new project in the immediate term will cut Croke Park’s annual 4,500 tonnes carbon emissions output by more than two-thirds. It will establish a state of the art environmental- improvement programme covering the stadium’s electricity, waste and water management systems.
A total of 2.2 million people attended Croke Park last year, making it the biggest venue in Ireland, and the new sustainability plan will extend to fans’ activities in reducing the environmental impact of their travel to and from the stadium.
Croke Park now contracts its electricity supply from a renewable energy source and an energy efficiency audit is underway to establish how the stadium can most rapidly become net carbon neutral.
ESB (Electricity supply board) provide expertise in environmental management to the Croke Park team who will be working to achieve the internationally-recognised best-practice environmental standard ISO 14001 at the stadium.
It is estimated that fans travelling to games and those attending conferences and other events at the stadium event centre produce carbon emissions of 15,000 tonnes a year.
A website, http://www.culgreen.ie/, will be launched in August to allow fans participate in the Cúl Green initiative. Fans can log on and make energy-saving pledges which will help Croke Park reach its carbon-neutral targets. This will include using public transport and more environmentally friendly means to travel to games, thus reducing overall carbon emissions.
Contact:
Mairead Cullinane
Croke Park Conference Centre,
Dublin 3
No comments:
Post a Comment