I travel from Inis Mór, an island on the west coast of Ireland to Finland by ferries and trains. I live permanently in Inis Mór but I am originally from Finland. So I visit friends and family in Finland once a year. I plan to travel this way every time in both directions.
A community owned energy cooperative representing the 3 Aran Islands. Lifetime membership is open to everyone who lives on the Islands for a fee of just €100. The cooperative is non-profit with all of the benefits going back into the community. The co-op shows how ordinary citizens can have big impacts on their community – but set things up right on a firm base.
The benefits are both immediate, sustainable and you send a clear signal of sustainability, environmental consideration and an active lifestyle to your kids. They will then, hopefully, be more likely and more comfortable making these types of decisions into the future – which they will very likely be forced to do anyway in the coming years to mitigate climate change.
The impact of my action has been a reduction in my carbon footprint and control on the amount of single-use waste that I produce. For example, if I go out to work 5 days a week for 48 weeks of the year, buy a takeaway coffee, a plastic bottle of water and dispose of them in a public landfill bin each day of my commute, I will have disposed of 240 single use coffee cups and 240 single use plastic water bottles in landfill. By making an effort to carry reusable utensils, that number can be zero!
In October 2013 we installed 2 kW of...
Last year I got a bike from the cycle-to-work scheme. I decided that if I wanted to spend money in town I would cycle in and not drive.
I set up a 2.5 acre sustainable market garden. What started off as hobby gardening is now scaled up to about 2.5 acres in producing fruit and vegetables. I wondered if it was possible to produce food in a sustainable way, both environmentally and financially, and as efficiently as possible. I completed the ideas academy with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland which really helped me understand the problems that I see with our food system and how to best use my skills to try to solve them.
I Upgraded to reusable water bottles and tea cups, and started buying second hand clothes. I generate less waste. Now I feel guilty throwing away a coffee cup. A lot of the waste that you put in the recycling isn’t really being recycled and instead it is being exported to third world countries. I also really like the value of second hand shops.
We were always a two car family. When my own car was up for renewal I looked into the bike to work scheme. I found out that the electric assist bike would work well for me: it’s quite an uphill journey in parts and so I didn’t feel that the standard bike was for me. I also saw that the bike to work scheme meant that I got the bike more or less for half price. It makes total economic sense when you factor in cost of even a second hand car, the petrol, tax and insurance. The sustainability benefits are very obvious.