Sustainability Success Stories
Learning from others’ experiences is a great way to start your sustainability journey. We are collecting stories from individuals and communities that will tell you what they did and how they went about it.
What is the difference between a ‘Case Study’ and a ‘Community Story’?
Well it’s really a question of level of detail.
A ‘Community Story’ is a quick and simple telling of the bare details of a communtiy project – it includes key facts and ideas whio did what and how, and why it’s useful to know about. It also has contact details for how to get in touch with the people runing the project.
A Case Study is a deeper look into a community action or project. It comes with a five page PDF that looks at a whole range of ideas and actions in the project. Many of the case studies have podcast episodes alongside them.
Our latest Community Stories
A NetZeroCities Project: Warm Home Hub
The Warm Home Hub, in the Westside Community of Galway City, gave a free-of-charge advice service that helps local residents by sustainably upgrading and retrofitting their homes, to make them into energy-efficient, sustainable, more comfortable and healthier homes. This included advice about the grants to home owners. They gave solutions that are available and suitable for each home, and how they could pay back the works through savings.
From Small Wins to a Community Energy Pipeline: GreenPlan Mulranny (Case Study)
GreenPlan Mulranny turned a volunteer-run tourist office into a public “green hub” for the whole village—swapping bulbs, cutting bills, refilling water bottles, charging e-bikes from solar, and showing live energy on a screen. Those visible, low-cost actions grew into a community energy pipeline (Sustainable Energy Community → Energy Master Plan → Building Energy Ratings → Retrofits) and helped set the stage for Mulranny’s Decarbonising Zone.
Mulranny 2030: From Climate Action Hub to UNESCO Biosphere (Case Study)
Once a pass-through village on the Wild Atlantic Way, Mulranny has reinvented itself as a hub for climate action and participatory governance. Building on its Decarbonising Zone plan and a decade of community-led innovation, the village is now aiming for its boldest move yet: joining UNESCO’s global network of Biosphere Reserves.
Mulranny Community Futures & Promenade (Case Study)
A Scottish-style, household-led consultation gave Mulranny a clear, shared brief: footpaths, safer crossings, and a seafront civic space. With a Village Design Statement (2012) to turn that mandate into drawings, the community and council delivered continuous footpaths, traffic calming, and the Mulranny Promenade—even during austerity—shifting the N59 corridor from car-dominated to people-first and setting the stage for later climate actions.
Achursáil Árainn – Aran Recycling
A community member owned co-operative of the Aran Islands. The key to the project was the islanders deciding they no longer wanted to dump household and commercial waste to landfill on the island. This affected the quality of the public water supply. A more sustainable view was needed: based on maximum recycling and minimum landfill. This was achieved and almost 60% of all waste on the island is recylced or repurposed – way ahead of the national targets.
Sligo Sustainable Energy CommunitySligo
Sligo’s community and the town’s largest businesses and employers are working together to reduce energy use and carbon emissions across Sligo and Leitrim. This group, called Sligo Sustainable Energy Community (SEC), was set up in 2016 by local organisations and community members. They are helping people and businesses to save energy, cut costs, and switch to cleaner energy sources.
Aran Islands Keep Cup Campaign
The Aran Islands ‘Keep Cup Campaign’ was launched in June 2025 by the Aran Islands Energy Co-op (Comharchumann Fuinnimh Oileáin Árann Teo, CFOAT), in collaboration with thirteen local businesses across the three Islands. Ten businesses on Inis Mór, one business on Inis Meáin and two on Inis Óirr have partnered up with CFOAT to promote the increase of reusable utensils and to reduce the number of single use plastic items in the form of takeaway cups.
Aran Islands’ Energy Co-operative (Case Study)
We are 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.
Use Your Mug Galway City
This was a campaign that lasted for 3 months in Galway City. During this time 9 cafes in the city did not sell coffee in paper cups. Instead you had to bring your own keep cup. The campaign was talked about all over the city and it helped get people into the habit of bringing their keep cups out with them. Once you pick up a good habit, it’s easy to keep doing it. This is a project that you could start in your town or village. Read more to see how they did it and how you can too.
Westside Community Organic Garden: Growing Together for Sustainability (Case Study)
In the heart of Galway’s Westside, a city community turned land that was not being used into a growing centre for biodiversity sustainability, and connections between people. Set up in 2011, this project which is led by volunteer gives locals the power to grow local food. It helps people in the community work together and improve how we look after the land. It’s more than just a garden—it’s a living space where people come together to look after both the land and each other.
Coill Chormaic: A Community-Driven Model for Sustainable Forestry (Case Study)
Discover Coill Chormaic, a cooperative forestry project that was inspired by the life of Cormac ó Braonáin, a passionate campaigner for nature. This project brings together family, friends, and neighbors to plant a native Irish forest that supports the joined-up web of living things and how local people in a community get on with eachother. It’s about more than just planting trees; it’s about creating a space where a community working together meets looking after nature.
Creative Climate Action: Art and Sustainability in Westside (Case Study)
Westside Resource Centre’s community-led projects bring creativity and climate action together to engage residents in meaningful ways. Projects like “Painting the Planet” and “The Air We Share” use art and science to make sustainability understandable, start conversations about environmental issues, and strengthen community connections. Read the full case study to learn more about this work and what they are able to do.
Investigate our case studies
Just three of our latest Personal Stories
Cíara and Keep Cup Campaigns
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!
Dara, installed PV at his home.
In October 2013 we installed 2 kW of Photovoltaic panels (8 panels) ground-mounted at our home. At that time, we also installed a 5kW heat-pump. In September of 2023, we installed a further 2 kW of Photovoltaic panels, making it 4kW in total. The...
Aoife, Cork, decided that if she wanted to spend money in town she would cycle and not drive
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.