EPA - Ireland's Environment 2016 - An Assessment

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223 Chapter 13: Environmental Challenges and Emerging Issues for Ireland
Engaging Communities
Work and protection at a local level will contribute to
the overall state of the environment in Ireland.
We need to get more involved locally and be informed
about environmental issues. It is the work and protection
at a local level that contributes significantly to the overall
state of the environment in Ireland. To make progress
on many of the environmental challenges we will need
widespread public engagement and participation. We
have many good examples to build on in Ireland, such as
Tidy Towns, Pride of Place and Green Schools. We all own
the environment and have a responsibility for its care and
protection: after all, our health and wellbeing depend on
it. At the core of this ambition is the need to engage the
public in debating and defining behaviours and citizenship
for a sustainable future. While our current model of
citizenship is strongly rooted in our citizens and related to
culture, there is room to expand our thinking into a more
proactive approach to caring for our local environment,
the preservation and quality of places we live in, and more
joined up social responsibility.
There are encouraging signs that more local and
community-based projects such as the Burren Life9 and the
Dunhallow Life Programmes10 can act as template projects
to maintain and improve biodiversity and river habitats
water in sensitive farming areas. Similar programmes
run by Eco-Unesco and An Taisce’s Green Schools are
successfully engaging our young people. The challenge
here is to replicate these types of projects through policy
support and incentives elsewhere across the country in
order to multiply the benefits for the environment.
Final Remarks
Ireland’s economy and economic policy are clearly making
positive moves in relation to planning and have achieved
some limited success in decarbonisation and resource
efficiency; however, there is still considerable scope for
improvement. The economic downturn evidently forced us
to become more efficient as a nation: the challenge now is
whether we can maintain that competitive advantage into
the future. What is clear is that our economic prosperity
is intimately dependent on the quality of, and services
provided by, our environment. The 2014 EU Eurobarometer
survey on environmental attitudes in the EU noted that
83% of Irish people surveyed believed that protection of
the environment can boost economic growth.11
A future sustainable business model is not just one that
merely stops providing unsustainable goods or services,
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Figure 13.5 DISTRICT - Local Solutions Delivering
Sustainable Futures (Source: EPA)
DISTRICT
LOCAL SOLUTIONS DELIVERING
SUSTAINABLE FUTURES
DISRUPTIVE
Stop providing unsustainable goods and services;
dramatically reduce dependency on fossil carbon-based
energy solutions; move financial markets from excessive
and short-term rent taking to longer-term sustainable
yield models that balance economic, social and
environmental needs; eliminate environmental harmful
subsidies; reimagine consumerism.
INNOVATIVE
New green technologies; new community-based
solutions; better buildings; circular economy; living
cities; implement sustainable transport solutions; use
Green Public Procurement to drive delivery of more
sustainable goods and services.
RELEN T LESS
A long-term clear vision and delivery plan with authority
and governance continuity, and a call for lifelong
individual responsibility and accountability.
CREATIVE
Foster social and environmental entrepreneurship for
sustainability; use corporate social responsibility as an
enabler of change; incentivise more sustainable
behaviours; empower the responsible individual;
stigmatise wasteful materialism.
TR ANSFORMATIVE
Imagining what “better” is and how to achieve it; new
ideals of citizenship; new values around prosperity and
success; educate to enable; prepare for adaptation;
change behaviours; life cycle analysis for all goods and
services; electrification of transportation.
INTEGRATED
Joined-up policy, involving all pillars of society (business,
government and people); urban and rural; eliminating
policy-induced environmental market failures.
S YSTEMIC
Has to be an “all of society, all of economy” approach;
has to cover how we live, eat, play and work; has to be
funded; has to recognise and balance the dependency
of the economy and society on the environment.