To start out, they have formed a Green Team that meets every two weeks, which is not a major outlay but a ‘nice thing to be involved in’ the team says.  Their first outing was a tree planting during Climate and Biodiversity Week at Santry which they plan to do again. Guided by Sally, they have bought plants for the office and have found other ‘quick wins’ that are making a positive difference in the office culture.  

Perhaps most key to their success in getting ‘buy-in’ from the 50-plus members of TDA’s team was the fact that the drive to be more sustainable wasn’t being pushed from a select few members, it was already starting to bubble throughout their leadership and the wider team.   

The Green Team members were already taking action in their own local communities. For example, Sally Spearman from the Development Team volunteers in Inchicore on canal clean ups and Dymphna Kenny has been working with Friends of the Grand Canal where they are partnering with migrants to clean a stretch of the Grand Canal and surrounding area.   

Operations  

Project Manager Dymphna Kenny is looking at sustainability from a good governance standpoint – looking at these issues from a personal interest as well as an issue of compliance. She is working with the team on a Green Charter and other actions identified from a needs assessment completed in mid 2024 involving staff from all across TDA.    

They have taken several steps to ‘green’ the operations, such as minimising data usage and optimising equipment. They give used laptops in good condition to new employees as a start. They say travel is a tricky one for their team to tackle, but they have implemented a strict approval process with more scrutiny, and they try and maximise the opportunity when travel is necessary.  

Waste 

Niall Donohoe was inspired by a Trinity Sustainability sponsored talk by Voice Ireland on waste. They started to implement a culture of a disposable-free office through a few practical steps:  new staff induction includes a video on waste; they replaced single use items such as Nespresso pods; removed individual bins and replaced most of the water coolers with filtered water from the tap.   

Beth May from the events team organised personalised keep cups for the whole TDA team from a local brand from Greystones called Ecoset. With everyone’s names on the cup it is impossible to mix them up and people are happy to use them. It didn’t take long for people to build the habit and ditch the disposables.   

Events  

Events Manager Ali Hartney promotes paperless events where possible: no name badges, no printed table plans, reusable dry flowers instead of fresh and even using scrabble tiles from a second-hand scrabble game instead of doing personalised place settings.  Of course, some events call for flexibility, but they try and stick to it as much as possible. They aim for vegan and vegetarian food and donate unused food to the Lighthouse Café, which has great connections to the local community.  

The Green Team is growing, and with the interest and investment of colleagues the future looks very sustainable at TDA! The team says that this process has been a “nice feelgood thing to bring the office together” and we hope it inspires other teams to do the same.