{"id":383,"date":"2011-03-26T08:52:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-26T08:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gsu.eventmedialabs.com\/?p=383"},"modified":"2015-07-13T01:37:35","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T00:37:35","slug":"what-do-the-irish-green-awards-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greensideup.ie\/what-do-the-irish-green-awards-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"What do the Irish Green Awards mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"
I was delighted to find that we\u2019ve been shortlisted for the SME (small\/medium enterprises) category in the 20011 Irish Green Awards but as I\u2019ve been sharing my news, I was surprised by the amount of people who\u2019ve asked me \u201cwhat does that mean?\u201d. So I\u2019ll do my best to answer what it means to me and Greenside Up\u2026<\/p>\n
Back in the eighties I was firing off letters to MPs about the rainforest, ozone layer and saving whales\u2026 I wasn\u2019t\u00a0swinging off parliament buildings or buzzing around whalers in inflatable dingies,\u00a0but for many years I\u2019ve been doing my best to be mindful of our environment and this amazing planet we live on.<\/p>\n
Whether that was by not buying aerosol deodorants or by recycling glass, anything that\u00a0was within my budget, I\u00a0tried my best to do.\u00a0 That ethos has continued throughout my personal life and now into my business life too. As the years have rolled by, the problems haven\u2019t got any better (Prince Charles was so ahead of everyone else)\u2026 they’ve got bigger in fact with ice caps melting, global warming and a rapidly growing energy and food crisis.<\/p>\n
I mentioned \u2018within budget\u2019\u00a0and there\u2019s no getting away from the fact that you need a certain amount of cash to be as \u2018green\u2019 as you can be. We would love to live in a passive house with solar energy, composting toilets and be fully self-sufficient. However, when we were looking for a home to raise our family, straw bales and solar were still pipe dreams and the only real alternative to oil here would have cost us more than our house.<\/p>\n