Irish Businesses join Concern to Go Green!

Irish businesses across the country will join the humanitarian and development organisation’s Go Green for Concern event, asking their employees to Go Green the week before St Patrick’s Day.

They’ll do this by showing the small changes they’re making to reduce their carbon footprint and raise money for communities most affected by climate change.

Climate change is a reality for people in the countries that Concern works in, despite having contributed the least to causing it. Extreme weather events such as droughts and floods have become more frequent, pushing people further into poverty and dependant on humanitarian aid.

It’s estimated that if action is not taken, by 2050 200 million people could need humanitarian aid every year because of climate-related disasters.

Go Green! runs from 8-12th March and asks participants to show during the five days, the five small changes they’re making to combat climate change. They are then asked to share how they’re doing it via external and internal social channels.

It could be a photo of food grown locally to represent a reduction in food miles, a picture of a vegetarian or vegan meal to show they’re reducing their meat consumption, or an image of planting or composting which helps reduce carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

“The same four walls, the short commute to your desk, the inability to see colleagues face-to-face; the last year has made it difficult to engage and have some fun with colleagues. We hope Go Green! will give people the opportunity to come together virtually and do an activity in a safe way whilst we are all working from home,” said James Kitt, Corporate Fundraising and Partnership Manager with Concern.

A bit of friendly competition will be added to the event with each action awarded points so at the end of the week each company taking part will be able to crown their 2021 Green Hero.

Participants are asked to donate to €5 to Concern, which is working with local communities and government in countries such as Bangladesh, Kenya and Malawi, to help people adapt and become resilient to their changing environment.

In Bangladesh, where floods inundate 25% of the land every year, this can include building embankments, raising the height of roads and people’s home above flood level, and providing them with emergency supplies and cash transfers when floods do hit and destroy their crops.

Rina’s home in the north of the country was repeatedly flooded in recent years. Concern, in partnership with the local community and government, raised her home and land above flood water levels, protecting it from future floods.

More frequent droughts, followed by heavy flooding in arid areas of Kenya have left people with no time to recover from one emergency to the next. Concern supports nutrition outreach sites in the north of the country, ensuring life-saving access to nutrition services for children and pregnant or breast-feeding mothers.

Widowed mother of two, Nayole Ngina lives in Turkana where recurrent droughts have left her and her children with almost no food. Like many toddlers in the area, her two-year-old son Ero was malnourished. After being examined at an outreach centre in the area, he was enrolled in a therapeutic feeding programme.

Through climate smart agriculture, farmers in southern Malawi are becoming more resilient to climate change. Better farming techniques and diversifying their crops has helped farmers to prosper.

Twelve months after Cyclone Idai hit the country in March 2019, Concern provided farmer Lambiki Yona with seeds and training in climate smart agriculture. As a lead farmer, Lambiki takes the skills he’s learnt back to other farmers in his community and shares the knowledge so they too can be resilient to their changing environment. 

In 2019 Concern helped 28.6 million people in 24 countries, an increase of 4.4 million people on the year previous.

To find out more and sign up for Go Green! For Concern, go to www.concern.net/go-green

For media queries contact Eilis Staunton, Media Relations officer on 085 872 0720 or eilis.staunton@concern.net