Green team members from Citi with Paul Boylan, Citi Realty Services; Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte, TD; David Guest, chairman, Green IFSC; and Aidan Brady, country officer, Citi Ireland
A pilot project launched at the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Dublin today will see eight companies come together in an effort to lower their carbon footprint and streamline their costs in the process.
The project, dubbed ‘Greening the IFSC’, has been launched by the Green IFSC initiative in alliance with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and Dublin City Council. The aim is to make the IFSC one of the most resource-efficient financial centres in the world.
Ireland’s Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte, TD, launched the project today at Citi’s Environmental Expo at the IFSC.
In the first phase, eight companies based across 10 offices in the IFSC will be aiming to cut their consumption of waste, water and energy.
The companies are A&L Goodbody, BNY Mellon, Citi, KPMG, PwC, McCann FitzGerald, Matheson Ormbsy Prentice and KBC Global Project Finance. Between them, these eight firms employ more than 7,500 people and have a total energy bill of more than €5m.
The goal of the project is to achieve energy cost/carbon savings of 10pc by the end of 2013.
Rabbitte spoke today about how the companies participating in the project are making a commitment to position the IFSC as “one of the most resource efficient anywhere in the world”.
A working group of the participating companies, along with the Green IFSC, SEAI and Dublin City Council will now work together to determine the best way to collectively reduce the energy use of the IFSC.
“More and more businesses, such as those in the Green IFSC, are adopting a strategic approach to sustainable energy. It is clear now that this is a serious business issue that is important to all sectors of the Irish economy,” said SEAI chief executive Brian Motherway.
The sustainability drive at the IFSC has been taken as part of the Green IFSC’s mandate to promote Ireland as a centre of excellence for green finance. At the minute, some US$16bn in green funds are managed or serviced from Ireland.
Stephen Nolan, executive co-ordinator of the Green IFSC, said if Ireland is to be positioned as a world-leading centre for green finance, it must be seen to be walking the talk itself and moving to a more low-carbon model.
