Climate Action

Waterford City and County Council’s Climate Action Team hosted its second Student Conference at the Fusion Centre in Dungarvan last week (Wednesday, March 26th).

Eight secondary schools from across Waterford City and County sent teams to the conference which was also attended by members of Waterford community groups.

Each partaking school was represented by a teacher and a small team of ‘climate ambassadors’.  While the first Student Climate Conference in 2023 focussed on contributing to the writing of the Waterford Climate Action Plan, the emphasis this year was on community action.

Welcoming the students to the Fusion Centre at Dungarvan, Grainne Kennedy, Climate Action Coordinator, Waterford City and County Council said, “While we have achieved a tremendous amount already in the first year of Waterford’s Climate Action Plan, there is still a lot of work to come. And taking the longer view, our successes will come from cultivating an informed, engaged youth who can build on the great work communities are already doing.”

Students then had the opportunity to learn from various Waterford communities and businesses that have carried out a great variety of climate actions.

Cian Gill, Climate Action Officer with Waterford City and County Council said, “Sometimes people might have an idea that climate action is something technical, very scientific, and maybe even a bit mysterious – definitely not the sort of thing that anyone can do! They are often pleasantly surprised to learn that many actions they already feel positive about, and may already be doing, are a part of climate action.

“Today, we’re hearing from groups such as Árdscoil na Mara who have a ‘walk-to-school’ campaign, Affane-Cappoquin-Tourin, who have been saving and reusing rainwater, and Clashmore Community Council, who have made unused green areas more biodiversity-friendly. We also learned how to set up school sustainability squads with Education for Sustainability, and how to grow our own food with specialist Colman Power.”

Students from Abbey Community College talked about how they had been inspired saying, “We could utilise the spaces we already have for flower planters and to grow vegetables and organic produce in them, so we can use them when we come back to school in September to maybe cook them in Home Ec.”, while Waterpark College said, “We’ve been inspired by the speakers to create some sort of zen garden or pollination path.”

For more information about Waterford City and County Council’s Climate Action Plan, visit https://waterfordcouncil.ie/services/environment/climate-action/ or email climateaction@waterfordcouncil.ie

Waterford City and County Council is one of twenty-one Local Authorities taking part in the National Public Lighting Energy Efficiency Project (PLEEP) to upgrade public lighting to LED.

In the Southern region 77,000 public lights will be retrofitted to LED and Waterford City and County Council is working with the lead local authority, Cork County Council, along with partner local authorities in Clare, Kerry and Limerick.

The primary objective of the project is to maximise energy savings, reduce CO2 emissions and enhance efficiency across the public lighting network by replacing the traditional light fittings with LED luminaires.

Projected energy savings of 50% will be made through the retrofitting program and 786 tonnes of CO2 emissions will be saved per year, which will significantly contribute to meeting Waterford City and County Council’s climate action target reduction of 51% in CO2 emissions by 2030.

Funding for the retrofitting of the LED lighting in Waterford is through the Department of Environment’s “Climate Action Fund” and Waterford City and County Council.

The process of retrofitting 10,000 public lights across Waterford city and county began in August last year and is anticipated will be substantially completed by August this year.

Fergus Gleeson, Director of Services, Waterford City and County Council said, “Waterford has set out an extremely ambitious strategy in its Climate Action Plan and this project aligns closely to the goal of establish Waterford as a decarbonisation zone (DZ) by 2040.

“The implementation of PLEEP copper fastens our commitment to reducing energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions. The project will also reduce the incidences of lighting outage when complete and reduce excess lighting with over designed installations.

“With advances in LED technology, the improved public lighting will add to enhanced public safety and an improved visual environment over traditional public lighting,” Mr. Gleeson added.

Le Chéile Lighting Specialist, acting on behalf of Cork County Council as the lead authority, has been contracted to carry out the public lighting works across Waterford city and county.

The company stated that “the works in the most part will present little or no disruption to the public or businesses within your area, and power will not be interrupted. Some deployment of temporary traffic management may be required in areas of high traffic volume or narrow roads to facilitate safe access to streetlights for work crews.”

A secondary objective of the PLEEP is to survey and collect data on the condition of the public lighting infrastructure to enable the region’s local authorities to strategically plan and invest in the upgrading of the public lighting underground infrastructure. This survey work has identified a number of infrastructure issues that need to be addressed before retrofit to LED can be carried out.

Deregulation within the electrical industry in 2009 resulted in Local Authorities taking over ownership from ESB Networks of underground cabling infrastructure servicing public lighting columns. This included concentric cables which had been installed since the 1950’s and represents around 15% of Waterford City and County Council’s public lighting cabling inventory.

Concentric cabling doesn’t comply with current electrical standards and where cable faults occur, the cabling must be replaced in full. As this cabling is at the end of its service life it is prone to faults.

While Waterford City and County Council will make every effort to ensure a timely repair is carried out, the time required to restore these cable faults can be considerable given the necessity to provide new ducts and cables and excavate pavement and footpaths to reinstate same.

The work is site specific and timelines for repair can be more than 3 months because the work is dependent on availability of funding and a specialised contractor. Technical human resources in the private sector are constrained at this moment in time.

In the short term to ensure public lights are repaired as faults occur, Waterford City and County Council will continue to maintain all public lighting and endeavour to keep the incidents of non-functional lights below 2% at any given time.

Public lighting faults can be logged on the Deadsure app or via Waterford City and County Council’s website https://waterfordcouncil.ie/services/roads-transport/public-lighting/

Following a call by Waterford City and County Council, over 1,000 local businesses have signed up to a Business Pledge for A Cleaner, Greener Waterford.

The scheme, formerly known as the Commercial Energy Discount Scheme, was originally launched in 2022, and has since supported thousands of businesses across the city and county in transitioning to carbon neutrality by identifying opportunities for reducing energy usage and costs, exploring the potential of renewable energy while availing of a discount on their commercial rates.

As part of Waterford City and County Council’s roadmap to delivering a carbon neutral Waterford by 2040 businesses were once again invited to take the pledge to strive towards a cleaner, greener Waterford, and commit to completing at least two actions in the next 12 months that will reduce the carbon footprint of their business.

All 1,003 businesses which took the pledge and committed to two sustainable actions will have a 9% discount applied to their commercial rates.

Sean McKeown, Chief Executive of Waterford City and County Council was pleased with the uptake.  “There has been a fantastic response to the business pledge initiative.  It highlights the appetite of Waterford businesses to commit to more sustainable business practices that not only have a positive impact on the environment, but also on their operating costs.

“Waterford is the first and only Local Authority to implement such a scheme, and it is just one component of our extremely ambitious strategy in the Climate Action Plan 2024–2029 to achieve energy efficiency and reduce emission targets significantly.

“In our ambition to be Ireland’s first carbon neutral city it is heartening to see the groundswell of support from the local business community.”

Climate Action Coordinator with Waterford City and County Council, Gráinne Kennedy added, “Waterford City and County Council, working in tandem with local businesses, can collectively make Waterford the most sustainable place in Ireland to do business.

“We had fantastic support from local businesses across the city and county and I’d particularly like to extend our gratitude to our local “ambassadors”, Dooley’s Hotel, Cantec Group, Powerflow Electronics and Blossom & Berry Florists, who all enthusiastically picked up and ran with the sustainability baton.”

The scheme was open to businesses with annual rate bills less than €10,000 or operate in the hospitality and leisure industries and provided details of the actions they will take to become more sustainable in the coming year, with the 9% commercial rates discount applied in December.

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Local climate action ‘ambassadors:

Top (l-r) Claudia O’Neill Blossom & Berry Florists and Fergal Power  Powerflow Electronics

Bottom (l-r) Greg Tuohy Cantec Group and Tina Darrer Dooley’s Hotel

A celebratory launch event was held for all grant recipients of the Community Climate Action Programme on Saturday, September 28^th in Mount Congreve, Waterford.

Earlier this year, Waterford City and County Council, in conjunction with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications launched the Community Climate Action Programme and seventeen community groups received €564,000 for local climate action projects. Funding ranged from between €4,000 to €92,000 respectively to provide local communities with the support and resources to implement a myriad of climate action initiatives.

The groups were welcomed by Cllr. Seánie Power, Cathaoirleach of Comeragh District Council, who commended the participants on their volunteering spirit and commitment to improvements in their own localities.

The event was a mixture of speakers and group discussions to celebrate what these projects hope to achieve in the coming months to make their communities less carbon intensive and more sustainable, but also touched on topics which would assist in running projects and getting buy-in from wider community groups.

Welcoming the groups to the event, Community Climate Action Officer, Waterford City and County Council, Susan Lee, said, “Waterford groups have been very quick off the mark and are the first in the country to start their projects.

“There are amazing initiatives started and others kicking off in the coming months which are going to make a big difference in each community. We will see everything from solar PV, bike parking, water refilling stations, community gardens, allotments, rainwater planters, community fridges and many more projects.”

Gráinne Kennedy, Climate Action Officer with Waterford City and County Council added, “It’s great to see so many communities represented in this programme, and today is an opportunity for people to share their ideas and their progress, as well as get new ideas for the next steps they can take to tackle climate change at a community level.”

Paul Deegan from Waterford Volunteer Centre highlighted the willingness of people to help local groups, saying that volunteering rates dropped off during Covid and many people did not return, however he advised the groups “that though there are challenges there are still opportunities and untapped potential for community groups to access.”  Paul also stressed that the Waterford Volunteer Centre offers a variety of free supports to community groups.

Nicola Spendlove, Creative Communities Engagement Officer Waterford City and County Council, workshopped with the groups the emotional and positive benefits that come with climate action projects and how to communicate that with the wider community.

There were many biodiversity projects funded under the programme, and the groups were very interested in the input from Waterford City and County Council Biodiversity Officer, Marina Mulligan.

Groups aiming to improve their local environment through biodiversity projects such as hedge-planting, tree-planting and leaving areas go wild for pollinators were encouraged to focus on native species and to take account of what already exists in their area. Marina suggested that people “remember what their area was like when they were growing up” as a way of imagining what their locality could be like again.