Kilmacud Crokes Green Club - World Earth Day Friday April 22nd
#InvestInOurPlanet
Earth Day – 22 April 2022
The theme of this year’s Earth Day is #InvestInOurPlanet [https://www.earthday.org/] and its focus is to hold our business, governments and citizens accountable to act (boldly), innovate (broadly) and implement (equitably) in environmental changes that will actually have a dramatic impact on climate change.
What is the club doing?
Kilmacud Crokes has always proudly invested in our people and our community and so we are also taking on the challenge to invest in our planet. We are participating in the GAA Green Club Program, which is a pilot programme involving 45 clubs from around the country focusing on 5 areas (Energy, Water, Waste, Biodiversity and Transport) [https://www.gaa.ie/my-gaa/community-and-health/green-clubs-sustainability/]
We are currently collecting data to identify keys areas to make changes, so you may be asked to part with some questionnaires at training sessions or sent out by e-mail, so please get involved in these when you see them.
After the data collection phase, we will take time to organise the actions into quick wins and long-term investments. We will definitely be looking out for volunteers to help implement these changes, so contact us at crokescommunity@gmail.com if you’re interested. We’ll keep you posted as we go along.
What Can you do?
Everyone can get involved in the fight against climate change, it doesn’t have to be big changes. Small changes done frequently over time can have as big of an impact than once off big changes. Some ideas for the small changes you can make are:
Energy
We use 3 times as much energy per year than our grandparents
- Reduce Screen Time
- Every text, download, email uses server energy – the combined footprint of data centres and communications networks grew from 215 Megatons of C02 equivalent a year in 2007 to 764 Megatons of CO2-e/yr in 2020.
- Reducing your PC monitor brightness from 100% to 70% can save up to 20% of the energy the monitor uses
- Turn off lights and appliances when you’re not using them
Water
We use an average of nearly 150 litres of water a day in our homes; our great grandparents managed with about 18 litres.
- Shorter shower times
- Turn off the tap when brushing our teeth – a running tap can use up to 8 litres of water per minute
- Think before you flush – think about the 3 P’s (Paper, Pee & Poo) as they are they only things you should flush. Energy costs at water treatment plants are so high due to unsuitable items being flushed.
Waste
The average food waste generate per person is 4.22 Kg per week – this was practically zero for our grandparents.
- Only buy food that you’ll consume
- Look at products with less packaging
- Recycle as much as possible – remember to wash it before you bin it!!
Biodiversity
In the past 30 years a major downturn has taken place, so much so that 29 different bird species and 120 species of flowering plants are in serious decline
- Plant more native trees, shrubs and flowers
- Ditch the lawn mower and put your feet up – cut parts or all of your grass less frequently to allow wildflowers to grow and provide food for pollinators – it’s not all about the bees!!
Transport
Today the number of cars per 1000 population has risen from 228 in 1990 to 442 in 2019
- Ditch the car – think about walking, cycling or public transport to the training, the shops, etc. We will be linking in with RSA & NRA over the next few months, to roll out a green transport plan for our club with safety as a priority. Did you know we have our own cycling club, KC Wheelers?
- Car share – going to training and matches, how about sharing a car?
