Event Details

Green Foundation Ireland Launch!
GFI was launched in Dublin’s Mansion House on Friday 4th May 2012 by the Lord Mayor of Dublin Andrew Montague, and by GEF co-chair Pierre Jonckeer.

PRESS RELEASE

Friday 4 May 2012

New Foundation to Explore Ways of Making Green Issues Relevant

A new Green Foundation, launched today, will explore why environmental and green issues do not appear to be resonating with the majority of people and what needs to be done differently to ensure that they do.

The new Irish based Foundation is linked to the strong network of European Green Foundations. It will be a think tank for cultural change, green innovation and education, art and science, but will operate completely outside the electoral process. While some of its members come from a green political background it is independent of the Green Party.

According to former MEP Nuala Ahern, one of the directors of the new Foundation, people don’t connect with the green message as it is currently packaged.

“Basically, green issues are not getting through to the vast majority of people,” she said. “They tend to see them as being either simple but ultimately marginal actions like changing light bulbs or regard them as so apocalyptic, like climate change, that they can’t really have any impact.”

“We can’t dismiss people for thinking along these two extremes. We have to find out why they do and then figure out what is needed to make green-think relevant and to ensure that they know that their actions – however small – do matter.”

The new Green Foundation was introduced by Dublin’s Lord Mayor, Andrew Montague. It was launched to coincide with the annual Heinrich Böll Achill Foundation weekend, 4-6 May. Heinrich Böll, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, is the inspiration for the German Green Foundation.