Portmarnock Golf Club is taking the lead in the drive to improve sustainability at golf venues across Ireland after turning to environmental specialists GreenClub to help achieve its long-term goal of becoming carbon neutral. The prestigious Dublin venue, which was founded in 1894 and has hosted the Irish Open no fewer than 19 times, will work with the leading eco-consultancy company across all areas of its club business over the next three years to ensure a greener future – with the ultimate aim of becoming ‘net zero’.
After carrying out a detailed top-to-toe review of all existing infrastructure and energy provision, GreenClub will produce a detailed roadmap and work alongside Portmarnock’s management team to develop environmental strategies so that the club can address its current and future club requirements in a sustainable and environmentally responsible way. In addition, the plan that GreenClub will put in place will create an opportunity for the club to generate its own renewable energy on-site using the most appropriate power sources – which will have an additional benefit of reducing overheads.
Noel O’Flaherty, captain of Portmarnock Golf Club, said: “The environment is something that everyone’s aware of and, as one of Ireland’s premier golf clubs, it’s important that Portmarnock is leading the way on such a crucial and far-reaching topic as this.
“There are a few things that the club has done in recent years to help conserve the environment, such as drawing up ecology plans for wildlife and protecting certain areas of land, but there is a lot more that we can be doing which is why we turned to GreenClub. We are looking at a number of areas, both in the short and long-term, including electric car charging points, improved recycling of plastic and glass, a substantial investment in greenkeeping equipment and renewable energy.
“It’s going to take time to implement and we don’t know whether we can achieve carbon neutrality within three years but that is the ultimate goal.”
GreenClub chief executive, Liam Greasley, said: “Portmarnock Golf Club is recognised as one of the world’s foremost clubs and we’re very excited to be working with them on this new project. Keen to be seen as a leader in preserving the environment and sustainability, they have a long-standing ecology agenda and we’re looking forward to working with them over the next three years to help them achieve their ambition to become net zero.”
