The Irish Times is embarking on a countrywide search for Ireland’s Greenest Places 2025. The 32-county competition hopes to discover some great places, explore them, and share them with the rest of Ireland and the world.
The overall winner will be selected not only for its tangible contribution to a genuinely greener environment and a high level of participation, but also for its vision of a new kind of living or working, based on sustainability, building climate resilience, community engagement and care for the nature.
Today sees the start of the search for Ireland’s Greenest Places 2025 in association with Electric Ireland, with special categories to reflect the breadth of impactful work in the best interests of local environments.
We are asking readers to nominate the places – and the people behind the places – that they believe deserve to be acknowledged and recognised in The Irish Times. A panel of judges and researchers will scour Ireland to check out some of these locations in advance of the awards.
Where do I come in?
To help us, we are asking the public (that’s you) to nominate places in Ireland you believe deserve to be acknowledged and rewarded.
What sort of place can I nominate?
“Place” is a deliberately broad term. You can nominate a suburb, village, town, island or wider region such as a peninsula or other distinct area – such as a community. You can live there or be a visitor. Entries will be judged on criteria including: beneficial environmental impact; level of ongoing collective engagement; and evidence of behavioural change by people. Keep these in mind when detailing your nomination.
How can I nominate a place?
In this article you’ll find a simple form that allows you to enter a short “pitch” of up to 300 words for your nominee for best green place.
The categories are:
- Ireland’s greenest suburb
- Ireland’s greenest village
- Ireland’s greenest town
- Ireland’s greenest community
An overall winner will then be selected.
How are winners chosen?
Over the course of the next four months our judges will shortlist a number of places based on the submissions, visit the front-runners, choose winners in each category and eventually choose an overall winner. Every stage of the contest will be documented in The Irish Times and on irishtimes.com.
Our judging panel is composed of some people with expertise in sustainability and environmentalism. They include: former Green Party leader and ex-minister for environment Eamon Ryan; Irish Times Environment Editor Kevin O’Sullivan, Senior Features Writer Rosita Boland and Electric Ireland’s Head of Marketing Lisa Browne. The panel will be chaired by Irish Times Features Editor Mary Minihan.
Where are Ireland’s ‘green leaders’ when it comes to place?
While it has become fashionable to highlight big commitments to sustainability, there is a growing risk of greenwashing, particularly in business and the corporate world. All too often they frequently don’t stack up. But others are responding meaningfully to the dual climate and nature loss crises in their collective best interests and that of their locality – sometimes, it’s the beginning of a journey.
Yes, there are obvious negatives that persist and cannot be ignored such as water quality deterioration in rivers, lakes and estuaries; high carbon emissions across every sector; species decline – birds, animals and plants – and land use undermining soil quality as the Irish landscape is a source of carbon rather than a store of it; all due to human activities – both North and South.
Prof Yvonne Buckley, who is co-director of Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water based in Trinity College Dublin, is uniquely positioned to comment on the island of Ireland’s green credentials.
While she experiences the realities of environmental degradation constantly, she believes much of Ireland, often driven by community initiatives, is transforming to more sustainable living.
She points to biodiversity officers in almost every local authority area – ie “in every community” – and the adoption of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, notably by the Tidy Towns movement.
Then there are specific initiatives, such as Killarney becoming the first town in Ireland to phase out single-use coffee cups, “where people come together to deliver things”.
“This shows change is possible and you can follow that down to other areas of sustainability,” Prof Buckley says.
Another strong trend is increased focus on sustainable foods, she says, particularly in restaurants with a rebalancing away from carbon-intensive foods (such as red meat) to less carbon-intensive plant-based ingredients. This is frequently backed by provenance, indicating where food was grown, caught or raised with a priority for the local.
Prof Buckley says there is considerable support for sustainable transport in public places and around schools. While the negatives around this get a lot of coverage, “a lot of good work is being done [driven by community action]. They are often the silent majority”.
If there is a critical mass of people doing things, individuals are more inclined to act themselves, Prof Buckley says. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change in the Irish Mind survey is very clear that the Irish public wants more effective climate action at every level.
It also confirmed strong preference for environmental actions to counter “local environmental hazards”, with high levels of concern about water pollution, severe storms, air pollution, flooding and rising sea levels.
Nonetheless, Buckley says action can still be hard as people are frustrated by “higher costs and other kinds of friction”.
Where does ‘climate action’ fit in?
There is, rightly, much focus on decarbonisation, cutting our extremely high carbon emissions and switching to clean energy, but as Green Party senator Malcolm Noonan has highlighted: “As we make vital progress in reducing energy-related emissions, we must also remember that decarbonisation doesn’t stop at power plants and vehicles. Nature-based solutions – like restoring peatlands, planting native woodlands, and protecting biodiversity – are essential allies in this transition. It is also important to note the role being played by farming and the agriculture sector.”
In all corners of Ireland, there is evidence of sustainability in action. It ranges across bog and habitat restoration; rewilding; scaling up afforestation with native trees and hardwoods; deployment of low-cost, nature-based solutions such as restoring dune systems and countering coastal erosion; farmers working together to enhance river catchments and recording of Ireland’s remarkable biodiversity.
Of course, being green goes beyond nature and is seen in people, for instance, embracing circularity in the pursuit of zero waste; devising innovative climate action strategies proven to work; or achieving energy independence with clean technologies and building sustainable energy communities.
They all have one outstanding attribute: they don’t involve greenwashing or tokenism. These are the “places” worthy of nomination for The Irish Times Greenest Place 2025 awards.
