Not letting the importance of climate change pass them by, Barry Drennan, managing director of Golfhire.ie has decided to make an effort in making his business more carbon neutral.
Barry Drennan, director (left) and Simon Connaughton, operations manager with GolfHire.ie planting one of the trees
“For any of us in the golf course industry, it’s obvious how much the climate is warming up. I remember many years ago winter service meant collecting all the golf course machinery after Halloween and having it back to the customer for St. Patricks Day. Now the mowing season is nearly all year round. We are hiring Vredo Overseeder’s in November and Procore 648’s in January” said Barry.
He continued by saying “I felt we had to start doing our bit to reduce our impact on the climate.
In 2020 we completed a survey of our business to measure our carbon footprint. This gave us something to work with and we set about doing what we could to reduce our carbon emissions and be more eco-friendly. We were already recycling all our waste paper, steel, oil filters etc. Our waste oil heater was the first to go. We then set about harvesting rain water from the roof into a huge tank, which now supplies 100% of the water we use in our wash bay.”
But it didn’t just stop there for the County Meath business. Other areas that were looked at included:
- Replacing one diesel vehicle with an EV
- Purchasing three acres of woodland to begin the carbon offsetting process
- Purchasing a further ten acres of farmland to rewild with trees and wild flowers
- Reducing staff air miles (thanking Corona virus for that initiative)
- Cycling to work more often
Plans for 2022 include:
- Planting 200 trees – one for every machine on their hire fleet (and a few spares)
- Replacing all the workshop lighting with LED
- As they are leasing the workshop, solar panels are not an option but they are planning to move to an electric supplier using 100% renewable energy
“There is still so much we can do but we wanted to make a start” concluded Barry.