Heineken Ireland launches urban greening community initiative

Heineken Ireland has announced an initiative which aims to bring communities together to create urban growing spaces that have a positive impact – socially, environmentally and economically. 

Entitled ‘Growing with Our Communities‘, the initiative is “rooted” internally with HEINEKEN Ireland employees and in collaboration with GIY (Grow it Yourself), through a bespoke GIY@Work programme called #StarGrowers.

Ten Community Groups around the country will be given access to their own GIY@Work programme and some “seed” funding.  Last week, over 50 HEINEKEN Ireland volunteers were helping out across three of these communities with additional projects to be announced over the coming months.

Furthermore, three community groups will be selected as “Star Gardens”.  Each one will receive garden design, planting and growing expertise, a financial contribution towards materials and people power through HEINEKEN Ireland employee volunteering.

The first “Star Garden” has been announced as The Blackpool Plaza, with support from Blackpool Community Centre, Reimagine Cork and Cork City Council.

Launching the initiative, Communications & CSR Manager of HEINEKEN Ireland, Sandy Boundy said: “To make great products, you need great ingredients and that’s why our environment is so important.  Our long-term strategy is designed to create shared value for our business, our customers and our stakeholders and a key focus of this strategy is growing with our communities.

“Volunteering in HEINEKEN Ireland is part of who we are and our GIY@Work partnership provides a great platform for our employees to get involved.  We are very excited about the collaboration and are looking forward to ‘Grow it Forward’ into our local community.”

Source: EnviroSolutions