EcoMerit – Supporting Enterprises in their Environmental Journey

EcoMerit is a community of enterprises of all sizes and sectors from SMEs and micro businesses to larger entities like the Beacon Hospital in Dublin, and the Coral Leisure Group.

Our Mission is to support enterprises in the optimal use of their resources, notably energy, carbon, waste and water, by providing technical support, environmental certification and access to finance.

EcoMerit is delighted to work with many enterprises in Wexford. Wexford members include digital design agency Graphedia (pictured) and Wexford Bus (of which current Wexford Chamber President, Brendan Crowley, is MD). We are also pleased to be involved in judging the ‘Green Award: Environmental Best Practice’ category for the 2022 Wexford Business Awards, and note the very high quality of entrants.

Certification

Central to the EcoMerit approach is its practical, straightforward, yet rigorous Environmental Certification, of increasing importance to enterprises keen to demonstrate to others their green credentials, avoid ‘greenwashing’ and take meaningful action.

Certified members of the community benefit from ongoing environmental support from our expert team who apply a tried and tested programme of resource efficiency. Designed to be accessible to enterprises of all sizes, EcoMerit certification is simpler than standards like ISO14001, while providing many of the same benefits and a few additional features such as tailored support for ongoing performance improvement.

EcoMerit’s focus is more on sustained practical performance, than tick box compliance. We create a bespoke plan for each business and support them in improving their performance over time in a way that works best for them. The process results in some impressive cost savings (on average €10,000 in year one alone, with further savings to follow as improvement plans are reviewed and optimised).

Performance

The EcoMerit approach is based on an impressive track record since 2009. On average, EcoMerit members have achieved:

9% year-on-year reductions in carbon emissions.
Typical annual carbon savings of some 70 tonnes per member.
That’s an emissions reduction of 60% over a 10-year period. Compare this with the EU target of 55% over 40 years (1990-2030).

EcoMerit members are setting a leading example to the business community of what is possible for climate change mitigation in business.

Scaling up action across Ireland: SMEs and CARE

EcoMerit is actively promoting the sustainability agenda across Ireland and the scaling up of climate action within the SME sector. EcoMerit is a leading provider of the Green for Micro programme providing government funded support to micro businesses in counties across Ireland. We have also co-developed a proposal to engage 10,000 SMEs to reduce Ireland’s Annual GHG emissions by 1 million tonnes/annum CO₂eq by 2030 through a ready to roll programme titled CARE (Climate Action through Resource Efficiency). We believe this programme could be instrumental for Ireland delivering on its Climate Action Commitments as well as supporting a stronger and more resilient economy and business sector.

Links

Website: https://ecomerit.ie/

CARE: https://ecomerit.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CARE-proposal-20201021.pdf

Green for Micro: https://www.localenterprise.ie/green

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecomerit

Twitter: https://twitter.com/eco_merit

Contact: brendan@ecomerit.ie