Julianstown woman Sinead Corbally is one of two women from County Meath to have been recognised at An Taisce’s Climate Ambassador Outstanding Achievement awards which took place on Friday last. 

Sinead is a former DCU Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering student and is working as an Energy and Sustainability Manager in energy management to generate calculations regarding Green House Gas emissions, waste, water and energy baselines and projections.

She has taken the initiative in her workplace through several exciting renewable energy and energy reduction projects. With the rise of energy costs, she focused on a solar project, a water saving initiative and an energy project reducing GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. 

Each Climate Ambassador received a certificate of recognition, with an additional twelve outstanding awards presented to teams and individuals from swap shops and flash mobs, to musicians and artists, sports stars, farmers, social entrepreneurs, community activists, businesses and universities. 

The other Meath based award recipient is Stef Greene who is from Derrockstown near Dunshaughlin. Stef values the importance of a connection to nature above all else and challenges climate anxiety with hope and positive action.

She empowers young families to seize the day, get active while taking feel-good climate actions. She presented at the Ploughing Championships and All Together Now festival, helping people to talk to kids about climate change in an age appropriate and fun way.

She has also delivered lots of school workshops in Meath and is now in the process of converting her website Nature Days https://www.naturedays.ie/ into a charity.  Nature days is an online free resource which inspires families to get children to play outdoors more, connecting with nature and tapping into the associated health and wellbeing benefits along with empowering climate action.

The Climate Ambassador Programme is operated by the Environmental Education Unit of An Taisce and is funded by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications. The programme trains and supports individuals to become climate leaders in their community. The programme has trained over 800 Climate Ambassadors since 2018.