Members of a locally-founded organisation are ‘excited and delighted’ to be the only environmentalists, and one of only two social enterprises, invited to take a stall at the four sold-out Coldplay concerts in Croke Park from August 29 to September 2.
Personally chosen by the global megastars to share their eco-passion with the capacity crowd of over 80,000 at the Irish leg of Music Of The Spheres World Tour, Zero Waste Alliance Ireland are still in shock.
Founded 25 years ago in Athlone by a small group including Ballymanus-based Jack O’Sullivan, Zero Waste Alliance Ireland lobbies for zero waste and a circular economy. They have recently grown from a board of six to having 30 people involved.
Activities
Castlepollard-based Jack, who is still a director, says the group has fun, games and interesting activities planned to engage concert goers and to teach them about circular economy principles and waste reduction. There will be no flyers handed out due to their contribution to waste but interested parties can take a picture of the QR code displayed and that will lead to the organisation’s website.
“The main thing is people will be rushing in, they won’t want to be standing around with us too much but if we give them something to think about, when they are seated waiting for the music to start, they might look up the website and find it interesting,” Jack said. “We might get a few followers on our social media or a few members but if we got even 1% of those attending the concerts, that would still be quite a few people.”
Coldplay’s Choice
The small group were in shock when Global Citizen, an action platform dedicated to achieving the end of extreme poverty, nominated them to showcase their work at the Irish concerts, and over the moon when they were chosen by the band themselves. They are delighted with the opportunity to get the word out about their cause and possibly recruit new members.
“Two months ago, we were contacted by Global Citizen whose main focus is poverty, equity and the planet. They work with Coldplay as they are massive front runners in those areas,” fellow ZWAI director Craig Tobin Dower explained.
“In each major city they play in, Coldplay asks Global Citizen to engage a list of 10-15 organisations in the environmental sector and another 15 in the socially- focused sector. Our name was put in for Ireland. The band gets a small briefing on each group and chooses who they’d like to be there. They chose us from the environmental category and Neurodiversity Ireland from the social category.”
Opportunity
The group don’t know if they will get to meet the band yet but either way, Craig said the scale of this opportunity is ‘crazy.’
“We will be representing Zero Waste Alliance Ireland at a Coldplay concert, you can’t get a bigger band. For them to allow us to push the principles of zero waste and the circular economy and for them to be pushing it too, is a huge opportunity. This isn’t a niche indie band who are environmentally focused, this is a band on a par with Taylor Swift and probably one of the biggest bands of the 21st century. In terms of opportunities, this is huge.”
“We’re excited and delighted and hope people will come up to us and say hello,” Jack added, saying the members of Zero Waste Alliance will use public transport to travel to the concerts where possible, which is harder than it seems.
“I’m lucky, I can get the train from Mullingar to Drumcondra and it is only a short walk from Croke Park but there is a fly in the ointment. I can get a train up but can’t get it home because the last train from Dublin is before 9pm. I’ll be driving to Maynooth, leaving the car there and then getting the train to Drumcondra. Where I am living in Ballymanus, 8km outside Castlepollard, I can’t get a bus into Mullingar to catch the train to Dublin unless it is a Thursday.”
