Bank of Ireland is placing an added focus on biodiversity and sustainability at the forthcoming National Ploughing Championships, taking place in Ratheniska, Co Laois between September 20th and 22nd. The Bank, which returns this year as an official event partner of the massively popular annual Ploughing showcase, will be giving away over 1,000 Department of Agriculture approved native Irish hedgerow plants to people visiting its stand on the Ratheniska site.
One of the Bank’s central ambitions at the Ploughing focusses on promoting the importance of enhanced biodiversity and sustainability in supporting customers to make their own green transition. The gifting of these plants acts as a further reminder to people of the journey needing to be travelled in order to meet vital environmental challenges. Bank of Ireland will also have personnel on-hand at its event area on all three days to support customers looking to open new current accounts and directly engaging with its agri-sector customers.
The latest hedgerow gifting initiative follows on from the Bank boosting the value of its Sustainable Finance Fund to €5billion in 2022, providing key finance for the development of Ireland’s renewable energy sector and also supporting more Irish drivers in making the switch to electric vehicles.
Eoin Lowry, Head of Agri Sector, Bank of Ireland said: “Bank of Ireland is delighted to be heading back to the National Ploughing Championships as a major supporter of the event, as I’m sure are the hundreds of thousands of visitors excited to get back to the annual agri highlight for the first time since 2019. Our goal is to underline the importance of the role everyone can play in promoting biodiversity and taking steps to improve sustainability, so to be able to hand out over 1,000 hedgerow plants over the three days is major move in the right direction.”
NPA Managing Director Anna May McHugh said “NPA are delighted to be partnering with Bank of Ireland again this year, and are fully supportive of this key environmental hedgerow plant give away as sustainability is a key objective at this year’s National Ploughing Championships. This year at ‘Ploughing’ there will be numerous sustainability initiatives, for example the NPA will be promoting the use of recyclable products, food waste will be converted into energy through an anaerobic digester and there will also be solar panelled lighting towers, cardboard compactors, litter fines and waste separation operations on-site.”
