Fingal County
Council
North Dublin Chamber
of Commerce
Dublin Airport Authority
Ballymun Regeneration Limited
Dublin City University
DIT Grangegorman
Dublin City Council
development of the planned Green Economic
Zone or Cleantech Cluster in Ireland. Their
combined assets which can be leveraged include
a major international airport, 2 major academic
institutions, 4 development agencies, local
authorities and chambers of commerce, 12
significant cleantech/high tech labs, over 100
green tenant companies, 500 acres of zoned and
serviced land, 60,000 direct employees and students,
400,000 inhabitants, 18,000,000 annual visitors and
1,600,000,000,000 bytes of broadband in the form
of two major transatlantic fibre termination points
on our doorstep.
The European Commissioner for Innovation,
Science and Research, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn,
officially launched The Green Way in November
2010 as a unique collaboration between business,
academic institutions, local authorities and local
communities focused on becoming Ireland’s first
official Green Economic Zone.
The Green Way will position Dublin as a centre
of cleantech innovation, enterprise and green
job creation. The initiative will link business to
academic institutions and investors and will link the
Dublin city region to other international cleantech
clusters of scale throughout the world.
To that end, The Green Way has been accepted as
Ireland’s representative within the
Global Cleantech Cluster Association (GCCA)
and has signed an MOU with EcoClup, a panEuropean partnership of cluster organisations,
focusing on the eco-innovative industries, under
the auspices of the Directorate General for
Enterprise and Industry within the European
Commission. The GCCA is a partnership of the
top 20 cleantech clusters globally and they will be
assisting The Green Way in guiding Irish cleantech
companies from a compelling technology or service
idea to viable business models, sustainable jobs,
and attractive return on investment for founders,
incubators, and investors.
Speaking at the launch of The Green Way, Dublin
City University (DCU) President, Professor Brian
MacCraith said,
“We are very confident about the success of this
Green Economic Zone for a number of reasons.
But our real point of difference is that the key
constituents and assets are already in place, and
open for business with a common goal and vision.”
“Ballymun is already an award winning green
community, Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT)
is consolidating into a purpose built sustainable
campus in Dublin city centre, Dublin Airport
Authority (DAA) have advanced plans to regenerate
the airport as a hub for the next generation of
‘Green’ FDI and have just opened Terminal 2
which will connect The Green Way economic
zone and the rest of Ireland to emerging cleantech
economies in South America, MENA and Asia. A
major cornerstone of The Green Way will be its
Innovation Campus, which will be situated on an
11-acre site adjacent to the existing DCU campus
and 5 minutes from Dublin airport. The campus,
which will support 200 jobs over the initial 18
months, will facilitate linkages, networking and
sharing of best practices amongst domestic and
international cleantech companies and between
industry and academia”.
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