This week Visit Belfast’s Sustainability and Impact Manager supported the Soroptimist GB & Ireland’s organising committee, including Federation President Cathy Cottridge, on a tree planting operation.
The committee were in Belfast ahead of their conference, which will be held in ICC Belfast in October and is titled “Belfast 2022 – Climate for change”. The conference is taking part in the Centenary year of Soroptimist International and to commemorate the Centenary, the Soroptimists have planted two trees in Belfast. The trees have been planted in Colin Glen, near to the Black Bull Run (Ireland’s first and only Alpine Coaster) so that visitors to this new attraction can enjoy them. The area where the trees were planted was formerly a tip, known locally as Eastwood’s Tip and Rosbotham’s Tip. Over the last 30 years the area has been transformed, 60,000 trees have been planted and over 5000 metres of trails have been created for local people, and local wildlife to enjoy.
As part of Visit Belfast’s commitment to building back better after a difficult 2 years for the events industry, we are actively engaging with event organisers in 2022 to help support and prioritise their sustainability goals. The Soroptimists conference in October is one of the events we are working closely with to identify ways to reduce the footprint and increase the handprint of the event. Our target is to have 30% of all events taking place in the city having sustainability, legacy and impacts plans in place.
In the centenary year Soroptimist International planned to plant 100,000 trees internationally. To date they have planted 87,000 trees, including Mangroves in India, indigenous trees in the Amazon rainforest and now Rowan trees in Belfast. More info can be found here:
https://sigbi.org/soroptimistcentenary2021/a-brilliant/planting-trees-for-a-brilliant-future/4773-2/
