IFF Plastics, a rising green start-up based in Cree, Co. Clare, has successfully completed Bord na Móna’s Accelerate Green START programme.
The programme, delivered in conjunction with Resolve Partners, is dedicated to supporting companies who are leading the response to climate action and sustainability.
IFF Plastics washes, shreds, and recycles plastic collected from industrial factories, farms and recovered from the ocean, and reuses it to create eco-friendly plastic fencing posts.
The Clare based company was one of nine participants in a six-week programme covering key areas including customer discovery, market mapping, network development, the funding ecosystem, preparation for investment and pitching. The programme was delivered through a blend of online and in-person workshops as well as individual mentoring at Bord na Móna’s Accelerate Green Hub, in Boora, Co. Offaly.
The programme culminated in a pitch event at Bord na Móna’s headquarters where participants presented their business ideas to a panel of experts which included Tom Donnellan, CEO of Bord na Móna, Sonya Mallon, Bord na Móna’s Company Secretary and John Carrigan, Investment Director at The Yield Lab, an accelerator program that invests in and mentors early-stage companies in the agriculture sector.
The START programme was established as a sister programme to Bord na Móna’s annual Accelerate Green Programme in order to support earlier stage businesses to scale their sustainable solutions. It enables participants to meet customers, mentors and guest speakers who provide practical industry insights and help guide the business and investable proposition of their companies.
Sharon Barrington, General Manager of IFF Plastics said “Accelerate Green was just what I needed and by joining the programme I felt I would meet like-minded people with the same circular mind-set as me. You don’t feel like once the programme has finished that you’re on your own – we have developed great friendships.
The mentors and speakers are brilliant, and I’ve been given tools to help me to develop new thinking around expansion which I did not think was possible given our location. The best piece of advice I received since joining the programme was to just go for it, anything is possible. We have made such fantastic contacts through the programme – it is unbelievable the support you receive.”
Tom Donnellan, CEO of Bord na Móna, congratulating the programme’s latest successful cohort said: “The latest round of graduates of the Accelerate Green START programme are directly representative of the type of innovation in sustainability that this project was designed to support and enable. We were extremely impressed by the ambition of the ideas that were presented.
I believe that the participants have benefited from the knowledge sharing and mentorship which the programme provides and they are well placed to continue to grow their ideas and businesses moving forward. Our hope is that graduates of the START programme will continue to grow their businesses and create sustainable jobs while enabling a low-carbon economy”