About Us

About Green Restoration Ireland

Green Restoration Ireland Cooperative Society Ltd was established in 2019 and is working to innovate solutions to reverse the ecological degradation of the Irish landscape and the loss of rural communities. We believe that properly funded ecological restoration will provide many of the solutions to community regeneration. We take direct action to support rural development through actions that restore our natural heritage and so help fight climate change and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Our core cooperative values

GRI is a member of the Irish Cooperative Organisation Society (ICOS) and adheres to cooperative rules. The co-operative principles are seven in number derive from the principles established by the Rochdale Pioneers:

Voluntary and open membership

Cooperatives are voluntary organisations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, class, racial, political or religious discrimination

Democratic member control

Cooperatives are democratic organisations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Elected Board representatives are accountable to the membership. Primary cooperative members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote

Member economic participation

Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the ‘capital’ of their cooperative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the cooperative

Autonomy and independence

Cooperatives are autonomous, self-help organisations controlled by their members. If they enter into agreements with other organisations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their cooperative autonomy

Education, training and information

Cooperatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives. They inform the general public – particularly young people and opinion leaders – about the nature and benefits of co-operation

Cooperation among cooperatives

Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures to create social solidarity and economic independence

Concern for the community

Cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members

Mission Statement and Vision

We are concerned by the the ongoing decline of rural Irish communities and the state of the world’s environment and its current trajectory and in particular, the growing possibility of runaway climate change and the catastrophic loss of biodiversity.
We are of the opinion that our fellow citizens share these concerns as well as a love of our natural heritage but have few means of addressing them.

We wish to develop opportunities for community-based ecological restoration that creates new livelihoods through the regeneration of our natural heritage and landscape. We see financing for these initiatives coming through appropriate public funding and the development of high-quality carbon and biodiversity offsets for organisations with unavoidable CO2 emissions and biodiversity impacts.

We aim to create these by four means:

Peatlands restoration service to be certified under a national Wetland Code
Native woodland creation based on Close to Nature Forestry. This fixes additional carbon and better maintains biodiversity
Restoration of native woodland threatened by deer grazing and invasive species or upgrading of scrub woodland to high woodland
Support of sustainable, low-input, diversified regenerative farming and other sustainable rural enterprises which value and create income from our landscape to an appropriate standard