Awarded Best ESG Campaign 2024 PRCA Awards.

Ask
The ask of this campaign was to make Killarney the first town in Ireland free of single-use coffee cups. Launched in July 2023, communications played an integral role in the campaign from its inception, and was critical to bringing onboard sponsors, participating businesses, and buy in from the people of Killarney and visiting tourists.
The task was enormous – Killarney used an estimated one million coffee cups annually, equating to 18.5 million tonnes of waste. Furthermore, it was asking for a huge commitment from independent businesses still recovering from Covid-19 lockdowns in a time of rising interest rates and record energy prices.
The Project engaged Drury to advise on how it should communicate the rationale and benefits of the campaign to bring on board businesses, sponsors, and ensuring buy-in from locals and tourists.

Approach
Drury was engaged from the outset and advised on every aspect from the development of messaging to supporting on the naming and branding of the project. A Drury team member attended the first gathering of interested businesses to understand their thoughts and concerns. This enabled us to ensure that messaging was developed with the participating businesses front of mind.
It was clear that strategic communications counsel was required to seamlessly bring participants, sponsors and the people of Killarney on board. Drury worked with the project to develop the messaging that would turn this interest and ambition into a tangible success story.
As small independent businesses, there were limited funds available for communications or advisory services. Recognising the bravery and ambition of those involved and the significant impact such a project could have on the environment, Drury agreed to support on a pro-bono basis.
We developed a key messaging framework, based on three core pillars, the policy environment, Killarney leadership rationale, and what the project would practically look like.
We needed to ensure the messaging was both aspirational, to bring people on board, but also practical, to address the very real logistical concerns that would be presented.
This messaging would serve as the foundation of all campaign communications and be adapted for three key stakeholder groups – sponsors, participants and consumers.
The ultimate objective of the campaign was to successfully launch Killarney as Ireland’s first single use coffee cup free town. There were a number of key steps to achieving this objective:
• Convince a critical mass of local businesses to get on board with the novel idea of no longer selling reusable coffee cups.
• Securing funding (€25,000) from sponsors to sustain the project.
• Position Killarney as a national leader in sustainability by generating widespread recognition of the initiative.
Based on these objectives, a number of core communications objectives were identified:
• Develop a strong, well rounded messaging framework, which gave a clear and compelling rationale for the project, by outlining the environmental and business benefits, and the regulatory context which further supported the initiative.
• Equip project leaders for engagement with the local businesses to join the initiative.
• Advise project leaders on sponsorship opportunities, and providing prep in advance of stakeholder meetings to ensure messaging was well developed, and concerns were clearly and competently addressed.
• Develop supporting materials for use by project participants to bring consumers on board.
• Secure widespread national media coverage featuring key messages of the campaign and ensure that project spokespeople were equipped with key messages in advance of said media engagements.

Outcome
• Between 31st July and December 31st, 2023, 506,000 cups have been prevented from going to landfill or becoming litter, and the scheme has saved 872,413 litres of water and 279 trees.
• There are now over 50 participating businesses, demonstrating the widespread and continued cross-community support for the project.
• The initiative has been adopted by other events in Killarney such as the Quest Adventure Series, Wanderwild festival, the Ironman event, St. Patricks festival and in community organisations like the Mountain Meitheal, and men’s shed.
• The project also inspired global water solutions company, Tricel, to become single use coffee cup free in all twelve of its offices across Europe, while MTU is also due to announce that both its Cork and Kerry campuses will ban single use cups.
• Multiple towns across Ireland have reached out to the project coordinators for advice on how they can replicate the project’s success. Based on the high level of interest, the Project is running a special information workshop at the upcoming Wanderwild festival, that is in high demand.
• The initiative received significant media attention achieving over 20 national and international individual pieces of coverage.
• There was sustained interest in the project thanks to Drury’s media engagement efforts, as demonstrated by the follow-on pieces that appeared in the Guardian (UK), RTÉ Radio, and the Irish Independent.
• It has been praised by Minister Ossian Smyth and highlighted as a positive example of an anti-littering initiative by the Irish Businesses Against Litter in discussing their annual survey.
• The project was raised as an example of a positive environmental initiative in the European Parliament by MEPs Sean Kelly and Mick Wallace.
• The project has received 7 national and local awards, positioning Killarney as a national leader in sustainability.
• In June 2024, the campaign won a PRCA award in the category for Best ESG Campaign.