The finalists of Agri Aware’s and BiOrbic’s Transition Year programme Environmental Innovators have been announced.

This year’s Environmental Innovators Peer Day will once again take place at the Bord Bia Global Hub on Monday, April 7th where seven schools will battle it out to be crowned National Winners for 2025.

In 2024, St. Tiernan’s College were crowned National Winners of the programme from Co. Mayo with their communication style project titled ‘Binformation’ that looked at the recycling of waste and people’s knowledge of how to recycle properly.

This year’s finalists are spread across the country, coming from counties Offaly, Meath, Tipperary, Louth and Dublin and bring about a range of innovative ideas to tackling challenges our global food system faces.

The list of finalists of this year’s Environmental Innovators programme and their projects are as follows:

• Boyne Community School, Trim Co. Meath – Generation of homemade solar panels
• St Patricks Classical School, Navan, Co. Meath – School Recycling Competition
• De La Salle College, Dundalk, Co. Louth – Mobile Solar Powered Greenhouse
• Killina Presentation Secondary School, Tullamore, Co. Offaly – Teabag waste recycling
• Scoil Mhuire, Trim, Co. Meath – Baling twine reuse
• St. Patricks Classical School, Navan, Co. Meath – Sustainable equine bedding
• CBS Secondary School, Thurles, Co. Tipperary – Using comfrey as a fertiliser
• The High School, Rathgar, Co. Dublin -Repurposing waste paper

Speaking ahead of this year’s Environmental Innovators Peer Day was Agri Aware’s Executive Director Marcus O’Halloran, who said: “The Environmental Innovators Peer Day is always a special day in the education calendar for us.

“Getting to meet students taking part in the programme and seeing in person the projects they have created to tackle head on the food waste challenges we face is always exciting and one we look forward to next Monday at the Bord Bia Global Hub.

“I’d like to wish all eight finalists the best of luck and congratulate all schools that took part in the programme and entered a project, it was a tough task picking our finalists, as it is every year.”

Also commenting ahead of the event was Amanda Mathieson, Head of Public Engagement and Communications at BiOrbic who said: “At BiOrbic, we’re very excited for the upcoming Peer Day on April 7th. It’s a fantastic opportunity to see what the students have been working on and every year we are incredibly impressed with their ideas.”