Working with Nature Awards

Celebrating people, small businesses and community groups & projects across the island of Ireland who have contributed and are committed in any way to protecting & restoring nature.

  • Nominations close. Extended until Thursday 11th June.
  • Shortlist announced. Extended until Monday 15th June.

Nominations Close Thursday 11th June / Shortlist Announced Mon 15th June

Select Category or Categories which best reflect your nomination

Category 1: “Biodiversity & Rewilding” Awards Category. 

This category recognises people, small businesses, small farmers or projects protecting & restoring biodiversity (all ecosystems –...

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Category 2: “Nature Media” Awards Category. 

This category recognises people, small businesses, projects, initiatives or organisations creating any public facing media & storytellin...

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 Category 3: “Nature Education & Wellbeing” Awards Category. 

This category recognises people, projects, initiatives, organisations or communities educating people on the wonders of nature, helping peop...

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Working with Nature Awards

Recognition of Nature Protection

 

Celebrating people all over Ireland who are working to protect and restore nature.  The “Working with Nature” Awards aims to recognise nature protectors all over Ireland who are having impact across four (3) selected award categories including Biodiversity & Rewilding, Nature Media and Nature Education & Wellbeing.

The esteemed panel of judges for the awards include biologist and environmental consultant Éanna Ní Lamhna, Environmentalist Duncan Stewart and Alex Slazenger head gardener at Powerscourt Gardens. All judges are passionate protectors of nature and have a breadth of knowledge and experience across all the award categories.

The Powerscourt “Working with Nature” Awards recognises people (especially community groups), small businesses and community projects across the country who have contributed and are committed in any way to protecting nature.

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Recognising Protectors & Restorers of Nature:  Winners from each of the four (3) categories will receive-

  • A unique award meticulously crafted from hand-picked wood from Powerscourt Estate.
  • A €500 bursary to be used towards their nature-based project.

The overall winner and “Outstanding Nature Protector” will be gifted the Ultimate Powerscourt Experience & a place on the “Leaders for Nature leadership programme” (Value 2k euros) developed by Common Purpose Ireland.

Includes a stay at Powerscourt Hotel*, Tour & food pairing at Powerscourt Whiskey Distillery, Annual Membership to Powerscourt Gardens, 4 Ball at Powerscourt Golf Club.

*T&Cs apply to date of stay.

***

Timeline

  • 26th March, Thursday: Nominations open online for 8 weeks.
  • 3rd June, Wednesday: Nominations close. Extended Thursday 11th June.
  • 8th June, Monday: Shortlist announced. Extended Monday 15th June.
  • 2nd July, Thursday: Event at Powerscourt to announce winners.

Please note:

A nomination is not a vote and everyone gets an equal shot once nominated – a shortlist will be created of all nominations and the judges will decide the winners of each category based on the judging criteria.  Everyone, project, organisation etc gets an equal shot once nominated.

Watch Awards Video

Nominations & Judging Criteria

Nominations must be beyond an initial concept stage and be established with demonstrated environmental impact to date.  It is preferable that your nomination is established for more than 6 months.

As this is a biodiversity award the nominated people, small businesses or community project might be relevant to several or all categories. Please submit for the categories which are most relevant for your nomination.  If you are a person, small businesses or community project based on the island of Ireland you can also nominate yourself for one or all relevant categories.

A nomination is not a vote and everyone gets an equal shot once nominated – a shortlist will be created of all nominations and the judges will decide the winners of each category based on the judging criteria.

Details of the categories and the judging criteria are available below in pdf format.  Please note you do not need to meet all the criteria below and the criteria used by the judges is not limited to the list below.

*The example of projects per category is just a guide and not an exhaustive list of what will be considered under the categories.

Terms & Conditions 2026
Working with Nature Awards Judge

Eanna Ni Lamhna qualified as a scientist in the 1970’s and did her post graduate thesis on the ecology of sand dunes and saltmarshes which was published in the Journal of Life Sciences. She set up the Irish Biological Records Centre in 1974 and is responsible for the original distribution maps of mammal and insects. She lectured postgraduates on sustainability for 20 years in TU Dublin. Her publications include a series of five studies on Irish Air Quality, nine books including Wild Dublin and her most recent – The Great Irish Biodiversity Book.  She was President of An Taisce from 2004 – 2009 and more recently President of the Tree Council of Ireland. She is a judge of Environmental initiatives undertaken by local groups on a county level such as Pride of Place and Love Where You Live. She is a highly respected radio and television broadcaster on environmental issues.  She writes the weekly Eye on Nature column in the Irish Times. She is a Co. Louth woman and has a husband, three children and seven grandchildren. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in Science by the University of Galway in November 2024 – the first Irishwoman to be awarded a D Sc. by that university.

Working with Nature Awards Judge

An award-winning architect and television producer, Duncan Stewart has been a leading Irish advocate for environmental, health and conservation issues for over 40 years.

A champion for environmental and architectural conservation since his student days, for the past two decades Duncan has also been a popular television personality in Ireland.  His early shows ‘Our House’ and ‘About the House’ leaned on his architectural background as he promoted the values of quality Irish craftsmanship, efficient and sustainable materials and the value of energy conservation.

Duncan is driven by his interests in the protection of our environment, Ireland’s biodiversity, supporting local communities and the communication of climate issues.

Working with Nature Awards Judge

Alex Slazenger is the head gardener at Powerscourt.  Ever since Alex was a child, growing up on Powerscourt Estate, his dream was to become a custodian of Powerscourt Gardens.  The gardens and river walk were both his playground and inspiration for his love of nature.  Watching things grow and develop led to his desire to make this his career, so subsequently he studied horticulture at the National Botanic Gardens, leaving with a BSc.  After working in the industry for 12 years, doing everything from maintenance, landscaping, and nursery production, he was appointed Head Gardener at Powerscourt.  He has been instrumental with his gardening team in developing and implementing sustainability initiatives including a Rewilding program on the Estate.

SUPPORTED BY:

 

Powerscourt Hotel – providing a nights stay at the hotel to the worthy winner.

Powerscourt Distillery – providing a VIP tour & tasting to the winner.

Common Purpose Ireland –

Leaders for Nature is an all-island, cross sector  leadership programme designed to support participants to respond to the ambitions of Ireland’s Climate Action Plan, National Biodiversity Action Plan and  Nature Restoration Plan with clarity, courage and collaboration.

Developed by Common Purpose Ireland, Native Events and Leave No Trace Ireland,   the programme brings together leaders from the public, private and non-profit sectors in an immersive learning journey over 8 months, focused on nature-positive leadership.

Kicking off with a 3 day residential in the beautiful Borris House in Co. Carlow, through a blend of live online and in-person sessions, peer learning, coaching and experiential place-based learning, participants explore the interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss, climate change and social systems. The programme is designed to strengthen participants’ ability to lead across boundaries, influence beyond formal authority and collaborate effectively in response to complex environmental challenges.

Leaders for Nature creates space for reflection, challenge and connection among people committed to creating meaningful change within their organisations, communities and sectors.

Sustainability & Biodiversity

The long-term overarching mission at Powerscourt Estate is to be recognised on a global stage for our sustainability initiatives, and to be Carbon Neutral by 2025.

Find out more
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Coming To Powerscourt?
WHAT OUR VISITORS SAY

This place is amazing. Soo beautiful. We’ve been many times and each time we love it. We chose to come in May but maybe next time we’ll head over in June hopefully to see all the flowers blooming. The walks are soo relaxing and the view is just amazing. This time we stayed for lunch and cannot praise enough their food. Such fresh and tasty soup and sandwiches and yummy desserts. Cannot wait for our next visit as even if it’s far away from where we live and takes almost 3 hours to drive, it’s just soo beautiful ?

We visited Powerscourt gardens for the first time in late October. The walled gardens still had a colourful display of flowers and shrubs, the trees were in wonderful autumn shades and the Japanese gardens were delightful with the Acers looking very attractive. Powerscourt is certainly worth travelling to see if you are in the area.

I’ve been here many years ago and the grounds are just as beautiful as I remembered. The new addition of shops, Avoca cafe, nursery and distillery just adds even more things to do. This is a great place to stop and spend sometime.

This garden was incredible. We went on a very rainy day and it was difficult to really enjoy the beauty that was there. We quickly walked thru the formal gardens, Japanese garden and tower house. The collection of trees were magnificent but it was raining too hard to read all the labels Would definitely go back if we get a chance.

The walled gardens are the most amazing flowers I have ever seen. I could have looked at them for hours. The rest of the grounds are very beautiful and peaceful when there aren’t large tour groups. The lunch at Avoca is very good, fresh and reasonably priced. You can even have some retail therapy at the stores. Again, the most amazing flowers!!!

CTA Section Logo
Coming To Powerscourt?
WHAT OUR VISITORS SAY

This place is amazing. Soo beautiful. We’ve been many times and each time we love it. We chose to come in May but maybe next time we’ll head over in June hopefully to see all the flowers blooming. The walks are soo relaxing and the view is just amazing. This time we stayed for lunch and cannot praise enough their food. Such fresh and tasty soup and sandwiches and yummy desserts. Cannot wait for our next visit as even if it’s far away from where we live and takes almost 3 hours to drive, it’s just soo beautiful ?

We visited Powerscourt gardens for the first time in late October. The walled gardens still had a colourful display of flowers and shrubs, the trees were in wonderful autumn shades and the Japanese gardens were delightful with the Acers looking very attractive. Powerscourt is certainly worth travelling to see if you are in the area.

I’ve been here many years ago and the grounds are just as beautiful as I remembered. The new addition of shops, Avoca cafe, nursery and distillery just adds even more things to do. This is a great place to stop and spend sometime.

This garden was incredible. We went on a very rainy day and it was difficult to really enjoy the beauty that was there. We quickly walked thru the formal gardens, Japanese garden and tower house. The collection of trees were magnificent but it was raining too hard to read all the labels Would definitely go back if we get a chance.

The walled gardens are the most amazing flowers I have ever seen. I could have looked at them for hours. The rest of the grounds are very beautiful and peaceful when there aren’t large tour groups. The lunch at Avoca is very good, fresh and reasonably priced. You can even have some retail therapy at the stores. Again, the most amazing flowers!!!