EASYJET boss Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, donated €200,000 to found a new environmental research centre in Cyprus yesterday
The Stelios Environmental Centre in Pedhoulas will welcome thousands of local students and international research teams to study the flora and fauna in the Troodos Mountain area in order to better understand and help to protect this unique ecosystem.
The centre will be the first of its kind on the island and is housed in Pedhoulas’ former elementary school.
Haji-Ioannou said: “In keeping with my father’s dream to establish a centre of learning in the town of his birth, I am proud to be a part of this effort. The doors can now open to a centre which not only will bring needed visitors to this small community but will also further our understanding of Cyprus’ natural heritage – and how to protect it.”
He added: “This donation fully reflects the principles of the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation in its support of education and the environment.”
The €200,000-donation is funded personally through the Foundation, which is dedicated to the “three E’s”; education, entrepreneurship and the environment.
It also supports island-wide entrepreneurial activity with the Stelios Award for Business Cooperation in Cyprus.
On Wednesday night Haji-Ioannou presented five bicommunal teams of entrepreneurs with €50,000 each for their work in promoting business cooperation in Cyprus at an award ceremony at the Chateau Status restaurant in Nicosia’s buffer zone.
The winners included traditional handicraft producers and distributors, natural resource distributors, bakers and providers of renewable energy products.
At the ceremony, Haji-Ioannou said he hoped such events and bicommunal business projects could lead to greater social cohesion. “I’m a pacifist – I believe in peace and that commerce, trade and a flourishing economy are essential for this island,” he said.
The award winners were Kyriacos Kallis and Hasan Caglioglu of Cypress Handcrafts, Kyriacos Chrysostomou and Can Aygin of C&K Natural Stones, Andreas Louca and Mustafa Kemal Kasapoglu of eSelis, Ioannis Panayi and Huseyin Irfan of United Distribution and George Lordos, Erol Riza and Tamer Zaim of Green Growth Energy Services.
Green Growth, founded a little over a year ago in Nicosia, said the company’s three partners first met last year, and discovered that they had much in common beyond their Cypriot origins: chiefly the vision that energy, resource and climate constraints on growth would inexorably loom as bigger and bigger challenges in the future.
“The most important priorities of the 21st century will likely be the twin efforts to do much more in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Obsolete capital stock, such as fossil-fuel based power plants and buildings that waste energy, will have to be converted or replaced. The task and challenge that lies ahead is unprecedented,” the company said in a statement yesterday.
Green Growth offers professional energy consultancy services “to all who are committed to starting the long transition to renewable energy and increased energy efficiency”, it added.
To date, a number of energy audit projects mainly involving bank office buildings, hotels and cold rooms have been completed. The company founders said they were grateful to Haji-Ioannou for the honour and looked forward to a second successful year of operations.
For more information: [email protected] Tel: +357 22 029000 Fax: +357 22 029001 www.greengrowth.eu
