Robin Rombach/Post-Gazette

Mick O’Reilly and Michelle McAteer of Northern Ireland are working for one year at eCap network, an environmental consulting company based in the Hill District.

A new international exchange program is partnering some of the brightest minds from one of the greenest places on earth (literally) with some of the most green-minded businesses in Pittsburgh.

The Carbon Zero Northern Ireland program, in partnership with the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh, is sending 12 students to work with various companies in the Pittsburgh area that specialize in renewable technologies or sustainability strategies.

James Lamb, president of the Ireland Institute a Downtown-based nonprofit that promotes mutual understanding of the Catholic and Protestant traditions in Northern Ireland and economic development throughout all of Ireland said that so far 11 of 12 positions have been filled. Six students are here and settled, and six should arrive in the next month.

The interns are spread out across the region at 10 companies, ranging from Alcosan, the county’s sanitary authority; to the eCap network, an environmental consulting firm based in the Hill District. The Ireland Institute is seeking one more internship placement.

“When you look at Pittsburgh as a cluster of expertise, and an institute like ours to manage this, it made sense to see this go forward,” Mr. Lamb said.

Discussions for the program, which is being funded by the Department of Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland and coordinated by South West College in Dungannon, have been ongoing for the past three or four years.

The program follows a similar model that the Ireland Institute has used for the past two decades in providing internships during the more tumultuous periods of Northern Ireland’s history when mostly Protestants supporting allegiance to the United Kingdom clashed with mostly Catholics wanting to break away to the Republic. The goal then was to promote reconciliation efforts.

In this case, the goal is to expand the set of skilled workers with skills in green business.

“Pittsburgh was chosen, as it is a region that has gained an international reputation for successful transformation into one of the greenest cities in the U.S.,” said Tom Mayers, program project manager at South West College.

When the program first began advertising and selecting interns, Mr. Lamb said more than 200 applications were submitted.

“It’s a fantastic program,” said Mr. Mayers. “The idea would be [the students] would learn new skills and then export those skills back to Northern Ireland and to industries in Northern Ireland.”

A delegation from Northern Ireland, including industry and academic experts, is considering a visit to Pittsburgh later this year to further promote sustainability and build connections. The details haven’t been finalized. Mr. Mayers is also exploring the option of bringing an additional 12 students to the United States.

The first dozen interns are the first to take part in a clean green energy technology exchange program in the United States as part of a continuous education program in Northern Ireland.

“We’re sort of going where no one has gone before,” Mr. Mayers said. “I hope that it would be much quicker this time because we have established contacts and networks.”

Mr. Mayers said the sustainability market in Northern Ireland was small, but was growing at a rapid pace and mimicking trends in the rest of the United Kingdom.

“We have to reduce energy, and we need to be using more renewable technologies; and the government is pressing and pressing for this on a continuous basis,” Mr. Mayers said, making the need for the current crop of interns to return with skills in green technologies even greater.

Michelle McAteer, who recently earned a master’s degree in environmental and resource management with energy studies, arrived seven weeks ago as a stranger to Western Pennsylvania, but not to the United States. She spent time in Montana studying business management.

In Pittsburgh, she’s worked with the eCap network.

A big part of eCap’s work involves consulting on various projects in the area, assessing energy consumption and how much it would cost to implement sustainable strategies and benchmarks to receive state and federal rebates. The hard part, John Werling, president of eCap, said, was sorting through and tracking the ever-changing utility programs.

Ms. McAteer and fellow intern Mick O’Reilly are helping track those changes by compiling and maintaining a database eCap. They work out of the Centre Avenue office, going through the policy and the framework of grants and rebates for energy efficiency.

Both say increased use of green power, like solar and wind, could benefit Northern Ireland.

“I’ve always been interested in climate science, and when you’re actually reading papers and stories about how it is directly affecting people, I know there is more that can be done,” Ms. McAteer said. “I don’t see why we don’t utilize something that is free and not bad for the environment.”

While she has always homed in on green energy technologies, the Carbon Zero project is a sidestep for Mr. O’Reilly. Since finishing a postgraduate program in Belfast in 2001, he’s focused on recyclables and running a community recycling program.

“Just the way we live is not sustainable, and we need to do something about it,” he said. “It’s like we won’t change our habits, so we need to change our approach.”

In addition to aggregating data for the database, they’ve been accompanying Mr. Werling and other staff in the field for consultations and research.

The research requires the two students to look at buildings and the history of energy usage, as well as the evolution of the purpose served by the buildings. Mr. Werling has used the field work as an opportunity to show his interns around the city.

The two have also done some exploring on their own. Both found apartments on the South Side and have been to several Pirates games. During the World Cup games, Ms. McAteer said, watched the games at Pipers Pub on East Carson Street.

Mr. Werling said the two brought a new perspective to the evolving business model at eCap, established in January.

Generally speaking, he said he’d found that the company’s work needs little explanation to the younger generation
they already get it. “They love the ideas, and they’re eager to learn about them,” he said.

Still he noted that there were some key differences in energy consumption between Western Pennsylvania and Northern Ireland.

In Northern Ireland, for example, many buildings aren’t equipped with air conditioning because there’s no real need for it. The average high there during the summer months stays around 64 degrees.

The transition for the students seems to have been pretty painless, with people from the Ireland Institute, as well as eCap pitching in to help make things easier. The one thing nobody can do much about is the overwhelming heat wave that suffocated the region for most of July.

“Everyone is complaining about how hot it is,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “It’s still a novelty.”

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