Friday, 15th October: The Irish Green Building Council’s annual energy renovation conference highlighted the need for further immediate action to reach our 2030’s energy renovation targets.
An international study developed by E3G for the Renovate Europe Campaign analysing the share of funds in the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) dedicated to energy renovation of buildings was launched at the conference. The Study found that Ireland needed to improve its plan. In particular, Ireland failed to integrate how renovation of existing buildings could achieve multiple strategic objectives including improvement in health and wellbeing, increased employment and use of sustainable materials. It also recommended the need for better monitoring and aggregation of data to measure impact: What is not counted doesn’t count.
Adrian Joyce, Campaign Director at Renovate Europe said: “The unprecedented additional injection of public funds presented by the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is a golden opportunity to set our building stock firmly on the path to achieving our climate targets. But these renovations must be done properly, and the money must be spent well. And for this, we need deep (or staged deep) renovations. The Study sets out 9 recommendations that would allow Member States to implement transformative Plans and meet the Renovation Wave objectives.”
To capture better quality data on energy renovation, the Irish Green Building Council also launched a Multi-level Energy Renovation Framework (the Framework). The Framework developed as part of the EU funded Build Upon project allows local authorities to measure, record and report on the impact of their retrofit programmes. It was developed in close cooperation with five Irish local authorities: Dublin City Council, Cork City, Offaly Laois and Kilkenny County Councils.
Ali Grehan, Dublin City Architect said: “The Build Upon Framework allows local authorities to measure and record the impacts of their retrofit projects in a holistic manner, looking at CO₂ emissions reductions, but also at the wider impacts, such as the benefits to people’s health and wellbeing and indeed reduction in energy poverty. In future the Build Upon Framework will help us in better considering and communicating the multiple benefits of retrofit, which in turn should increase the rate of energy renovation.”
Marion Jammet, Head of Policy and Advocacy at Irish Green Building Council who led the development of Energy Renovation Framework added: “This will allow the efficient tracking of renovation in Ireland and across Europe, enabling better integration of the multiple benefits of energy renovation into Government policy-making, and ensuring that all the benefits of renovation are factored into investment decisions”.
The full Renovate Europe Study and Ireland individual Country Profiles can be downloaded here.
Further information on the multi-level energy renovation framework can be found here.