Dublin, 21st February 2024: The IGBC launched their first policy scorecard on the decarbonisation of Ireland’s Built Environment.
With 2023 being the warmest year on record and an ever-increasing housing crisis, there is little doubt that housing and the environment are our country’s two biggest challenges. While the construction and built environment sector is carbon and resource-intensive and has a huge impact on nature, this also means it holds the key to reducing our carbon emissions.
In October 2022, the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) launched its Building a Zero Carbon Ireland Report – A Roadmap to decarbonise Ireland’s built environment across its whole life cycle.
In Ireland, the construction and the built environment sector is responsible for 37% of Ireland’s carbon emissions (23% operational emissions and 14% embodied carbon emissions), with projections indicating that current actions won’t be sufficient to deliver on our climate targets. The roadmap, which has already been endorsed by over 180 organisations, was informed by a detailed carbon modelling report produced by the Building in a Climate Emergency (BIACE) Research Lab of UCD and by extensive stakeholder engagement. The roadmap includes recommendations for policymakers, industry, and education providers, but it’s a living document that will need to be updated regularly.
To support this process and ensure real progress is made, the IGBC is developing policy scorecards and industry progress reports every second year.
This aims to track the progress against the roadmap, highlight any gaps, and showcase the areas we need to focus efforts on in the next years.
SUMMARY
Progress has been made since the launch of the roadmap with an increase in funding for the national retrofit programme and a greater awareness of the need to tackle the global warming potential of buildings across their life cycle. Given the scale of the challenge and the urgency to act, progress is often too slow, with Ireland often acting as a follower at the European level. E.g., on regulating embodied carbon emissions.
More holistic and coordinated actions are needed to address all the emissions associated with the built environment, from operational to embodied and transport-related emissions. In particular, more joined-up thinking is required to deliver on the National Development Plan without compromising Ireland’s climate targets. Programmes and policies could also often be better targeted to provide more additionality. Similar challenges exist at the local authority level but are often worsened by concerns around resourcing and a perceived lack of clarity on local authorities’ mandate on climate action, including energy renovation.
For more information, please see the Building Life Policy scorecard, available here
