Find all the data, tools, information you need to carry out EN15804 compliant whole life carbon assessment of buildings in Ireland.

The Carbon Designer tool is a simple way to estimate the carbon impact of your project at an early stage of building design. The tool is free and quickly shows you the differences you can make to the overall carbon impact by selecting different material build ups of large elements such as walls, floors and roof.

Learn how to use our Carbon Designer for Ireland, a free early-stage whole life carbon assessment tool.

Presenter: Stephen Barrett

Better Homes 2021 is all about innovation for low carbon buildings and timber construction.
Speakers: Minister of State for Agriculture Pippa Hackett, Conan O’Ceallaigh, Joe Giddings and Joe Giddings.

GreenSpec is the foremost ‘Green Building’ resource in the UK.  Independent of companies and trade bodies and launched in 2003 with government funding, GreenSpec promotes sustainable building products, materials and construction techniques.

To reach carbon neutrality, we must address embodied carbon. What would it take to embed whole life carbon thinking in the design of our buildings? Watch this IGBC’s 2-minutes video. {Supported by EPA Reasearch}

Online conference on how to reduce embodied carbon in construction. The conference, showcasing a range of initiatives and solutions available that address embodied carbon, was a huge success. The attendees could get loads of information from the best experts in the industry. The attendees learnt about several collaborative initiatives that share information about green designs, materials and benchmarking tools.

Irish Water with industry leaders in sustainability, Sisk and Cairn Homes as well as the Irish Green Building Council and Construction Industry Federation produced these essential tips for water use and planning in construction.

This one hour clinic provides an introduction to water stewardship, looks at quick water conservation wins on site and outlines the process of certification

Is circularity measurable? What are the key concepts to be considered when designing a building? In London circularity statements are required on larger developments at planning stage. How can these be prepared and what are the key things about designing to ensure zero waste and reuse of all components?

How is the European policy moving beyond energy efficiency to total carbon reduction and resource efficiency? How is the EU Framework Level(s) charting a course to Life Cycle Assessment and circularity?

This introductory webinar is delivered in partnership with CITA, CIOB and GMIT

The transition to a circular economy is not possible without coordinated, coherent action by multiple different stakeholders groups in the existing linear economy. Drawing on recent research from the EU Horizon 2020 CIRCuIT project, as well as expertise and experience from London and Finland, this webinar will explore essential practices and enablers for achieving a circular economy through decision-making by key actors within cities.

What role can material exchange platforms play in ensuring that materials go into closed loops of reuse. How can we know that reused materials are fit for use and how do we track or source these materials? Materials Exchange provides a dating site for reused materials allowing them to be tracked through blockchain and made available across sectors providing information on ingredients and standards. How can the platform transform a mere building into a ‘Building As a Material Bank’? Can this approach work in Ireland?

Waugh Thistlton is one of the leaders in mass timber construction in the UK. Mass timber construction offers an ideal way for circular low carbon construction. Not only can it speed up the construction process but it can minimise the need for finishes. Lightweight components allow easy demountability, easy connections and reuse options.

Life Cycle Assessment of buildings and full carbon footprinting across the life cycle provides a powerful way of assessing the overall impact of a building and its components and is an essential tool in the transition to circularity. What are the relevant standards and how can professionals get started measuring and reducing the impact of their buildings.

Wood is the quintessential low carbon building material. This webinar explores products and solutions available that use wood both structurally as a building component including wood fibre insulation, oriented strand board and cross laminated timber construction.

Presenters: David Murray Medite Smartply, Martin Twamley Steico, Lee Murphy G-Frame.

Ensuring a high performance, continually insulated building envelope is key to achieving an energy efficient building. This webinar looks at the benefits of the SIMS solution, single leaf construction with external insulation and insulated foundation systems.

Presenter: Jason Martin – Mannok and Andrew Butler KORE

Choosing efficient and healthy interior products contributes to the overall sustainability of a project. In this webinar looks at low flow bathroom fittings and low impact paints and flooring.

Presenters: Pat Gatley Graphenstone Paints, Mark Bauer Forbo and Andrew Murphy, Bathquip

For building products to be truly sustainable, they need to be circular. This webinar showcases two exciting Irish examples of circularity, insulation made from newspapers and an aggregate made from construction demolition waste.

Presenters: John Egan Ecocel and Cian O’Hora IMS

The most sustainable building is an existing building, so renovating our building stock to be more energy efficient is key to achieving carbon savings. This webinar looks at mineral wool as a low-cost solution for mass renovation and heat pumps for water heating.

Presenters: Jason Horrex St Gobain and Cian Tobin Ideal Energy

Featuring: Liz Goodwin, chair at ReLondon and senior fellow and director of food loss and waste at the World Resources Institute; Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics and co-founder of the Doughnut Economics Lab; Marta Suplicy, municipal secretary of international relations of the City of São Paulo; and Shiva Susarla, founder of Circular Cities Asia and founder and CEO of RENERGii.

Watch the recording of the Irish Architecture Foundation’s New Now Next 2021 talk by Anne Lacaton & Jean-Phillippe Vassal. Moderated by Yvonne Farrell & Shelley McNamara from Grafton Architects.

Level(s) is the European Union’s common language framework for sustainable buildings. If you are a built-environment sector professional, this short animation will show you some of the many benefits of using Level(s) in your working environment.

Regenerate ia a circular economy engagement tool for all those involved in the design and construction of buildings. It can be applied to all building types, retrofits and new builds.

Presenters: Will Mihkelson & Charles Gillott (University of Sheffield)

Circle House is the world’s first residential project designed and built after the principles of circular economy, which, among other things, means the building can be disassembled, and the project’s materials can be reused without loss of value.

Test site includes a pavilion, a ‘Coill Bheag’ (small native woodlands), seating and hoarding elements. The vision is one which sees a structure for public engagement constructed so that waste is prevented at each stage of its lifecycle, from design to the end of the TEST SITE Project.

Presenters: Klaus Jensen & Mia Scheel from RUM Architects; Ailbhe Cunningham, Architect and TEST SITE Co-Creator

Circular Design Institute, which is focused on supporting designers and companies transitioning to the circular economy.

The old district heating boiler house was repurposed from a shed that lost heat to a low energy public building designed to influence visitors behaviour to waste and promote the circular economy.

Presenters: Elaine Butler, Circular Design Institute & Daragh Lynch, Darragh Lynch Arcitects

Education for Sustainability, Digital Construction, Construction Resource Efficiency and the Circular Economy.

Waste and resource management sector developing : waste strategy, plans, capacity and data analysis.

Presenters:  Mark Kelly and Warren Phelan

The final session in our Circularity in Practice series will focus on the work of the Circular Built Environment Hub at TUDelft. The Hub is a platform for researchers of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment with the aim of promoting the development of knowledge towards a circular built environment that enables the design of future buildings, cities and infrastructures.

Presenters: Dr. Ing. Olga Ioannou , Dr. R.J. Geldermans MSc,Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Alexander Wandl, Prof. Dr.-Ing Tillmann Klein.

Rachel Hoolahan, Orms sustainability co-ordinator and UKGBC Design for Circularity working group leader, explains how she collaborated with a multidisciplinary team to develop an open-source design-led approach to material passports for retrofit.

Stuart Blofeld, BRE

What is best practice in waste management on site? What should be considered? How to develop a waste management plan? How best to implement the strategy on site? What tools are available?

Innovative circular and biological products will be showcased such as; Adaptavates Breathaboard, a plasterboard that can be composted back to the earth; cradle-to-cradle certified paint from Graphenstone and Ecococons’ biobased, strawbale panel building systems.

Additional resources

First Irish EcoCocon modular straw building completed

Ecococon professional documents

Graphestone Awards

Graphenstone Global Certification

Graphestone FAQ

www.adaptavate.com

Biohm has been developing one of the most innovative biological construction materials on the market. Biohms. focus is on mycelium; a network of fungal threads that grows underground. 

Additional resources

www.biohm.co.uk

Rewinding the Tape of Life: Design of the New Paradigm Shift | Oksana Bondar | TEDxGoodenoughCollege

Under what conditions can you reuse secondary materials in Ireland? Are there any precedents?

Philippa King, Diarmuid Hayes and Kaitlin Roche speak on this using examples like the Opera Square Project in Limerick.

Additional resources

Southern Waste Region

Construction rubble to be recycled in Limerick

In the Circular Building Toolkit, the principles of the circular economy have been translated into a prioritised set of strategies and actions relevant to real estate projects. It has been designed to align with international policies. The framework is based on relevant international best practices and policies such as EU Taxonomy and EU Level(s).

Additional resources

Circular Building Toolkit-Arup

Rachel Hoolahan from ORMS explains what material passports are and their importance in implementing the circular economy. At the same time, Alan Cawley speaks on the best ways to produce minimal to no waste at all on a construction site.

Additional resources

Zero Avoidable Waste

How can Material Passports support material re-use of existing buildings? – Orms

Accelerating material re-use (grosvenor.com)

How Circular Economy Principles can impact carbon and value – UKGBC – UK Green Building Council

Circular economy guidance for construction clients: How to practically apply circular economy principles at the project brief stage – UKGBC – UK Green Building Council

Knut Sverre Westby discussed the Norwegian-based construction material exchange platform-Loopfront. While Sam Chapman introduced the K-briq-unrefined brick made entirely out of recycled construction waste.

Additional resources

Loopfront presentation

Pat Byrne and Liam Donohoe speak on the use of sheep’s wool in construction and how the sheep’s wool industry is being developed in Ireland and the UK. They also discuss the properties of sheep’s wool and the benefits of using it as insulation for your homes.

In this webinar our speakers discuss the benefits of bio based consstruction materials such as hemp and sheeps wool.

Additional Resources

Ecological Buildings Systems Presentation