Our Work
The Irish Green Building Council plays an active role in the formation of European Policy through the European Network of Green Building Councils, and as Renovate Europe national partner in Ireland.
Our European political manifesto outlines the key policy and regulatory changes that European leaders must endorse and champion to achieve a climate-neutral Europe by 2050.
At the IGBC, we prioritise the following 5 key areas:
In 2021, the European Commission delivered the European Green Deal, with the goal of Europe becoming the first climate neutral continent by 2050. It aims to ensure that:
- No net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050.
- Economic growth decoupled from resource use.
- No person or place to be left behind.
In recent years, the Green Deal has introduced legislation that aims to support the decarbonisation of the built environment. Below, are some of the areas and specific pieces of legislation that the IGBC is actively engaging with.
#BuildingLife Campaign
The #BuildingLife project, led by the WorldGBC and driven by 12 Green Building Councils, aims to support and implement the European Green Deal and drive climate action in the built environment. #BuildingLife focuses not only on the operational emissions of buildings, but also on the environmental impact of the manufacturing, transportation, construction, and end-of-life phases of built assets – often called embodied emissions – which account for around 14% of Ireland’s national emissions.
Following the launch of the Building a Zero Carbon Ireland – A Roadmap to decarbonise Ireland’s built environment across its whole life cycle, the IGBC’s priority is to support the implementation of these actions in Ireland.
A policy scorecards to track progress against the roadmap, highlight any gaps in current government policies, and showcase the areas we need to focus efforts on, was launched in February 2024. The policy scorecard can be found here, and the IGBC is now developing a similar industry report to be published in Q2 2025.
Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD)
The new EPBD was published in the EU official journal on May 8th 2024 and can be found here.
The EPBD is a cornerstone of EU legislation supporting the decarbonisation of Europe’s buildings.
Key measures included in the new EPBD:
- All new buildings should be zero-emission as of 2030; new buildings occupied or owned by public authorities should be zero-emission as of 2028.
- The EPBD states global warming potential as the building’s overall contribution to emissions that lead to climate change. It brings together greenhouse gas emissions embodied in construction products with direct and indirect emissions from the use stage.
- By 1 January 2027Member States (MSs) shall publish and notify the Commission of a roadmap detailing the introduction of limit values on the total cumulative life cycle Global Warming Potential (GWP) of all new buildings and set targets for new buildings from 2030.
- Member States must calculate and disclose whole life cycle carbon emissions, embodied and operational carbon, for all new buildings from 2030.
- A clear roadmap for owners and industry players through Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) in the non-residential sector: At least 16% of the MSs’ worst performing buildings will be targeted for renovation by 2030 and 26% by 2033.
- A binding energy consumption trajectory for the residential sector: A ⁿsectoral average energy reduction target will apply, reducing energy use by 16% in 2030 and by 20 to 22% by 2035.
- Further provisions to facilitate the energy renovation process – notably the rolling out of one-stop shops and improving access to quality information and finance.
The IGBC is supporting the Irish Government with the transposition of the EPBD into Irish law through several projects, including Design4Zero, #BuildingLife, and a pilot of Building Renovation Passports in commercial buildings. We will be organising a workshop in September 2024 looking at how the implementation of the revised EPBD can support deeper renovation at scale, with a strong focus on minimum energy performance standards as the key instrument. Similar events focusing on other parts of the EPBD will be organised in 2025. Visit our event page for further information.
The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED)
The 2023 revision of the EED significantly raises the EU’s ambition on energy efficiency and is key for the EU to comply with the commitment to double the global rate of energy efficiency improvements from 2% to over 4% by 2030.
The agreement established an EU energy efficiency target of 11.7% for 2030 and requires EU Member States to collectively ensure an additional reduction of final and primary energy consumption, compared with energy consumption forecasts made in 2020. EU countries will be required to achieve new savings each year of 1.49% of final energy consumption on average, from 2024 to 2030, up from the current level of 0.8%. they will gradually have to reach 1.9% by the end of 2030.
The revised EED also requires the renovation of 3% of all public buildings, at local, regional and national level which have a total floor area of more than 250m2 . EU countries should renovate the buildings to the zero-emission building standard. In addition, the new annual energy consumption reduction target for the public sector, is 1.9%.
European framework for sustainable buildings
Levels(s) is the EU initiative that joins up sustainable building thinking across the EU by offering guidance on the key areas of sustainability in the built environment and how to measure them during design and after completion. It provides a common language for assessing and reporting on the sustainability performance of buildings. It is a simple entry point for applying circular economy principles in our built environment.
The IGBC own building certification scheme, the Home Performance Index, is fully aligned with level 1 of Level(s).
EU Sustainable Finance Strategy
Sustainable Finance is a key factor in the economy’s transition towards carbon neutrality by 2050. The EU has adopted an ambitious and comprehensive package of measures to improve the flow of Euro towards sustainable activities across the EU. This includes both the EU Taxonomy and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
The EU taxonomy is a cornerstone of the EU’s sustainable finance framework and an important market transparency tool. It helps direct investments to the economic activities most needed for the transition, in line with the European Green Deal objectives. The taxonomy is a classification system that defines criteria for economic activities that are aligned with a net zero trajectory by 2050 and the broader environmental goals other than climate.
The EU taxonomy allows financial and non-financial companies to share a common definition of economic activities that can be considered environmentally sustainable. In this way, it plays an important role in helping the EU scale up sustainable investment, by creating security for investors, protecting private investors from greenwashing, helping companies become more climate-friendly and mitigating market fragmentation.
The IGBC is currently working to align the Home Performance Index with the Taxonomy to demonstrate a pathway for Irish New Construction Projects to consistently report on EU taxonomy compliance.
The CSRD is a disclosure regulation which applies the EU Taxonomy classification system. It requires large corporations to compare their sustainability performance with the EU Taxonomy. It aims to improve the flow of sustainability information in the corporate world, and to make sustainability reporting by companies more consistent so that financial firms, investors and the broader public can use comparable and reliable sustainability information.
Green Public Procurement (GPP)
GPP is defined as “a process whereby public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle when compared to goods, services and works with the same primary function that would otherwise be procured”[1].
GPP is a voluntary instruments and Member States are able to determine the extent to which policies or criteria are applied, it plays a key role in the EU’s efforts to boosting a resource-efficient economy.
Through its scale and spending, green procurement in the construction sector has the potential to positively aid Ireland in reaching our climate goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. The Performance Ladder is a tool that can help organisations embed green procurement into their organisation in an accessible and structured way. For more information on how the IGBC is helping bring the performance ladder to Ireland, click here.
Nature Restoration Law
The Nature Restoration Law is the first continent-wide, comprehensive law of its kind. It is a key element of the EU biodiversity Strategy, which sets binding targets to restore degraded ecosystems, in particular those with the most potential to capture and store carbon and to prevent and reduce the impact of natural disasters. The biodiversity strategy aims to put Europe’s biodiversity on the path to recovery by 2030.
Within the new Nature Restoration Law, the EU will aim to increase green spaces in urban areas across all Member States. The targets will ensure:
- No net loss of green space by 2030, compared to the year when the nature restoration rules enter into force (unless the urban environment has already 45% of green space)
- An increase in the total national area of urban green space, including through the integration or urban green space into building and infrastructure.
- An increase in the amount of tree cover in cities.
As part of the IGBC’s 2023-2025 strategy, ‘Biodiversity & the Built Environment’ was identified as one of the 5 priority areas. The IGBC Biodiversity Team has provided resources to help members embed biodiversity in their projects including webinars, case studies, newsletter and a Community of Practice.
For more information on the IGBC’s work on biodiversity, please click here.
[1] Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions Public procurement for a better environment {SEC (2008) 2124} {SEC (2008) 2125} {SEC(2008) 2126}
