Mr. Declan Meally:

Obviously, the Deputy has a good knowledge of both the construction side and what I will term his own circular economy and the opportunities there. As I explained in responding to the last question, the waste area in the circular economy is under the EPA as opposed to the SEAI. However, I see that coming increasingly to the fore. Where it is coming more to the fore, and it is an area that is directly related to the SEAI, is through green public procurement. I mentioned it in response to Deputy Ó Broin earlier and we talked about it in terms of the opportunities that it is bringing. Our remit with local authorities relates to the energy they use, but increasingly many of the discussions we are having with them are about the energy they influence. That is the communities and others that are outside the boundary. We have focused on their own emissions and the local authorities have been doing very well in the public sector in meeting their targets to 2020.

On the green procurement opportunity, the discussions started a number of years ago. We feed into the green public procurement working group, in which the local authorities and public sector organisations are an active part. They are trying to get their heads around how they score the likes of embodied carbon and carbon footprints in the contracts they are awarding. That is an evolving body of knowledge within those organisations. It is also something that is being driven directly because the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications also has the EPA in its remit, and the environment side of the house has a principal officer directly involved on the circular economy itself. That is coming increasingly to the fore in driving the behaviours of local authorities and telling them what they will have to have as part of their green public procurement. It will not be just green procurement but standard public procurement that they will have to look at this and take those areas into it.

That is where the influence will come. In the case of the SEAI, the network we have created and the knowledge we are sharing through the public bodies, the public sector, local authorities and so on are intended to make them aware there is an impact other than just the financial one. It is not just about the value for money and the bottom line. We work with the Office of Government Procurement, OGP, as part of this in the context of green public procurement to see how it can be scored in, valued and related in that regard. It is a big lever that the local authorities-----