Mr. Ciar?n O'Connor:

I will use slides as they allow some of the issues to be explained better. We have written materials providing some detail. To stir things up a little, I mentioned threats and opportunities. Some issues are threats while others are opportunities and I have listed these. We have woolly thinking versus real research and development; citation versus synthesis; and eco-bling versus real sustainable solutions. The key to that is an imaginative and critical capacity, without which all the talk will not add up to much.

The approach we have taken in the OPW is to tie in with the EU approach. In 1996, when I had just joined the OPW, Green Design was developed to equip the European Union. This led to a whole approach. Since then, especially in the past ten years, we have been using a green audit in every project we do. Our green design roadmap, which will be ready this year, will be a huge positive. It will bring together all the information and knowledge we have learned with colleagues elsewhere, including in the Irish Green Building Council and other private elements, to identify where this might lead us. The roadmap describes the nine different areas we will cover. These are the legal element; the procurement element; the role the State should play; what our targets should be; methods; stepping stones towards targets because there must be measurable and clear stepping stones; costs because everything should be open and clear like an open book; best practice in each case, which encompasses issues such as site and ecology, design and deep retrofit; and a glossary of items to provide clarity. The map will also show how the stage guidance - the key steps as the EU calls it - will work. We are tying it in to match the EU's system. Areas to be covered extend from site selection through design, operation and restoration, in which the OPW has significant experience, to end of life and potential reuse. The team players are also described.

We all know the legal context. As Mr. Barry mentioned, operational carbon accounts for 23% of emissions, while materials comprise 14% of emissions. How will we achieve our goals? Fairness in competition has always been part of procurement in the EU. Environment has now been added to that. Life-cycle analysis and life-cycle costings will be important in that respect. That approach needs scientific-based data. The environmental impact must measured in terms of carbon emissions and embodied carbon. This means a circular economy. How do we manage that? The different European standards and elements are very important for the steps shown on the blue slide. Optimising power at work will also be important and the OPW has been doing for this for the past 12 years or so. We have also started doing it with the HSE for hospitals. In one of the key hospitals on the south-west side of Dublin, savings of 18% were achieved in one year just by bringing in certain methodologies of approach.

Embodied carbon has been mentioned. What we need for that is a common language and a rating system in order that we can have comparable data, without which it is no use. An open source is also necessary in order that everyone can see from where it is coming. It will cover such issues as carbon, materials, water, health, comfort and climate aspects. It will help build the economy. An inventory of impacts and what their total impacts is a simple way to work out these issues. I have given the examples of steel and glass in order that their significant impacts can be seen. We changed our specifications in 2010 to bring in what is called green cement whereby waste from steel is mixed in. This reduces carbon by one tonne for every tonne of cement used.

Forestry is a key element. Over the years, I have done many projects in timber and we will do more. To sustain forestry I suggest we follow the Scottish example which is by far the best example of all the European samples I have looked at. Securing a licence covers all the other steps that need to be taken. In Ireland we have different steps for different stages. We also need to examine how much clear fell we do. The right tree in the right place is a key element. The tree is a transformative element in that it is a recycling factory for water and carbon and gives us oxygen and timber.

This is therefore a no-brainer. Only 11% of our land is in timber and we should quickly get up to 20%. The European average is much higher than that.

I will give some detail on carbon capture. We did research with colleagues elsewhere in other countries. We can see on the right-hand side of the screen that different trees have different rates of carbon absorption. Yet, some trees grow more quickly than others. In the example of oak, it takes a full lifetime of an oak tree to absorb 123 tonnes of CO2, whereas a fast-growing alder, lime or horse chestnut does the same in approximately half the time. Those little details are important from that point of view.

On the issue of deep retrofit, we managed to get funding from the European Commission. We have just started our work on it. We are doing Tom Johnson House in Beggar's Bush as an exemplar retrofit. It is a 1960s building and we are upgrading it to have an 85% reduction in its annual energy use. It also will demonstrate an example of how you go about doing one of these things and how you make it significant.

The last few slides show an example of a project we started 20 years ago in the Backweston campus, which is near Celbridge. We made the rule then that no soil would leave the site or would go to a landfill. That was at a time when that was still quite common. We avoided landfill and we reduced the carbon footprint. The committee members will be able to see the figures on the screen. The amount of tonnage of CO2 that was saved by not moving the soil off-site was important. More importantly, it was able to be reused and recycled in a way that was of benefit. It is not a single-issue item, therefore but it achieves many things. We had flooding near the area and we used the soil to act as contours but it does not look like a dam was built. There is a built-in recreational area for people who are coming out of laboratories in a white outfit and into a landscape that gives relief to that. There was also a significant cost. The cost of moving the soil was significant. It was over €4 million. We used approximately €500,000 for planting the trees that we put on site. The trees are a significant element in the reduction of the carbon footprint of that site.

In summary, when you are faced with an issue, you must not just consider the issue in itself but what you can make of it and what that can be in the future. From a sustainability and green-design perspective, many things must be considered at one time. As for how that can be done, I suggest that looking at the site, the building and the running of the building, as well as the reuse of the building afterwards, are all key to this. It is not simple, in that while the result can be simple, getting there takes a bit of effort and complexity. However, that is there to be won. I will finish by noting it is not for what it is but what else it can be.