Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Update on the Public Sector Climate Action Mandate: Discussion

11:00 am

Mr. David O'Brien:

I am not an economist, but as I understand it, in the context of Eurotstat reporting, for example, a PPP is considered to be off balance sheet because the project risk sits with the private partner. Whereas in the rules around energy upgrades deep retrofit the asset value does not increase to the extent that the risk sits with the private provider, therefore the entire value of the upgrade comes onto balance sheet. I was chatting with one of our colleagues from the SEAI before the meeting and there have been adjustments made to those rules. There may be better opportunities to look at that. However, it still brings us to the question as to whether the value for money can be achieved through a direct engagement of a contractor. Certainly, with the values discussed here, €13 billion of the overall expenditure to bring those buildings up to that level, it would be challenging from a budgetary perspective to do that directly. Therefore, tools like that may well come into play.

I will comment on the circularity piece as well. In construction, the reporting mechanisms we are looking at will obviously favour the embodied carbon footprint of a building through the reuse of materials, but there are challenges particularly with respect to structural and fire integrity and so on, and reusing construction materials. We have an example of one in the raised access floors that buildings have. The tiles are fairly robust.

There is no great issue with them but the manufacturers of that particular tile were not willing to stand over them if they were to be reused. We have those sorts of challenges to tackle in terms of the circularities, even for what I would describe as fairly straightforward components that could readily be reused. When we consider the obligations in terms of certification of buildings for fire and structural integrity, there are definite challenges to overcome. That is in the broader piece of circularity where construction is concerned. Certainly, it gives huge benefit to the overall embodied carbon levels in a building if we can reuse.

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