Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)

We had some engagement in the previous climate committee on the report on circularity. A lot of that report on circularity ended up focusing on the construction sector. Has progress been made on some of the things that would have been recommendations from the committee at that time?

A couple of the areas the witnesses have touched on point towards that. They spoke about shifts in re-examining the regulatory standards in the area of cement. I know ash biomass is one of the areas that is being looked at and there are a number of other areas in terms of cement. It is one area where the regulations need to be re-examined. Another area that was discussed was around regulations around recertification and the mechanisms for recertification and reuse of materials. That was discussed from a circularity perspective. Has there been progress around supporting mechanisms for the recertification of materials, their reuse and measures to catalogue and allow for that reuse to happen? We know a huge amount of embodied carbon is lost at demolition stage and in the early stages of construction.

If, as a committee, we are looking at the legislative space, there are some really strong legislative suggestions coming from everybody here. I ask the Green Building Council to elaborate on the point about how the new EU directive is coming and by 2030 we need to have these new energy targets. If we are frontloading a huge amount of construction between now and 2030, should we not get ahead of it, rather than waiting for the point where we have to bring in the new energy performance of business directives and the rules, by trying to ensure we set national guidelines now before the EU required guidelines? It is really a question of how, as well as retrofitting, we can get ahead of it so that we get the energy right in buildings now rather than continuing with oil and gas still going into buildings now which we plan to retrofit in about five years' time. I ask the witnesses to comment on the question of getting ahead of that piece.

What Dr. Kinnane said about demolition is very interesting. The idea that we need to be restricting demolition is something I have personally pushed for for a long time and that it should be the absolute exception rather than the rule. Will he comment on that?