Mr. Pat Barry:

One of the challenges with the reuse of materials is the certification process and whether the reused material meets the same standard. There is a role for recertification. A number of European projects are looking at how to take buildings apart and reuse, for example, hollow core slabs in a precast building. That involves a recertification process where the material can receive a CE mark and be deemed fit for reuse. It is not just a question of downcycling material from crushed concrete, it is also a question of using the product directly in a new building. We can move the market by introducing the requirement to measure.

In Ireland, we run a very successful programme on what are called environmental product declarations with manufacturers. That creates a verified document of the carbon footprint of the material. Once we have the data, during procurement we can start looking at materials that perform better than others and incentivising those materials to be used instead of higher-carbon materials. Those environmental product declarations will take account of the recycled content. For example, we produced an environmental product declaration for crushed concrete which shows that it has something like one 20th of the environmental impact of virgin aggregates. We have the means to do this; it is a question of starting to align public procurement with taxonomy now. The criteria are largely set out. We just need to implement them.