Ms Alexa Toomey:

It has been very well covered in terms of circularity and the focus on processing. The food sector is a really important sector for Enterprise Ireland in terms of the jobs and exports it generates. We work closely with all of those companies on their sustainability plans. We work in partnership with Origin Green and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, to make sure that approach is being taken and that all aspects of sustainability are being looked at.

Our focus is on carbon emitted within the factory gate but we are also working with them on things like bioeconomy circularity, environmental, social and corporate governance, ESG, and how they are looking up and down their supply chains. A good example of that is a capital investment scheme we ran largely for the meat and dairy sectors over the past few years. Part of that scheme, and it was the only criterion that had a mandatory minimum scoring, was around sustainability planning. We looked at the projects both in terms of what companies were going to do specifically on sustainability but, equally, we asked what their overall sustainability plan was and how they were looking up and down their supply chains. It was a major part of the assessment and decision-making on whether companies were awarded funding or not. It is a sector that is very important to us but it is also one where we are conscious, as it is, that sustainability is a very big challenge. We are putting that at the centre of our activities with that sector.