Dr. Helena McMahon:

There is a huge opportunity to develop circular processes and business models to close loops connecting resource flows with essential everyday products and services. Within the food system, this goes from farm to fork to consumers and on to end of life. To support this, work is ongoing in CircBio and elsewhere to quantify resource and material flows across our economy to better understand the potential for improved circularity. Industry and enterprise clusters, such as the circular bioeconomy cluster based at CircBio, are playing key roles as brokers in a circular economy, fostering networking and new value chain development. I refer, for example, to the clusters working on an all-island basis through projects such as BioDirect, which aims to create all-island circular bioeconomy value chains, and CircBioCityWaste, which is converting municipal wastewater into biofertilser and bioenergy.

On the market side, a growing number of Irish brands have been transitioning to the use of more circular ingredients and the development of more circular products. Brands such as Lee Strand and Keelings have included bio-based and compostable materials in their packaging to address the plastics and carbon-neutral challenges. Food producers in the bakery, dairy, meat, fisheries and brewing sectors are embracing regenerative agriculture practices.

Research at CircBio indicates that the trend towards greater uptake of sustainable materials among brands is likely to continue, although several challenges, such as high cost, continue to exist. Our research into Irish consumer behaviours indicates that consumers have a general preference for more sustainable products; however, choice is impacted by cost and a lack of awareness among consumers as to how to actually select sustainable alternatives. There needs to be an improvement in awareness and knowledge of the circular economy at all levels of society to bring this concept into wider adoption.

The skills gap is a critical issue and potential bottleneck in the scaling of the circular economy and circular bioeconomy. CircBio and MTU have been leading the way nationally in delivering sustainable education from the Springboard-funded certificate in circular economy and the master's in bioeconomy with business and through HCI3-funded project IKC3, Ireland's knowledge centre in carbon, climate and community action, which has developed and is delivering a range of micro-credentials in climate entrepreneurship and leadership, among other topics, for industry, the public sector and primary and secondary schools.

The upscaling of the circular economy has significant potential to contribute to a just transition on an all-island basis and to the achievement of 2050 targets towards a decarbonised Ireland, in particular for the agrifood and marine sectors.

We urge continued support for early movers to test and implement integrated circular value chains. Ireland needs to incentivise the deployment of sustainable and circular business models, provide investment instruments in fiscal policies, support knowledge exchange, networking and regulatory supports across the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology development and skills and talent.

We thank the committee for the opportunity to present this information and welcome any questions the members would like to ask.