Ms Fiona O'Byrne:

I thank the committee for the invitation here today. I am principal officer with responsibility for higher education policy and reform.

The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science’s contribution to climate action and sustainability agendas is structured across four pillars: enabling research; skills for the green transition; education for sustainable development, and decarbonisation of the tertiary estate. I will briefly outline the Department’s work across these pillars.

Regarding research, 52% of all publicly-funded research comes from this Department’s budget. The Department’s research and innovation strategy, Impact 2030, recognises the role of research and innovation as critical enablers to support delivery of our climate action targets and to address wider environmental and sustainability challenges. Important progress is being made in this regard. In May, the Minsters, Deputies O’Donovan and McConalogue, announced a €104 million investment in scientific research across four SFI research centres. Two of these, BiOrbic and VistaMilk, are looking at ways to positively impact the environment through research, excellence and innovation. The recent launches of the first two SFI-funded co-centres strategic collaborative research partnerships across Ireland, Britain and Northern Ireland, demonstrate the commitment to tackle these issues and put them to the forefront of the national research agenda. These co-centres will focus on climate, biodiversity and water and on sustainable and resilient food systems, respectively. SFI has also launched a pilot sustainable laboratory certificate programme, which it is hoped will see a national roll-out after the initial pilot.

A workforce equipped with appropriate green skills is a prerequisite for the delivery of key aspects of the green transition, which are to retrofit homes, build renewable energy infrastructure and to develop and maintain new sustainable modes of transport. New jobs are emerging such as retrofit installers, wind energy technicians and electric vehicle mechanics, and green skills are also being embedded in a range of existing roles across the economy. This Department is working to ensure Ireland’s tertiary sector can address these challenges. The further education and training sector is pivoting to develop a workforce with the right skills for the green transition, through initiatives like NZEB retrofit centres of excellence, the new wind turbine maintenance technician apprenticeship and new sustainability micro-qualifications. More broadly, this Department is leading a strategic response to monitoring and responding to key green skills requirements in areas including offshore wind, the built environment, and sustainable transport.

Education for sustainable development, ESD, aims to equip all members of our society with the skills, knowledge and values needed to address pressing social and environmental challenges and to promote sustainable development. We know that if we want to achieve this learning ambition, we need to embed ESD across all levels of formal, non-formal and informal education. That is why, back in 2022, this Department came together with the Departments of Education and Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, to launch ESD to 2030, Ireland’s second national strategy on ESD. The strategy’s implementation plan contains several actions that are directed at the tertiary sector, which encompasses almost 400,000 learners at any one time. These actions focus on creating inclusive and sustainable learning environments and embedding ESD into our courses and curriculums at all levels. Some examples of this include the creation of ESD-specific positions across higher education institutions to support leadership in this area; outdoor learning initiatives; and the adoption of circular economy practices. The strategy’s first progress report, which was published in December 2023 and launched at the annual ESD stakeholder forum, contains updates on actions spanning from January 2022 to June 2023.

With the third-largest estate under the public sector climate action mandate, the tertiary education sector produced 18% of public sector emissions in 2022. Decarbonising our sectoral estate will play a vital role in helping Ireland to meet the legally enforceable energy and emissions targets. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science leads its sectoral bodies to meet these targets, which are set against the unique challenges faced by the tertiary sector over the coming years. These challenges include increasing enrolments driven by demographic increases, coupled with the requirement to provide essential skills for the achievement of economy-wide climate targets. The tertiary education sector’s current gap to target is to remove approximately 32,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent from our annual emissions profile by 2030. To remove emissions, the roll-out of a large-scale retrofitting programme will be required. This is being considered in the context of the age and condition of our buildings, feasibility issues given construction market capacity constraints, and budgetary constraints. The Department jointly chairs a working group with SEAI to develop a decarbonisation plan for the sector. We are engaging stakeholders to mobilise sectoral support for implementation of policy to enhance data collection and to support the decarbonisation planning process, and we are factoring climate considerations into the assessment processes for all new capital programme calls.

The Department is also encouraging collaboration between our sectoral partners and the regional transport managers to reduce transport demand for less sustainable journeys by third level students. We look forward to discussing these matters in greater detail with the committee today.