Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action
Circular Economy as it relates to Construction Sector: Discussion
11:00 am
Ms Marion Jammet:
This is data from Eurostat. The circularity is rated at 1.8%. The EU average is about 12.8%. We are at an early stage with construction. We have done much good work on energy efficiency but perhaps the focus has not been so much on the circularity aspect to date. A number of things are not there which had perhaps been considered earlier in countries like the Netherlands. As has been said, that may be because it just does not have the same amount of materials in the country in the first place. Perhaps that is why that was considered earlier. As we said earlier, we need a more co-ordinated approach to increase the rate of circularity. There are some positive developments, like the national criteria from Articles 27 and 28 which are about to be approved by the EPA. We need to have this co-ordinated approach to support circularity, to support the demand side and the supply side. That would focus on public procurement, financial incentive and having the right infrastructure in place for storage, for example, which we currently do not have, or digital infrastructure. Skills are another thing. I think it was mentioned earlier. There needs to be a stronger focus on skills.