Mr. Ian Talbot:

I thank the Chair and committee for inviting us today. Chambers Ireland is the State’s largest business representative network. We are an all-island organisation with a unique geographical reach. Our network understands the necessity of sustainable development and our chambers campaign for improvements in the economic, social, environmental well-being and sustainability of the cities and communities of which they are members. All our chambers have pledged their commitment to the sustainable development goals. We were delighted to be nominated as SDG champions by the Minister for the environment, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and we are now an SDG ambassador.

We are also members of the global International Chamber of Commerce, which has observer status at the UN and played a central role in the delivery of both the Paris Agreement and in shaping the UN SDGs from the perspective of business. Though most of the 17 goals are relevant to the work of business, we focus on five - 5, 8, 9, 11 and 13. We are passionate about the SDGs and use them in our role as business leaders to inspire companies and their employees to engage with them. We use the goals as a framework to make Ireland a better country for our society. We also use our policy outputs to target individual goals and we use our influence with business to build awareness and engagement.

Our work through the Chambers Ireland sustainable business council, the sustainable business impact awards we run and our toolkit for business are a selection of examples of the way we advocate for and support action towards meeting the goals among our membership.

In particular, the SDG toolkit for business has been very successful. We are also delivering a modest member-funded grant scheme for member companies delivering on SDG projects.

With regard to our perspective on Ireland's progress, we have had a lot of information today about latest the reports ranking countries' progress on the goals. Ireland is now ranked 28th, which is down from 13th. While we are making progress in a lot of areas, including on poverty and gender equality, we are performing less well on responsible consumption and production and climate action. From a national perspective, progress on the measurement and delivery of the goals in Ireland is positive. Ireland's hub for the sustainable development goals notes that 164 of the 169 targets are capable of being assessed. It states four-fifths of the assessable targets are on track to being achieved, while 14% are of concern and 4% are not being achieved. We do seem to be making progress but, equally, we know that we are struggling to meet our climate targets, for example. Are things as good as they seem? We have to look very deep into budget 2025 documents to find the goals mentioned.

With regard to the particular areas of concern in our sector, our key priorities for our members are based on four areas. These are productivity and competitiveness, housing and urbanisation, energy and decarbonisation, and skills and talent. Continued investment in infrastructure is key to addressing these challenges. Housing has long been a concern for Irish businesses because of the impact of the housing shortage on operations and staffing. It also contributes to sustainable cities and communities.

Transport investment, activation of vacancies and planning reform are all interlinking elements of solving the housing problem. They would also help to address our goals on the climate action agenda and on decent work and economic growth. Attracting and retaining skilled employees continues to be a challenge for business. We believe that aligning businesses with the SDGs will help attract and retain staff who have an interest in sustainability.

We are concerned that a proliferation of reporting and other standards will impact smaller businesses, and while regulations such as CSRD are ostensibly targeted at large companies they will have a significant impact on smaller companies contributing to the supply chains of larger ones but lacking awareness and skills to complete the forms required.

As a business organisation with more than 8,000 member businesses, we hold a position of influence in the business sector. With the proper resources we can continue to engage these businesses on the importance of the goals and build towards achieving them by 2030. Among our members we see great commitment to the goals. They realise that sustainability is something that can be marketed and sold by businesses as consumers become more conscious of their environmental footprint. Businesses are also conscious of this for their own operations and are continuously reviewing supply chains to secure more sustainable methods of doing business. Many organisations have exhausted the low-hanging fruit opportunities and we do not want fatigue to set in. A fresh impetus is required. Citizen awareness must be increased. Progress from here could be more difficult and investment is required.