Mr. David O'Brien:

We are at an early stage of construction. The data on the embodied carbon constituents in a construction project, as the committee can imagine, is huge and involves myriad materials. We have built the foundations of a reporting structure that we will incrementally introduce over the coming years. We have published new cost-reporting templates, within which we have the capacity to report on embodied carbon. The data sets are missing, but the environmental product declarations that are coming through with the energy performance and building directives will greatly increase the level of data that is out there. We may also look to other EU member states such as the Netherlands, which is light years ahead in some of these areas, and their practices in order that we can start, from the very earliest decisions made in a construction project’s design, to consider those materials, which ones are carbon hot spots and how we can avoid them, if possible, given that materials such as cement and concrete are a necessity in certain areas, but that is at the early stages.