Francis Noel Duffy (Dublin South West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann shall take note of the Report of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, entitled "Embodied Carbon in the Built Environment", copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 14th October, 2022.

I am delighted to be given the opportunity to propose the report, Embodied Carbon in the Built Environment, by the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The report addresses and provides recommendations to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage on practical ways of reducing embodied carbon emissions in our built environment.

I want to start by thanking the Chair of the committee, Deputy Steven Matthews, and my fellow colleagues on the committee for their engagement and contributions, which brought about a very rich and valuable discussion and, in turn, a robust set of recommendations. My thanks is extended to Patricia Fitzgerald and her colleagues for their work behind the scenes and for their patience. I am grateful to the experts and officials within the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the Irish Green Building Council and the Office of Public Works, OPW, who willingly gave the committee their time and expertise for us to better understand embodied carbon, what is currently being done to address it and the practical solutions we, as legislators, need to look at adopting. I would also like to particularly acknowledge my appreciation to Mr. Pat Barry from the Irish Green Building Council for his time and continuous support, advice and willingness to engage on the matter.

Significant progress has been made in accelerating energy efficiency in Ireland through implemented Green Party policies over the last two decades. All homes built to current building standards and regulations are now highly energy efficient and typically reach a minimum building energy rating, BER, of A2. This only tells part of the story as there are CO₂emissions associated with all stages of a building's life-cycle, apart from the energy that is used to heat, light and power our buildings’ needs, and these emissions are called embodied carbon.

Currently, approximately 37% of carbon emissions in Ireland stem from the construction sector, which is the same, if not more, than our agricultural sector, with 23% resulting from operational emissions, that is, the heating, lighting and cooling of buildings, and a further 14% resulting from the embodied carbon emissions. This 14% is emitted during the lifespan of a material, from the excavation and harvesting of raw materials to product manufacture, transporting them between all processes, constructing them into our buildings, their maintenance and replacement, and, finally, their removal and disposal at the end of their life. I believe a new paradigm is required within our built environment where materials with low embodied carbon are seen as valued commodities, sourced at home and not imported, and these same materials are harvested at the end of the building’s life and upcycled into new buildings.

The use of low carbon materials in the construction industry is key to transforming the sector and reducing embodied carbon. Therefore, we need to start by mandating the industry to measure the embodied carbon of our buildings, followed by embodied carbon targets. This should begin next year and not in 2027, as the Department has been outlining. The construction of mid-rise timber buildings has been evolving across the planet in the past 20 years. We have not kept in touch with this construction revolution, considering its embodied carbon advantages.

Irish construction timber has an advantageous position in terms of our timber output. Due to many who came before us, our timber industry is the fastest growing in Europe and the roundwood harvest will be doubling over the next 15 years. Timber is a sustainable and low carbon construction material that is a compelling alternative to steel and concrete. Some 11% of Ireland's land is currently under forestry and the vast majority of our construction timber is exported to the UK. The question that arises is why we are exporting low carbon materials that we can use domestically to reduce our embodied carbon and, in turn, CO₂emissions. It should also be noted that Irish construction timber offers faster procurement processes, rural employment and a higher level of health and safety due to off-site fabrication, which also produces better fabrication outcomes.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Part B of the technical guidance document which deals with fire. Currently, the regulation guidance is seriously prohibitive, making it very difficult to procure timber structure buildings akin to many other jurisdictions. We must make Part B amenable to timber in order that designers can use the material because, otherwise, we will be failing in our ambition to meet our climate targets.

I hope the Minister sees that it is imperative that both embodied carbon targets and timber-friendly Part B fire regulations are brought forward soon to tackle the 14% CO₂emissions currently being emitted.

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