Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
977. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the actions and engagements that his Department has taken to date to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency in all buildings under his Department. [40912/22]
View answerMy Department has been consistently active nationally and internationally across all aspects of the Climate Action agenda. Enhancing the sustainability of our buildings, operations, systems and processes at headquarters and across the network of Irish diplomatic and consular missions is a key priority in my Department’s Statement of Strategy 2021-23. Our aim is to achieve the status nationally and internationally as a Foreign Ministry with strong green credentials.
In July 2019, I launched the Department’s Green Foreign Ministry initiative, following which, a Green Committee was established. Chaired by a senior official in our Corporate Services Team, and with members drawn from across our global network, it is tasked with championing the sustainability agenda across the network and monitoring progress in achieving our goals. The Green Committee oversaw the preparation of a detailed Action Plan that lists almost 60 sustainability measures under six separate headings that the Department began implementing in late 2019.
My Department's headquarters buildings are provided by the Office of Public Works and we have been working closely with them in order to improve our sustainability. The Department of Foreign Affairs has already achieved a 49% increase in energy efficiency since 2011, surpassing the public sector target of 33% set under the Government’s Energy Policy Framework.
Each of our 97 diplomatic and consular missions has a trained Mission Sustainability Officer, and individual missions are being encouraged to work to achieve the status of “Green Star Mission” by pioneering innovative energy and other resource-efficiency approaches for subsequent application across the wider network.
On systems and processes, the Department is also proud to have made a substantial contribution to the reduction in consumption of paper, including by shifting the vast majority of passport renewals to the much faster and more efficient online channel and by removing the vast majority of desktop printers.
On the international front, officers of my Department’s Corporate Services team helped to spearhead the establishment of an international network of like-minded foreign ministries to facilitate the sharing of best practice and evolving approaches to sustainability in foreign services. The network meets regularly and currently comprises representatives of Ireland, Denmark, Canada, France, Romania, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Ireland will co-chair the network for the first semester of 2023.
