I welcome Ms Tina Roche, chief executive, Business in the Community Ireland, and Ms Lisa McCarthy, corporate responsibility assistant, to the meeting. I read the document they forwarded with interest. I invite Ms Roche to make her presentation and we will then clarify a few points with her.
Business in the Community Ireland: Discussion.
Ms Tina Roche
I am glad I am following Ms O'Connor because some of our presentation will resonate with the committee. BTIreland is one of our member companies. She referred to much of what came out of bringing 80 chief executive officers, CEOs, together a number of months ago and we would like to make a number of recommendations.
I am grateful for the opportunity to attend and we would like to work with the committee on climate change and energy security. My name is Tina Roche and I am CEO of Business in the Community Ireland. I am accompanied by Ms Lisa McCarthy. Since we started inception in 2000, we have had a very simple mission, which is to use our store of knowledge, networks and expertise to inspire, engage, support and challenge companies to make a positive impact on the workplace, community, marketplace and environment. Through our work with Ireland's top companies, we aim to make Ireland the most responsible and sustainable region in the world. Business in the Community Ireland offers a range of bespoke services to business, including strategic advice on how to integrate responsible business practice across the board. Our advisory services have been developed to support businesses in meeting their business and sustainability goals. I invite committee members to visit our website, www.bitc.ie, if they are interested in what we do.
Sustainability has become a key issue for businesses of all sizes and sectors in Ireland. We are looking at it from the other side. For instance, a large number of Irish companies are bidding to become suppliers or preferred partners, as Ms O'Connor said, for the London 2012 Olympic Games. They are asked to register before the tendering specifications are published. To become a supplier of choice to the Olympics, companies need to demonstrate they have achieved standards of environmental performance and sustainability. Many Irish companies have failed to achieve this standard, which is a missed opportunity for business. Ms O'Connor highlighted what BT seeks in a partner in the context of sustainability and the environment. Change is being driven through the supply chain and the larger the company is, the more suppliers it has and the better its standards, the quicker change will be achieved.
Last October, Business in the Community Ireland hosted Ireland's first CEO event on climate change. More than 80 CEOs of Ireland's top companies met and discussed the challenges and opportunities our country faces. A report, the executive summary of which was forwarded to the committee, highlights the key issues impacting business in Ireland in regard to climate change and the actions leading Irish companies are taking to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the risks and opportunities presented by climate change. The report features the results of an on-line survey, which was conducted following the form, involving 45 companies from a variety of sectors.
I refer to the key issues presented by our report, the main one being Government strategy and policy. Many companies are uncertain about the long-term climate change policy framework and further joined up policy, which is stable and clear, is called for. Under policy, we refer equally to incentives to improved environmental performance, as well as taxation and other measures. Key issues related to policy are the availability of lower cost fuel alternatives, to which Deputy Cuffe referred earlier; incentives for improving energy efficiency; and whether the tax will be revenue neutral. Will the taxes raised from business put back into incentives to further change what is needed to drive efficiencies in business?
Policy incentives discussed at the forum included opportunities to reward corporate best practice through favourable tax treatment; a domestic offsetting scheme to reward companies for activities to reduce emissions by allocating equivalent carbon permits, which the companies could then sell — such a scheme could provide a revenue stream for Irish projects in areas that are not covered by the EU emissions trading scheme; grants for companies to invest in energy efficiency; and public funds available to banks and lending institutions to subsidise low interest loans to companies seeking finance for projects that deliver low carbon or renewable energy.
The next issue highlighted was energy security, the increasing costs of energy and the impacts these are having on Ireland's economic competitiveness. This reported was drafted in October. While electricity costs have reduced, this issue is of key significant to major manufacturers. For example, it is not enough to say to Intel we have a good supply. If the company is seeking green energy, the issue is security of supply and the fact the company cannot have an interruption. Concerns about the grid and so on are issues for major businesses. With the economy in recession this has become an issue of even greater concern to businesses. Energy efficiency and the development of renewable sources with incentives for integration must play an important role in maximising economic progress. Ireland has great potential in terms of access to wind and ocean energy resources. If the economy is to be competitive in the long term, these resources should be exploited. The grid of the future will need to accommodate decentralised fluctuating supply from renewable sources.
Transport emissions present one of the most significant challenges to meeting Ireland's emission reduction targets as well as to maintaining the competitiveness of the economy. Electric vehicles, increased use of rail freight, bio-fuels, effective and efficient public transport and incentives to encourage people to walk and cycle must be priorities.
The planning system will need to support the deployment of green technology, remove impediments to such systems as micro-generation or local combined heat and power and streamline the approval process of projects such as power generation.
Research and development and investment is the next topic. Ireland needs to position itself as a world-class research and development hub for new energy technologies as well as a location where the commercialisation and adoption of these and other technologies can occur effectively. In turn, Ireland could and should capitalise on its existing strengths as a global financial services centre and strive to become a world centre for low carbon finance and investment.
I will conclude by citing some of the recommendations for consideration by the committee, based on the issues identified in the report. As to the long-term policy framework, we should set a long-term binding national emissions reduction target for 2050, supplemented by an interim target for 2030 and additional shorter compliance period targets. The targets must be aligned to the latest scientific evidence. The establishment of a climate change commission, an independent expert body with a legal mandate and the resources to co-ordinate, review and develop Ireland's mitigation of and adaption to climate change, should be considered. A climate change business excellence centre, a platform that connects policy-makers, scientists, businesses and investors, must be created because those aspects are separated at the moment. The establishment of a climate change business excellence centre in Ireland, modelled on the UK carbon trust, should be considered.
For the past 18 months, Business in the Community has been working on the development of a corporate responsibility standard. This is a tool to help business to measure its corporate responsibility performance and obtain an externally verified recognition of their practices. Government support of the standard, through inclusion in procurement policies, would provide a strong signal and an important mechanism to drive responsible, transparent and sustainable business practices in Ireland which we believe will be critical to the future competitiveness of Ireland's economy.
The development of a planning policy statement on climate change should be considered, followed by action to ensure support of the development of green technology. The focus of the statement should be to streamline the approval process of projects such as power generation, with the burden of proof switching from the applicant to those opposing such projects. The establishment of a national spatial planning and transport authority should be considered to provide greater co-ordination of policy formation and implementation level between land use and spatial planning and transport systems.
The roll-out of the next generation broadband, which would include bandwidth, is critical not only to internationally competitive digital sectors but as a mechanism to facilitate emissions reductions as a result of decreased levels of employee commuting. Chairman and members of the committee, I strongly encourage you to review our report and engage with business in the process of policy development and formulation, to ensure Ireland demonstrates a clear strategy on climate change adaptation and mitigation and that business continues to see Ireland as a hub for high value services business. A consistent approach to support and incentivise business to move towards a low carbon economy is not a burden to be avoided in times of recession but rather a strategy to help businesses succeed in difficult times.
On a practical note, seeing is believing, and I extend an invitation to the committee to come with us to Intel to have a look at what some of the best in the class in the world is achieving in business. I ask the committee to consider my invitation and come back to us on it. I thank the committee for its time.
There is a vote in the Seanad and some members are absent.
I thank Ms Roche for her presentation. I am sorry there are not a few more members here but it is a busy afternoon for many people.
I welcome the initiative in which Ms Roche is involved, which is bringing business people together and proposing ideas and strategies with the intention of influencing Government policy and trying to lead by example in the green space. I agree with her final comments that people should not really see emissions as an obstacle to business growth. A whole new industry is developing around overcoming those barriers and it is providing very exciting commercial opportunities which could employ large numbers of people. The committee launched a report yesterday on electric vehicles. The Minister is also doing work in this area to transform how cars are powered. In 15 or 20 years, combustion engines will be consigned to history and we will be powering cars from the electricity grid and hopefully by renewable sources. There are many exciting actions we can take which the State should be doing anyway, regardless of climate change agendas or emissions, purely because it is a more efficient and cleaner way to do business.
With regard to energy costs and security, there has not been enough emphasis on energy costs as a result of the climate change agenda. There is an assumption that an increase in energy prices is good because it will force people to conserve energy and use less, and that this will reduce emissions, but that is flawed thinking. As a result of that kind of thinking, there has not been sufficient intense debate on reducing the cost of gas and electricity and we are paying too much. This has been the direct contributor to a number of companies deciding to leave Ireland because it is too expensive to do business here. There does not have to be a direct correlation between the cost of energy and energy usage, and that must be stressed by business to Government as well as to business, that it is not necessarily a good thing that the cost of heating one's home is rising. There are other ways to persuade people to conserve energy, apart from having purely price indicators.
I was interested in Ms Roche's point about the introduction of carbon-neutral taxes. I presume that is in the context of a carbon tax——
Ms Tina Roche
Yes, it is. It can be made neutral so that tax can be used for incentives.
I agree with that principle and I expect a carbon tax will be introduced in the next budget. To be fair, the people who have been pushing for a carbon tax are pushing for it for the right reasons but carbon tax will end up being used as a revenue-raising measure for the Government in the next budget because of the enormous deficit that needs to be closed and that is a big problem. Once a carbon tax is used for some purpose it was not put in place to do, such as to raise revenue for the Exchequer, one is in very dangerous territory. We are in danger of introducing significant carbon taxes and explaining the reason for them by saying we need to do something for climate change and to reduce emissions when it will be a revenue-raising tax. Businesses will suffer if that happens.
There are many useful suggestions here that the committee needs to go through. I would caution about new commissions, centres of excellence or authorities. There is an understandable move by Government at the moment to try to reduce the number of non-essential quangos. The capacity should exist within Departments and existing agencies to do some of the work mentioned here. For example, I agree with the establishment of a climate change commission in principle. However, we already have the EPA, SEI and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, all monitoring performance on climate change. Many people would argue that we already have too many bodies all contributing to the climate change debate and there is not one lead Department or agency making it happen. Perhaps the climate change commission should be that body. However, it should replace an existing body rather than being additional. In my experience the public sector and different State agencies are very efficient at doing what they are doing but are not particularly good at adapting and becoming something else. We could easily end up with yet another commission assessing climate change. The EPA has considerable expertise in measuring climate change, performance and so on, and it should be the body to do that.
The concept of a climate change business excellence centre is interesting and perhaps should be done as a business initiative rather than a Government initiative. Given the cost, that would be a very good contribution business could make. I agree on the need for spatial and transport planning. However, do we need to establish a new spatial and transport planning authority or could it be done under the aegis of existing Departments? We need to factor cost elements, efficiency and performance into everything we might recommend. I have been to the fore in proposing the establishment of a series of new State companies to achieve strategic aims in a range of these areas, including infrastructural development. We need to be careful about establishing expensive new authorities and agencies when we already have much expertise that is just not co-ordinated properly. However, I accept what Ms Roche says in that regard.
I believe Ms Roche can anticipate what I will say about broadband. It is essential for us to have a modern telecommunications structure that allows people work from home regardless of where they live. We heard the BT examples from earlier. It is possible to save tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon per year by simply allowing people to work from home and reducing travel. The same applies to conference calls and video-conferencing for meetings. We could do business in a far more efficient way. The platform to allow that to happen is a telecommunications infrastructure that not only provides basic broadband services but also next generation bandwidth to allow that to happen. We are a long way away from that. It is happening in towns and cities, but in large parts of the country it is a non-starter.
I thank the witnesses for attending. They have given us much to consider.
I am also very pleased that Ms Roche and Ms McCarthy came. This committee has been in existence a very short time having been established approximately 18 months ago. All parties from the Seanad and Dáil are represented. We approach matters on an all-party basis to try to find solutions to problems. We will watch with interest to see how that fits into Government policy in the future. We have already produced one of the things Business in the Community Ireland seeks in terms of renewable energy regarding offshore wind and wave power. We have produced our own legislation to establish a new process for dealing with planning and licensing applications and so on which we have presented to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. It would be a new concept for him to take over responsibility for this area. However, we as a committee feel he should do so.
In a very short period we have made progress in many of the areas that Business in the Community Ireland has mentioned. I share Deputy Coveney's view that it would be a shame to introduce carbon tax as a money-raising measure on its own. It would seriously damage the entire concept of bringing people with us in dealing with this problem. It must be seen to be a tax that will be spent to reduce carbon emissions and alter our habits. I sincerely hope the Government will see it that way. I accept that we are short of cash. However, to deal with this issue we must bring people with us. The power of one simply means people changing habits and co-operating. Without that co-operation and that way of thinking, we will all fight an uphill battle.
I am very pleased that an organisation like Business in the Community Ireland is showing that in dealing with one problem it is possible to save money in another way and it is not an imposition on business to take this on board. It is actually a saving for business in the long term, as well as dealing with the carbon problem. I hope this meeting will be one of many over the years and that we can work very closely together. I am delighted that the witnesses are here.
I simply echo the Chairman's remarks and welcome his thoughts. I have only read the executive summary, the first ten or 15 pages of the document. I will return to my office and read the entire document. Mainstreaming carbon is a major transformation. I see it in a sense being a parallel currency. I see the transformation as analogous to the transformation in eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those countries needed to change and understand how an open market worked. This is a similar process.
I share Deputy Coveney's concerns about setting up more bodies even though the programme for Government contained a commitment to a climate change commission. It may well be that mainstreaming carbon can be more effectively achieved through legislation and changes in each Department. For instance Ms Roche pointed out that the majority of the companies she represents measure carbon and are doing something about it. Would that I could say the same about each Department. However we need to ramp up the knowledge within each Department to realise that this will be a very real cost. It is already a cost, but it will become more of a cost on particular Departments. That is the focus of the discussion among my colleagues. I suspect that a climate change Bill could help us along that way as some NGOs believe. As I said to an earlier delegation, we are living through a phoney war at the moment where we talk a great deal about carbon but do not have that much of a price on it, certainly within the non-traded sector. Getting certainty is crucial and there is a major role for national Government in bringing more certainty to the process. I would like to ask a brief question about Ms Roche's dealings with Forfás. How does she rate Forfás's level of interest in, concern about and knowledge of the carbon issue?
Ms Tina Roche
Forfás is not one of our major partners. It has helped us with the national standard we are trying to push through. We try to do demonstration projects for business within business. Everything we have done has been part of our attempt to push the agenda at business level. Big businesses are trying to be extremely efficient. They are looking at the energy costs associated with their processes and their products. More and more companies are producing products that are having a really good bash at reducing energy. They often come up against a wall, however. If they do not know what will happen in the policy framework in the long term, they cannot know what to invest in next. No Irish business is big enough to handle some of the demonstration projects. I refer to carbon capture projects, for example. The Government needs to make a decision to work with big companies, such as Shell, to make that kind of thing happen. The agencies are not our immediate partners. We tend to focus on the business side. The first idea we had was to come here to talk to the joint committee. We want to ascertain whether there is any way we can work with the committee on these matters, for which businesses have an appetite.
I would like the Government to do something about green procurement. That is the big thing the Government, including the individual Departments, should be doing. That, without a doubt, is why we are focusing on the corporate responsibility standard. We are concentrating on companies that are the best in class at really driving this through the supply chain, etc. We are keen to mark them in some way so that people know that certain companies are excellent to deal with. Companies with this standard of excellence can drive similar standards through their supply chain. Ireland is wonderful in this respect. If one accesses the top 300 companies in Ireland, one accesses the vast majority of the supply chain. It is fantastic that we can make changes very quickly. Our counterparts in Britain have a much harder job than us. It is clear from the plastic bag levy and the smoking ban, for example, that things happen once we get started. We are very lucky in that regard. The policy is really important. When we finish with Copenhagen, we will all know what we have to do in the short term. When a price is put on carbon, that will force a lot of issues.
As a politician, I had limited knowledge of these issues before I became involved in this committee. I do not claim to be an expert now, but I know much more than I did 18 months ago. Therefore, progress is being made, as far as I am concerned. The real danger is to assume that people understand things. The language we use when we discuss these matters is important. The average punter knows very little about the causes of these problems, or about the sectors that produce the most carbon. We are trying to facilitate a public debate on this subject, at this forum and elsewhere. If people tune in, they will learn. We hope to produce simple reports that people can read. Young people in our schools and universities need to be encouraged. The next generations, including my grandchildren, will probably think the things we did were mad. I have listened today to the representatives of Business in the Community Ireland, who have met 80 chief executive officers, and British Telecom. When things are scarce, people have to make cutbacks. The organisations I have mentioned have a glorious opportunity to offer to make savings for people without damaging their businesses. That sort of thinking has to spread into Departments. I am convinced that a 10% reduction in administration costs can be achieved without getting rid of people. Vast sums of money can be saved straight away. The amount of waste that takes place is incredible. When things are good, people do not pay attention to these sorts of things. When money gets more scarce, everybody starts thinking about them. One of the very few benefits of the recession is that it gives us an opportunity to educate people in a simple way about how they can save money during this period in our history.
Ms Tina Roche
Perhaps we can work with the various Departments.
This is all part of the process of producing ideas. I will explain why we invited British Telecom to send delegates to this meeting. We met some young scientists. When we spoke to Ms O'Connor, we realised what her job involves. We felt that by giving exposure to what such people are doing, we might trigger the development of ideas in other businesses. They might consider how they approach working at home, etc. We need to reflect on the traffic jams we cause when we all go into work at the same time each morning. That sort of stuff is important. Why do schools open and close at a certain time? All that sort of stuff has to be examined.
The work the delegations are doing complements the work we are trying to do. It is matter of exchanging information between the various interested parties. If Business in the Community Ireland believes we can publicly promote one of its initiatives, its members are welcome to contact us and ask us to consider whether some sort of campaign might be appropriate. I agree that certain things can be said about individual Departments. We will say them in public. We will ask the Ceann Comhairle to examine any energy waste in the Oireachtas and to introduce measures, etc., if necessary. Some members of the Oireachtas staff have been assigned to undertake promotions and to educate people. Very few people understand that if one switches off a computer or a light when one leaves one's office, one can achieve significant savings. We have heard that British Telecom is saving vast sums of money. It is really an educational process.
I would like to respond to the invitation to visit a company like Intel. I would like to do that. I appreciate that we have a fairly busy schedule as the elections approach in the next five weeks. I would like to think we could take up that invitation at some stage.
Ms Tina Roche
If the members of the committee were to see these systems in action, I am sure they would really enjoy it. Some of the things we have been discussing, such as heat exchange, are being pursued at Intel. It is brilliant to see it working.
We will do that. We will keep in touch with Business in the Community Ireland.
Ms Tina Roche
I thank the committee.
I thank Ms Roche for attending this meeting.
Ms Tina Roche
It has been an absolute pleasure.
I hope it is the first of many such meetings.
The joint committee adjourned at 4.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 13 May 2009.