In January of this year, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications established a Heat and Built Environment Taskforce to accelerate and drive delivery in relation to retrofitting, renewable heat, district heat and decarbonisation of the building stock. The overarching aim of the Taskforce is to identify work on the critical path to key targets under each area, ensure alignment in the development of policies and activities underway across Government Departments, and proactively manage risks to ensure targets are achieved.
The Taskforce is chaired by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, and its membership comprises senior officials from Government Departments and agencies with retrofitting, renewable heat, district heating networks, decarbonisation of heating and operational energy use optimisation in the building stock related actions under the Climate Action Plan. The Taskforce’s Terms of Reference and Minutes of its meetings and objectives are available on gov.ie
My Department is represented on the Taskforce by senior officials from the Enterprise Strategy, Competitiveness and Evaluation Division including officials from the Climate Acton and Energy Policy Unit. Since its first meeting in March the Taskforce has examined a wide range of issues including District Heating, Anaerobic Digestion/Biomethane, Social Housing and Domestic Retrofit, Public Sector, Commercial Buildings and Green Skills.
As set out in the Taskforce’s Terms of Reference there are a number of working groups established to deal with specific tasks under the remit of the Taskforce. Of the six Working Groups, I have a particular interest in the Industry Working Group and the Commercial Built Environment Roadmap Working Group given my responsibility for the sectoral emissions in these areas as per the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021.
The Climate Action Plan 2023 sets out our level ambition for decarbonising the commercial built environment. A detailed roadmap is being developed, led by my Department and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, which is also supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research and Science, the SEAI and other agencies. This Roadmap will set out the key existing and new policy interventions to achieve the objectives set out to reach the targeted level of abatement from our commercial buildings.
The Commercial Built Environment Roadmap Working Group have met on three occasions since March and has discussed the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD), the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), relevant data availability, the elements to be included in the roadmap, and their approach to engagement with stakeholders. There are now stakeholder engagements scheduled, with sectoral representative bodies for sectors identified as having a high carbon abatement potential, including those from tourism and hospitality, retail, office users and also include commercial landlords.
The Working Group is scheduled to complete its roadmap for the Commercial sector by Q3 this year.
