International delegates attend summit on sustainable building

Over 150 officials from national and international governments, included Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien, have attended the Enniscorthy Forum’s summit on “securing real progress toward sustainable buildings”. At the summit, leading building practitioners explored how to decarbonize buildings and create “more resilient, liveable communities” and discussed the “need to act quickly . . . to deliver high performance buildings in order to meet the climate challenge and deliver on quality-of-life aspirations around the world”.

In his opening remarks, Minister O’Brien said, “The overall objective of the Enniscorthy Forum’s Buildings Action Coalition, to achieve high performance in buildings and the built environment rapidly and at global scale, strikes at the heart of the critical challenges we face. It is essential that all of these efforts lead to improved quality of life – that is, improved health, better economic, social, and environmental resilience, social justice, better levels of comfort, affordability, indoor and broader urban air quality. We are pleased to see Ireland take a leading role in advancing these principles globally.”

Jack Chambers, Minister of State at the Department of Transport and Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, observed that “nearly 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions are a result of the energy services that buildings require, services such as heating, cooling, and ventilating. We can add to that figure all of the embedded carbon in the materials that go into buildings and all of the transport emissions that are a consequence of how cities are designed and how mobility options are integrated.

“Engaging the world at community level to raise the performance of the buildings sector is an effective approach since we all live and work in communities and that’s where real differences can be made.”

The summit featured case studies from Brussels and Washington DC as capital cities, and from Pittsburgh and Glasgow as cities delivering quality of life in a post-industrial context.

Local councillor, Barbara Anne Murphy, who is the CEO of the Enniscorthy Forum, said, “One of the key objectives under the vision of the Buildings Action Coalition is to change the culture of the buildings industries. Enniscorthy Forum is undertaking to achieve that shift in culture not only through its networks of academia and centres of excellence, but also through engagement with youth organisations and use of the creative and performing arts to both teach and inspire youth on the principles of high performance.

The Youth Movement and Social Action League (YSL), and the Enniscorthy Forum signed letters of intent with the Youth Democracy Movement (YDM), the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU), the Commonwealth Students Association (CSA), and the Irish Second-Level Students Union (ISSU).

“One of the highlights of the summit was a gathering at Senan House, the first high performance commercial building in Ireland, for a presentation of technology innovations emerging from Trinity College of Dublin’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre,” said Cllr Murphy. “Participants then decamped to Enniscorthy Castle for a ceremony signing in new members of the Buildings Action Coalition.

“Getting buildings and the built environment right is the one thing that can deliver important, impactful results in a relevant timeframe. We don’t need to wait for nuclear fusion - we have the technology, we have the capital, and we have the know-how to make a real difference in the performance of buildings.”