Building a Greener Ireland: How the Irish Green Building Council is Changing Construction

‘If you want green buildings, work with what you have’

Reducing the carbon impact of our buildings will involve both building more efficiently and making the most of our existing buildings. That’s according to the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC), a non-profit organisation working towards sustainability in the built environment, and one of many projects that has been funded by the Circular Economy fund.  

The IGBC aims to help the Irish building industry to become more sustainable by influencing policy, through education and by providing tools to measure and drive progress.

According to the IGBC’s latest report, “the greenest building is often the one that already exists,”. The report also highlights that up to one third more carbon is used in building homes on greenfield sites, than  on previously developed sites. This is mostly due to the additional infrastructure of roads, car parking, landscaping, water infrastructure, lighting and so on.

Working with the buildings and sites we already have is circular, because it helps to “Minimise the need for producing new materials through the reuse of resources, tackle one of the root causes of emissions: waste.,” said Irene Rondini, Communications Lead and Biodiversity Support Officer at IGBC.

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‘Vacancy, dereliction and demolition of existing buildings should be reduced’ - Irish Times

Image Credit
Eco Park in Clay Farm, a development by Park Developments
Sourced from Irish Green Building Council