By Dan Walsh
Enniscorthy Forum hosted the second summit of its Buildings Action Coalition with the theme “Metrics of Success: Securing Real Progress Toward Sustainable Buildings”, bringing together officials and staff from both national and international government, policy experts, and leading building practitioners to explore how to decarbonise buildings and create more resilient livable communities.
The Enniscorthy Forum was established to support the United Nations’ sustainable development agenda, focusing on Buildings and the Built Environment, Energy, Diplomacy, Health, and Education.
In his opening remarks, the Minister for Housing, Local Government, and Heritage Darragh O’Brien noted; “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 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.”
For various times over the course of three days, 150 participants joined the summit either in person or online to consider issues and opportunities related to buildings and the built environment.
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% 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 the embedded carbon in the materials that go into buildings and all of the transport emissions that are a consequence.
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.
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. Participants then decamped to Enniscorthy Castle for a ceremony signing in new members of the Buildings Action Coalition. In addition to the letters of intent signed with the YSL, new members included MosArt Passive House Architects based in County Wicklow and Centre for Energy Efficiency EnEffect based in Sophia, Bulgaria.
In her concluding remarks, Barbara-Anne Murphy, CEO of Enniscorthy Forum, noted “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.”
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