Housing targets do not chime with climate ones

There’s a near universal assumption here that the main cause of Ireland’s housing problem is supply, more precisely the lack of it. All sides – from Government and industry to Opposition parties and campaign groups – agree on the need to build more homes.

The Government’s flagship Housing for All strategy envisages a new-build rate of approximately 33,000 homes a year out to 2030. Depending on who you ask, we’re expected to hit 25,000-28,000 this year.

At the same time we are trying to reduce emissions from the construction/built environment sector by 51 per cent by 2030. It’s not obvious that these two objectives can be met without a radical departure from what we’re currently doing.

A report by the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) says that while the national retrofit programme will lead to a significant reduction in emissions, the construction targets contained in the Government’s National Development Plan and the Housing for All strategies will likely negate these savings.

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The report presents a few possible scenarios “to scope their future impact on overall emissions from the built environment”. The only one that meets the required target of halving emissions involves reducing the number of new homes that are built each year to 21,000, less than two-thirds of the Government’s build target.

It assumes that the shortfall can be made up by sourcing up to 124,000 homes from the existing stock of vacant properties; vacant commercial properties; “and the very extensive vacant space above retail premises or other commercial properties in our town centres”.

Whether that can be done or whether there is an alternative remains to be seen. Decarbonising the construction/built environment sector here, which accounts for 37 per cent of the State’s carbon emissions (the same as agriculture), is likely to prove a monumental task. It also seems to be on a collision course with the Government’s development plans, as the IGBC’s report makes clear.