Reflecting on our ‘Build Better Lives’ forum

It was a day that brought together insights from energy and housing policy experts, civil society organisations, as well as direct accounts of people’s lived experiences of energy poverty. On April 29th, we hosted the ‘Build Better Lives: Ensuring Decent, Affordable & Energy-Efficient Homes for All’ forum in Dublin, where we explored how Ireland can implement the revised EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in a way that meets our climate obligations while centering fairness and the right to a warm, affordable home.

The EPBD is the European Union’s legislative framework - which is slated to be implemented in Ireland soon - to achieve an energy efficient and decarbonised building stock by 2025. We delved, in particular, into how this legislation can help those left out in the cold, like renters, low-income households and marginalised communities. The intersecting themes that emerged during the day were that of decarbonisation, climate targets, energy poverty, social justice and human rights. 

Panel 1 - Setting the Scene: the EPBD in Context

Clare O'Connor, our Programme Coordinator-Heat, set the tone for the day by starting off with a brief introduction. She said, 

The places we live are not just structures, they are our homes, our communities, and they really are central to our wellbeing. But for a lot of people across Ireland, our homes are cold, damp and really expensive to heat. So when we talk about retrofitting our buildings, we are not talking just about reaching our climate targets—it’s really about making our homes warmer, making life better and ensuring this is the case for everyone in Ireland.

Climate justice and social justice cannot be separated, and without these conversations, climate policy won't be equitable and it simply won’t garner the public support that is needed, she said. 

The event brought to forefront discussions on how the EPBD is not just a technical EU directive that must be transposed, but also an opportunity to address housing inequality, energy poverty, and exclusion. 

What emerged as the day unfolded was that the EPBD implementation in Ireland must go beyond the “bare minimum” required of member states—that it must centre those most affected by poor housing and high energy bills: renters, low-income households, disabled people and minorities. Community groups and civil society are essential players in delivering a fair and effective transition and must have a say in the EPBD implementation.

Ciarán Cuffe, former Dublin MEP and Rapporteur for the EPBD in the European Parliament, our first speaker of the day, outlined the underlying reasons for the legislation as well as its objectives. “We're trying to ensure that all of Europe's buildings are improved—in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, providing healthier places to spend your time in—over the next 25 years. We want to achieve net zero by 2050.”

Why buildings? 40% of European energy is used in buildings. It’s one of the better ways of decarbonising Europe because over a third of the greenhouse gas emissions are coming from buildings in Europe and if we tackle buildings, we're well on our way to our climate goals. But there are co-benefits—the lower fuel bills if you're in a well insulated building, improvements in air quality…As we look at where our energy comes from - not just Putin in Moscow but oligarchs and dictators in the Middle East - energy independence is really important, so tackling buildings helps our energy independence, it helps (create) green jobs, and helps tackle GHG emissions.

Our next speaker, Colin Roche, our sister organisation Friends of the Earth Europe’s Climate Justice & Energy Coordinator, started off by reminding us of the responsibility of the developed world or the Global North. He shed light on the importance of adopting a justice lens in the energy efficiency venture. 

The 2050 target as per the IPCC report says that at a global level we need to be climate neutral by 2050. But that doesn't quite recognise the greater level of responsibility that we have in the developed world for causing the climate crisis. For developed countries like Europe and North America, we need to be moving much faster…In tackling the climate crisis, we need to put justice at the heart of the climate crisis. The most vulnerable households in particular need to be addressed in such a renovation wave. When we are looking at the Buildings Directive, we’re really looking at it with that lens—on the one hand, the level of ambition, and on the other hand, to what extent it’d leave no one behind…It’s vital that the poorest and the most vulnerable households are not left behind in this transition.

Panel 2 - From Policy to Warmer Homes: Delivering the EPBD in Ireland

Jerry Mac Evilly, our Campaigns Director, started off by reiterating Friends of the Earth’s overarching reasons to campaign on the topic of energy efficiency. 

Friends of the Earth got involved in this space not simply because evidently it’s vital to reduce emissions…—it's [also as we are] very much focused on the absolute scourge that is fossil fuel dependency. And the major concern that we have at Friends of the Earth - and we have been saying this for 2-3 years - is that we’re increasingly seeing that we may end up in a scenario where in 10-20 years’ time, you will have a significant proportion of communities and businesses who have made the move - who have warmed their homes, who have lower bills - but then a significant part of the population who are left dependent on polluting and extremely expensive fuels. So it’s not only the emissions aspect, but also the real social inequality risks that there are in all of this.

Georgina Molloy, Programme Manager - EPBD, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), then took stage, detailing what the delivery of the EPBD in Ireland would look like, and what it means for Ireland’s residential buildings. “The overarching aim of this revision of the directive is that all buildings in the EU would be zero emissions by 2050,” she said, whilst also adding that this means we need to define what a ‘zero emissions building’ is.

She detailed what some of the main impacts for residential buildings or homes would be: a new standard for new buildings; rescaling of BER scales; indoor environmental quality, technical assistance facilities or one stop shops etc. 

The first big project SEAI and the Government departments are working on is the rescaling of the BER scales, said Georgina. “It’s very important that it is communicated well to homeowners and financial institutions,” she added. “There will be a requirement for new residential buildings and major renovations to address indoor environmental quality,” she said. 

The key is there is no requirement on any individual home to renovate, but the requirement is on the state to bring up the average performance of the buildings and the key here is that every improvement counts.

Marion Jammer, head of policy and advocacy at Irish Green Building Council, our next speaker, addressed the role of Ireland’s National Building Renovation Plan and what they see at IGBC as the key things to be included in the plan. Supporting the vision of a fully decarbonised building stock by 2050; a clear description of the measures to be used; indicators on energy poverty, indoor environmental, inequality, skills etc.; the financial and technical resources needed to deliver the target etc., are some of the factors she outlined. 

Marcella Maher-Keogh, project coordinator for EcoVision (formerly Energy Communities Tipperary Cooperative), highlighted the importance of peer to peer communication, as well as demonstrating the benefits of retrofitting and climate action in our communities. In particular, Marcella highlighted the strength of community and the role of convincing others through word of mouth in accelerating energy efficiency programmes. EcoVision, for instance, started off with the first SEC (sustainable energy community) in Ireland, Drumbann, Co. Tipperary.

Panel 3 - Retrofits for Who? Ensuring A Just Housing Transition 

Laure De Tymowski, Research Assistant, Maynooth University’s Just Housing Project, described in detail their project which looks at inequalities associated with retrofitting and energy efficiency in housing in Ireland. She showcased photos from the social housing complexes that they’re basing their research on, which brought to light the stark reality of living in cold, dilapidated housing. The dire health ramifications borne by the residents is another aspect she shed light on. 

What was until then spoken about in terms of policies and regulations were further humanised and brought closer to our daily lives, when Anthony Doonan, a resident of Emmet Buildings, shared his experience of living in a cold, substandard home that’s in dire need of renovations, including retrofitting. As someone with existing health conditions, Anthony finds it particularly difficult to continue living in such cold, derelict conditions. Despite going to the City Council with a letter from his GP, he hasn’t seen anything done to address these pressing issues. 

I’m really feeling the cold, you know…It doesn't matter what we say, we had a committee there and…and then it's forgotten…and the rest of the complex needs attention, big attention big time. The children's playground has gone completely moldy. That needs to be done again. And there is moss growing all over it as well. 

We need to talk to this council. They need to be pushed, you know? They need to be pushed because they don't listen to the people.

Next up, we had civil society organisations joining the discussion. Vanessa Conroy, Project Officer, Feminist Communities for Climate Justice, spoke about how climate change is an exacerbator for existing inequalities. Women are disproportionately represented in deaths related to air pollution, which has links to carrying out care at home and what kind of fuel is used to heat, she said. 

“We want to see more women in these decision-making spaces so that their experiences and voices are actually heard and reflected in the policies.” Vanessa also illuminated how the definition of energy poverty is in itself not inclusive. 

How energy poverty is measured in the Government’s energy poverty action plan - using the household itself as a unit of measurement - is lacking because it means anybody outside of those traditional households are not properly accounted for in talking about energy poverty.

This includes people in direct provision, emergency accommodation, the Traveller community etc. 

We were then joined by Sara Hurley, our Global Citizenship Education & Outreach Officer, who described how we, at Friends of the Earth, through our Global Citizenship Education programme, are trying to reach marginalised groups and communities that might not be centred within the climate justice movement, in order to build a more diverse and inclusive movement for all that ensures that no one gets left behind. She went on to describe the ‘Roma Communities and Climate Justice: Tackling Energy and Heat Poverty in Ireland’ research we had published along with Cairde, which delved into into Roma experiences of heat and energy poverty in Ireland. 

Elena Manciu, Roma Climate Justice Peer Education Worker, Cairde, also spoke about this research, pointing at how the Roma community is mired in a vicious cycle of poverty and waste, with many of the respondents being grateful simply to have a roof over their heads even if the conditions were not always the best. For instance, a 26-year-old Roma woman based in Dublin, one of the many Elena spoke to as part of this research, said,

I’m happy because I don’t have to live in the hotel but my house is really in bad condition.

It was evident from their research that keeping accommodation warm enough was a significant issue facing the majority of respondents, with 68% of respondents expressing they did not have adequate insulation from the cold, including accommodation with serious problems with window insulation. The qualitative analysis showed more than one case where families were going to the extremes of putting blankets and tape over their windows and doors.

Our final speaker of the day was John Regan, Construction Sector Organiser of trade union SIPTU, who highlighted the needs for workers' voices to be centered in the just transition. The just transition funding should be ring fenced for workers, he said. 

We have a training fund in Ireland and we should be tapping into that. There is €1.6bn sitting there in the higher education dept untapped and not utilised which is absolutely disgraceful. It does absolutely nothing for the retrofitting agenda, it does absolutely nothing for housing, for the homelessness problems, but it sits there idle. That’s a pool of money that should be made available - apart from European funding - for upskilling and reskilling apprenticeships.

Redundancies will result from the transition and therefore funds for upskilling are central, he reminded. 

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