The Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) is piloting the CO2 Performance Ladder to empower local authorities in cutting their carbon emissions through purchasing decisions. The new tool offers a user-friendly and affordable framework to make implementing a green procurement strategy significantly more straightforward.
The IGBC is running the two-year pilot programme in collaboration with the Foundation for Climate Friendly Procurement and Business – Stichting Klimaatvriendelijk Aanbesteden en Ondernemen, SKAO to bring this tool to Ireland. SKAO is the owner and manager of the CO2 Performance Ladder.
In a year marked by record-breaking temperatures, with the construction and the built environment matching agriculture’s 37% share of Ireland’s national emissions[1], urgent action to decarbonise this sector is no longer optional, according to the IGBC.
Ireland’s Climate Action Plan 2024 stresses the public sector must lead by example on climate action. While each local authority must reduce greenhouse gas emissions across its assets and infrastructure, they must also take on the broader role of reducing emissions throughout their jurisdictional area through collaboration.
In Ireland, public bodies spend an estimated €18.5 billion a year on goods, services and works. This provides Ireland’s public sector with significant influence to stimulate and actively encourage the provision of more resource-efficient, low-carbon, less polluting goods, services and works in the marketplace.
April 2024 saw the Irish government launch ‘Buying Greener: Green Public Procurement Strategy and Action Plan 2024-2027’, signalling a strong commitment to embedding green and circular procurement practices.
Embedding Green Public Procurement (GPP) into local authorities’ practice can be challenging and time-consuming. The CO2 Performance Ladder offers a user-friendly and affordable framework that makes implementing GPP significantly more straightforward.
The ladder has been employed in the Netherlands since 2009 and is recognised as best practice in green procurement by several bodies like the OECD, the World Economic Forum and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Over 300 contracting authorities in Europe, including local authorities, ministries, and other semi-public bodies, already use it in their tendering processes.
The Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) is piloting this tool, offering Irish local authorities a powerful new instrument to address climate change through their purchasing decisions.
Transport Infrastructure Ireland, for example, has already integrated the ladder as a GPP tool into the tender document for the M7 Kildare bypass pavement project, leading to a significant reduction in project emissions.
[1] Irish Green Building Council – Building a Zero Carbon Roadmap (2022)