ESG Summit 2024

Our colleague Darina Heavey was delighted to attend the ESG Summit at Croke Park earlier this week. It was a day filled with serious conversations, insightful discussions, and inspirational presentations.

The summit aims to highlight the latest ESG trends and showcase what businesses and individuals can do to achieve ESG goals.

Net zero target will cost now, but the costs will be significantly higher if we don’t bear them now. Costs  of inaction will be significantly higher. The financial sector is crucial in channelling funds to finance this. – Yvonne McCarthy –

Here are some takeaways from the event.

Ireland is laying good groundwork for our Sustainable future

• Funding is being made available for retrofitting homes, lower priced loans are available for any sustainability actions being taken on your property.
• By 2050 all houses will be electric, smart homes and generating our own electricity for our own use, if not before.
• Unlikely we will have cars as we will be calling mobility units to transport us wherever we wish to go.
• Ireland has abundant resources to support our sustainable future with access to marine, technology, and wind.
• Yvonne McCarthy, Head of Climate Change Unit in the Central Bank is warning of significantly higher costs in the long term if we don’t embrace the change now. The financial sector is crucial in this, and the central bank will support the channeling of funding to finance this action in the short term.
• The planning process in Ireland has to catch up with the changes to put the infrastructure in place. They are taking too long to approve the location of wind farms and other Sustainability measures needed.
• Les O’Reilly Head of Sales with HP talked about the fact that the accreditation process is becoming very important. So much so that if you do not have certain accreditation, you will not be able to tender for business from the public sector.
• Stephen Tummon, Sustainability Programme Manager DPD, discussed the fact that 95% of their CO2 emissions come from their fleet and they are on track to switch 100% of their vehicles to EVs by 2030, with 30% of their vehicles done already. Dublin, Belfast and Kilkenny are ‘Green cities’ already with all of their vehicles doing short city journeys converted to EVs.
• Enda Buckley, Head of Sustainability from Carbery Food Cooperative, confirmed that 90% of their Cooperative emissions are coming from Scope 3 emissions. There are a number of initiatives being implemented to future proof the farmers as suppliers. This is being done through the use of special fertilisers which is lowering emissions, and the use of special breeding systems.
• Andrea Carroll, Head of Sustainability with DAA is anxious to hear more talk about the procurement process in companies. They are the gatekeepers in establishing the sustainability of products. This needs to be embedded in the company’s tender process.

Even if your company is not yet within Scope, all companies dealing B2B will have to collect data in order to comply with the demands of your customers need to report under CSRD. No matter how small your company is you need to start collecting data now. – Marie C. Donnelly –

Well done to all involved!

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