JOINT IHEEM NI AND ROI 2022 CONFERENCE
A ‘decade for delivery’ on carbon reduction in focus
Speaking immediately after the first day’s keynote at May’s joint IHEEM Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland Branch conference in Dublin, William Walsh, CEO of the Sustainability Energy Authority of Ireland, described some of the key partnerships, and the ensuing benefits, that the SEAI has forged with the HSE to support the latter’s drive to reduce the carbon footprint of the country’s public sector healthcare estate.
As with the opening keynote speaker, Dean Sullivan of Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), who presented immediately before him, the SEAI’s William Walsh was introduced to the conference audience by IHEEM’s Republic of Ireland Branch Chair, Bill O’Reilly. He began: “The theme for today’s conference is ‘Delivering sustainable healthcare estates’, and that concept of delivery is important, because this is indeed a decade for delivery, and many of us here in this room will drive it. I want to go deeper into the partnerships that will achieve this, such as our partnership with the HSE. The title of my presentation today is thus ‘SEAI and the HSE: Delivering sustainable healthcare estates’. I’d like to thank IHEEM, and Paul (Fenton, IHEEM’s President) and Bill and their teams particularly, for the opportunity to speak, because the HSE and IHEEM are very important stakeholders for SEAI.” William Walsh explained that SEAI’s key objective was ‘to collaborate with others to drive climate action, helping our public sector partners find their decarbonisation pathways’. He added: “SEAI and HSE work closely together through our Public Sector Partnerships in delivering sustainable healthcare estates.”
The healthcare sector’s impact By way of context, he went on point out that the healthcare sector is responsible for almost one-fifth of the overall public sector energy use, and for almost 40% of demand for fossil gas, within the sector. He said: “The demand for fossil gas is primarily for heating healthcare facilities, making both the sector and HSE important stakeholders for SEAI.” He told delegates he would now focus on ‘the public sector track record’, i.e., ‘What has been achieved to date, and how did we achieve this?’ He said: “We have delivered on our national energy challenges, beating the 2020 target set, and saving the state €1.86 bn in avoided energy use over the life of the public sector programme.” The public sector in Ireland had also, he
explained, achieved a 34.1% improvement in energy efficiency against the target
Left to right: William Walsh, CEO of the Sustainability Energy Authority of Ireland, IHEEM President, Paul Fenton, and IHEEM ROI Branch Chair, Bill O’Reilly, at the Dublin event.
2020 target of 33%. William Walsh said: “Over the last number of years ‘Ireland Inc’ has been set many targets. When this 33% target was set back in the early 2010s, it was seen as just as ambitious as the targets we now look to for 2030 and 2050, but it was achieved – through the good work of our public sector, the Energy Managers, and the organisations within our public sector. However,” he continued, “we must not rest on our laurels; this is just the start, and now we must push on to 2030 and beyond, and much more urgent and meaningful action is required.”
‘Engaging and collaborating’ The speaker said the ‘necessary actions’ were set out in the (Government of Ireland’s) Climate Action Plan 2021, and aligned with emission ceilings in the forthcoming sectoral budgets. He said: “The second way in which we work is engaging and collaborating; the public sector has achieved its collective target through effective collaboration, such as through our Public Sector Partnerships to reach these targets. Working together,” he continued, “we’ve avoided over 6 million tonnes of carbon. We set up the Public Sector Energy Link – a network of all public sector Energy Managers across Ireland – to share ideas and best practices.” SEAI highlights these achievements in its annual Public Sector Report. The
‘third way of working’ was ‘through leadership’ – which had been underpinned by the Public Sector Energy Efficiency Strategy, developed by SEAI and its parent department. He said: “This enables the buy-in of Secretary Generals from each Government department and their respective agencies.”
Strong management buy-in from the start The HSE had been one of the organisations ‘leading the way with strong management buy-in’ from the start. While he said the good work undertaken with the HSE from the early days warranted recognition, the need now was ‘to transform the way that energy is used across the public sector’. Even with its collective expertise, the sector didn’t, he acknowledged, ‘have all the answers’, but it could nevertheless use the knowledge gained over the past 15 years, build on it, and ‘continue to collaborate to achieve the targets set for 2030 and beyond’. William Walsh’s next slide was titled
‘Ambition and climate targets’. Ireland was – he argued – ‘setting an example for the world’, by setting the strongest climate action targets in the history of the country – importantly, ‘linked to science’, and ‘some of the strongest, most challenging, and ambitious, in the world’. He said: “The 7% per annum average emissions
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