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Highlights from Our Opening Statement to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate.

The Rediscovery Centre, Ireland’s National Centre for the Circular Economy, was invited to present our vision for the future of consumer durables to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate in June this year. Our CEO, Dr. Sarah Miller, alongside our Policy & Research Director Claire Downey highlighted key areas where Ireland must take urgent action to promote circularity through reduced consumption, enhanced reuse and repair targets, and the vital role of social enterprises. 

This month, the Joint Committee published its Report on the Circular Economy. We wholeheartedly welcome this report, and in particular its key recommendations for the development of the circular economy across Ireland into the future. We were grateful to have participated in shaping some of the report’s recommendation and delighted to see broader recognition of the Rediscovery Centre’s work on a national scale.

Our Statement

Below is a summary of the key points we shared during our session to the Joint Committee.

Reducing Ireland’s High Consumption Rates

One of the primary challenges we outlined is Ireland’s high consumption rate, which is significantly above the European average. Our Circular Material Use Rate (CMUR)—the ratio of recycled materials to total material use—currently stands at a mere 1.8%, the second lowest in the EU. Research carried out by the Rediscovery Centre, funded by the EPA, shows that is primarily due to high economy-wide consumption levels, particularly relating to construction materials and biomass, and low recycling rates compared to other regions. Further studies from the CTC, Rediscovery Centre and CRNI show that for areas like textiles, consumption is alarmingly high, with each person consuming an average of 53kg of textiles annually. Recently published studies, such as Ireland’s Circularity Gap Report, sheds more light on these trends. But it is already clear: we need to dramatically reduce our consumption of consumer durables if we are to meet our environmental goals.

Ambitious Targets for Reuse and Repair

Ireland has introduced bold national targets through the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022, particularly in the area of reuse. The current target is to achieve 20kg of reused materials per person, a figure that requires a significant twofold increase from current levels. In our statement, we highlighted the success of reuse initiatives at the Rediscovery Centre, where we’ve reused 55,000kg of materials over the past three years—saving 120,000kg in carbon emissions. However, more needs to be done on a national scale. We emphasized the importance of addressing barriers to repair, such as the decline in repair skills. Furthermore, issues like insurance challenges for repair cafés need to be overcome to promote repair as a mainstream solution.

Supporting Social Enterprises as Circular Economy Leaders

Social enterprises are crucial to driving Ireland’s circular economy forward. These organizations, including those supported by CRNI, operate about half of all second-hand outlets in the country and are pioneers in circular business models. We stressed to the Committee that Ireland’s approach to supporting social enterprises in this sector is unique in Europe and should be safeguarded as the circular economy grows.

Recommendations to the Committee

In our statement, we made a number of recommendations to the Committee for consideration.

The included recommendations on engaging citizens, creating the enabling environment for prevention, reuse & repair, and investing in prevention, reuse and repair infrastructure and systems.

Citizen Engagement

Irish citizens need to be informed, enabled, and encouraged to transition toward more sustainable lifestyles. To that end, we were proud to highlight our national citizen engagement project supported by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, which will raise awareness and provide access to circular economy solutions. Outcomes from this work include communication campaigns, research and insights, citizen engagement and the development of a national gateway platform for the circular economy.

Policy Priorities

However, economic models and policies also need realignment to create an enabling environment for prevention, reuse & repair in Ireland. We urged the Committee to explore financial incentives, such as tax benefits, repair bonuses, and reduced VAT rates, to help level the playing field and promote sustainable consumption. We pointed out the success of similar schemes in Austria, Germany, and France, which offer valuable lessons for Ireland.
Furthermore, Green public procurement strategy is a positive step for large-scale circular procurement. However there remains a significant opportunity to support circularity, reuse and repair for consumer durables at small scale, below the €50,000 threshold. We highlighted the need for all new legislative or policy measures to be carefully assessed to ensure they support and enable a circular economy and the existing reuse and repair sector.
We also stressed the importance of the Community Services Programme, which has enabled social enterprises in the circular economy to build capacity in reuse and repair and highlighted the opportunity to extend the scheme to support further growth in the area.

Reuse & Repair Infrastructure

Finally, we highlighted to the Committee the importance of investing in Reuse and Repair Infrastructure. Ireland must prioritize infrastructure ranging from sorting infrastructure and warehousing, to collection systems such as door to door services, equipped reuse and repair workshops, circular shopping centres, lending retail outlets and online platforms. Without this investment, we will struggle to meet our ambitious targets for reuse and repair.
Our work with CRNI in textile reuse has already identified a significant lack of back-end infrastructure like sorting and storage facilities, which hinders our ability to reuse more materials. Our EPA-funded research on paint reuse has already led to the development of the Paint Reuse Network, which services 25 Civic Amenity Sites and has reused 65 tonnes of paint since 2021. These projects demonstrate the potential impact of properly supported reuse initiatives across the country.

 

From the Report

The Rediscovery Centre was happy to see that, across 47 recommendations, many of the Rediscovery Centre’s points were taken into account. This includes 

  • Recommendation 14 on financial support for social enterprises, including a recommended reduced VAT rate, reduced commercial rates, tax benefits and the implementation of reuse bonus schemes. This recommendation includes a proposed analysis of how reuse and repair organisations can access insurance and product liability at affordable levels.
  • Recommendation 15 on the development of reuse and repair infrastructure
  • Recommendation 18 on extending GPP into smaller public contracts
  • Recommendation 20 on upskilling in reuse and repair
  • Recommendation 22 on the use of reused paint across public contracts
  • Recommendation 26 on mapping out subsidies, taxes that could enable a circular economy
  • Recommendation 31, on supporting social enterprise to participate in public procurement, and the pooling of particular skewing costs like insurance.

The Rediscovery Centre was happy to see the role and impact of the Centre commended in the report in our ambition to curb consumption rates. In particular within the section on Consumer Durables where the work of the Centre is referenced no less than 9 times.

By implementing these recommendations, Ireland can drastically reduce consumption, meet its reuse and repair targets, ensure that social enterprises continue to thrive, and also position ourselves as global leaders in the circular economy.

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