The Irish INDICATE Pilot aims to influence national whole life carbon policy
The INDICATE Pilot in Ireland is demonstrating the value of collaborative research in shaping national whole life carbon (WLC) policy as Ireland moves toward implementing new regulatory requirements.
Stephen Barrett, WLC Projects Lead at the Irish Green Building Council and a key contributor throughout the pilot's duration, explains how the INDICATE Pilot is set to influence Irish policy and why initiatives like INDICATE are crucial for advancing WLC assessment across Europe.
A foundational dataset for Ireland’s WLC future
More than 50 building assessments originally completed using the INDICATE methodology will now be reworked using the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s (SEAI) WLC methodology. This SEAI methodology is set to become a national requirement under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directives (EPBD), making these reworked assessments critically crucial for Ireland's regulatory transition.
This collection of assessments will form a foundational dataset that addresses three key objectives:
Identify carbon hotspots across different building types
Understand differences between design approaches and their impact on WLC
Verify new WLC assessments, with outliers flagged for deeper analysis
A collaborative achievement
Running from 2022 to 2024, the Irish INDICATE pilot brought together a consortium of leading Irish organisations committed to advancing WLC assessment. The partnership included:
Although the Irish pilot has now formally concluded, its impact continues to drive meaningful change in Irish building policy and practice. The reworking of assessments using the SEAI methodology represents a tangible example of how pilot projects can bridge research and policy implementation.
The pilot's success also reinforces the value of the broader INDICATE LIFE project's approach: supporting national pilot teams to develop context-specific solutions while sharing learnings across Europe to accelerate the mainstreaming of WLC assessment.
Learn more about the INDICATE Pilot.
Read the national policy brief developed through the Irish pilot.