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Support Line
1800 140 244
9am – 5pm
Monday - Friday
Fundraising queries
+353 1 823 0776
9am – 5pm
Monday - Friday
National Head Office
+353 1 823 0776
9am – 5pm
Monday - Friday
More Info

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Sustainability

The sustainable development of housing and support services in Peter McVerry Trust is an important element of our work. As a national housing and homeless charity, and an Approved Housing Body, we recognise our responsibility to ensure the environmental sustainability of our activities.

In light of this, we have committed to consistently reviewing and progressing actions to reduce our carbon footprint.

As members of the Irish Green Building Council, Irish Council for Social Housing and a Supporting Organisation of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, our goal is to;

  • work collaboratively and efficiently to improve the energy efficiency of our building stock,
  • make the best possible use of our outdoor spaces in terms of biodiversity and conservation, and
  • work to decarbonise our energy sources and transport fleet.

As part of our Strategic Plan 2021-2025, we are committed to ensuring on-going sustainable organisational development. This includes reviewing and progressing actions to improve the environmental sustainability of our activities in light of the global climate emergency.

Our Housing

Peter McVerry Trust is Ireland’s leading advocate for action on empty homes, derelict sites and underused spaces. The reusing and repurposing of old and vacant buildings increases our housing supply, tackles dereliction and revives urban centres. It also creates a smaller carbon footprint.

 

New Street South is a great example of Peter McVerry Trust reusing vacant sites for the purposes of social housing. The scheme is our first brownfield project and developed a long-term, vacant DCC site to deliver eight high quality housing units comprised of five one-bed apartments and three two-bed apartments.

 

The property was built to the highest energy efficiency standards, with a green roof and top-quality building materials and insulation. This resulted in cheaper energy costs for our tenants, and less carbon emissions into the environment.

 

Home Performance Index

 

The Home Performance Index (HPI) is Ireland’s national certification for homes, measuring a home’s standard of design, construction and environmental sustainability. Developed, managed and reviewed by the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC), the HPI is specifically designed for residential development.

It is aligned with the Irish Building Regulations, EU CEN standards, the International WELL certification for communities, and the EU sustainable buildings assessment and reporting framework. Peter McVerry Trust is committed to working closely with the IGBC and acquiring HPI certification where possible on our new build, major renovation and retrofit projects. The organisation also welcomes the HPI’s version 4, which has new standards for retrofits and refurbishment housing projects.

 

Our Services

Community Centres Investment Fund

Peter McVerry Trust operates an Information and Advice Centre, and Youth Café at Berkeley Street, Dublin 7. This was Ireland’s first Youth Café for children and young people who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness. In 2022, we were delighted to receive funding from Pobal’s Community Centres Investment Fund for a complete energy efficiency upgrade of the Centre and Café. These works will be carried out in 2023. Peter McVerry Trust are looking forward to partnering with Pobal and the Department of Rural and Community Development on this so that Berkeley Street can continue to provide a safe, positive, and sustainable space for young people

Learning Centres

Peter McVerry Trust’s Learning Centres work with young people who cannot access mainstream education due to a number of circumstances. Last year, students in our Learning Centres took part in a sustainable food programme.

 

In collaboration with GIY, the classes learned about the care and commitment needed to produce food and the importance of not wasting it. They also engaged in the growing of pollinator-friendly flowers and herbs to learn about pollinators and their vital role in producing our food.

 

This learning is inspired by the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan and forms part of our efforts to make our outdoor spaces more pollinator friendly. The sustainable food project was a huge success, and we would like to extend our thanks to GIY and Meta for making it possible with their onsite assistance and funding. We look forward to running the program again in 2023 to continue our commitment to the All-Ireland Pollinator plan, and support students in learning about sustainability and key life skills.

Research

We are currently working alongside Arup, a global leader in engineering, on a general carbon and sustainability assessment of our housing stock. This will inform more environmentally sustainable decisions going forward.

 

A focused investigation into repurposed or retrofitted buildings will also enable us to calculate the total carbon savings generated through the reuse of vacant and derelict buildings. We are looking forward to publishing the results of this research in Q1 of 2023.

Circularity

CMEx

Peter McVerry Trust is proud to be part of a pilot scheme called Construction Materials Exchange (CMEx), in partnership with the Irish Green Building Council and a young and innovative Dutch company, Excess Materials Exchange (EME). CMEx is a digital platform where Peter McVerry Trust can register and exchange building materials and waste streams between projects, so as to maximise the potential of excess materials and products that often go to landfill.

CMEx’s vision is a world without waste, and demonstrates our commitment to advancing the circular economy agenda.  Peter McVerry Trust is delighted to play a pioneering role in our ambitions to manage building materials and components more sustainably. The use of CMEx, made possible by the Irish Green Building Council and EME through funding provided by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, will help us to systematically document, plan and exchange reusable building components, enabling us to minimise our waste stream.

Furniture Reuse

As part of our sustainability and circular economy agenda, Peter McVerry Trust pride themselves on reusing quality furniture from across the country. We have recently acquired a new storage facility to make this mission more achievable, so that we can keep a constant stream of second hand and preloved furniture flowing into our new and retrofitted housing stock. This means less furniture is going to landfill, and PMVT benefits from major cost savings when kitting out our houses to turn them into sustainable and life-long homes.

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Energy

In 2022, Peter McVerry Trust reassessed our organisational energy supplier, and went with one that focuses on renewable energy generation. As a result, 100% of Peter McVerry Trust’s domestic and non-domestic electricity now comes from renewable sources.

Energy Masterplan

 

Peter McVerry Trust is delighted to announce that we were granted funding on the 28/06/2022 by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to complete an organisational Energy Masterplan. With Retrokit as our expert Energy Consultants, we will assess where energy is consumed, where it can be saved, and opportunities for transition to renewable energy.

 

Through the Energy Masterplan, Peter McVerry Trust want to be able to identify priority areas for energy upgrade and retrofit, so that we can have a focused list going forward of the most urgent sites in need of upgrade or retrofit works. We would like our stakeholders, staff, service users, supporters and the wider public to know that we are committed to sustainability in the social housing sphere, and we are working hard to reduce our carbon footprint and while doing so provide comfortable, affordable and sustainable housing solutions with the hope of ending homelessness in future.

 

These outputs will benefit Peter McVerry Trust by resulting in better quality and more energy efficient homes for our service users, reduced carbon and heating emissions from our housing stock and services, and increased awareness of our work to be a more environmentally sustainable organisation amongst our supporters and stakeholders

Sustainable Development Goals

 

Sustainable Development means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In 2030, the United Nations published their most ambitious agreement, signed by 193 countries including Ireland, to end poverty, protect the environment and strengthen human rights. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals form a vital part of this agreement, and Peter McVerry Trust is delighted to have been chosen as a member of the Irish SDG National Stakeholder Forum Committee (gov.ie – Sustainable Development Goals (www.gov.ie).

 

Through our position on the SDG Stakeholder Forum Committee, Peter McVerry Trust will play a key role in achieving the SDGs, facilitating open and inclusive engagement with multiple stakeholders, and developing collaborative partnerships to support the SDGs. The last Stakeholder Forum meeting took place on the 17th January, 2023, and focused on the theme of “Leave No One Behind”. Peter McVerry Trust are proud to represent those most vulnerable and marginalised across Ireland and uphold their rights to full inclusion in society.

SDG National Stakeholder Forum Committee

Partners

We’re working with a number of partners across Ireland to achieve our sustainability goals.

Reusing empty homes

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