The Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) is urging governments, businesses, consumer groups and NGOs to come together to create plans for how Ireland will cut emissions from existing buildings, in order to meet the Paris Agreement.

The call also comes from its umbrella organisation, the World Green Building Council, as the countdown to an EU deadline for the plan approaches, and follows the signing of the Paris Agreement by world leaders in New York recently.

From 30 April 30, Ireland will have one year to submit its 'national renovation strategy'.

Existing buildings currently account for approximately 30 per cent of Ireland's total carbon emissions and ensuring they are as energy efficient as possible will be key to help meet the Paris Agreement. Experts widely agree that despite the large number of initiatives aimed at tackling this problem, the rate and depth of renovation is insufficient to meet long-term climate targets.

Last month, the Irish Green Building Council, along with 12 other European Councils officially launched BUILD UPON. The project aims to create a renovation revolution across Europe, by establishing renovation strategies that involve and align the thousands of actors and existing initiatives tackling building renovation in the region.

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Pat Barry, Executive Director of the IGBC, said: "Those in industry and civic society who feel strongly about the role of buildings to meet our climate goals can influence and help develop a strong and ambitious Government renovation strategy for buildings over the coming year. The Build Upon dialogue process provides stakeholders with the structure to do this. Unfortunately many are not even aware that Government have to submit this strategy next year, so they need to wake up and grab this opportunity."

James Drinkwater, Director of the WorldGBC's Europe Regional Network, added: "Emissions from existing buildings are one of the biggest climate challenges facing Europe and curbing them will be absolutely critical if we are to meet the ambition of the Paris Agreement. Europe is doing a huge amount on energy efficient renovation, but it's not adding up to the results we need because of a lack of coordination.

"BUILD UPON has begun convening a major policy dialogue process with organisations, from governments and local authorities, constructions companies and product manufacturers, to energy providers and banks, who are joining forces to tackle this issue. In Ireland, a high level workshop focusing on large scale deep renovation in the commercial buildings sector took place in Google on Tuesday 12 April. This was the first of six Building Renovation Workshops to be organized across the country.

"The EU's Energy Efficiency Directive requires Member States to submit long-term strategies to mobilise investment in renovating existing residential and commercial properties, but to date, the full investment potential is far from being realised. Investor groups have called for clearer long-term renovation targets as policy-makers in Brussels debate revisions to the EU's main climate and buildings laws; the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and Energy Efficiency Directive."