The Land Development Agency (LDA) is committed to the development of homes that enable healthy lives in connected, sustainable communities on State lands. Sustainable communities are measured in environmental, social and economic terms. The evolving LDA Sustainability Strategy establishes the framework for realising these ambitions which derive from the LDA’s core values and commitments in it’s Strategic Plan & Vision document.
To support the development of our sustainability strategy and develop a clear understanding of our impacts the LDA is focused on optimising the balance between the three main pillars of sustainability:
- Environmental (lower carbon homes)
- Social (in the right locations located near services, amenities & public transport) and
- Economic (affordable purchase and cost-rental options)
In order to track our progress and understand the ways in which we can improve the delivery of affordable, sustainable communities we have adopted the IGBC Home Performance Index (HPI) as our primary sustainability assessment methodology and applied it to all LDA projects. The adoption of HPI provides us with a consistent set of sustainability indicators aligned with National Standards, the EU Levels framework and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). Understanding our impacts provides us with the evidence base to support and inform the initiatives required to meet the challenges of the future.
The LDA continuously monitor and appraise best practice approaches to sustainable development. We are active in promoting industry wide change to a more sustainable future through research & the support of initiatives such as the Carbon Designer for Ireland. This free to use tool, developed by the Irish Green Building Council has been made available to all industry professionals in Ireland to measure the whole life carbon impacts of their buildings at early design stage and supports the objectives of the Climate Action Plan to reduce the embodied and whole life carbon impacts of buildings.
The LDA will provide regular updates on our progress towards a more sustainable future on our website, social media channels and through our annual reports.