Why Irish County Councils Must Rethink Material Movement and Emissions Reporting — Before It Becomes a Liability
As environmental regulations tighten and public scrutiny rises, Irish county councils are facing a new and complex challenge: how to confidently and legally verify the movement of materials and emissions across their construction and maintenance projects.
For years, the industry standard has relied on paper dockets, manually completed spreadsheets, and assumed emissions factors passed up the chain from subcontractors. But those days are coming to an end.
The Legal Shift: Councils Are Now Accountable
Under Section 32 of Ireland’s Waste Management Act, the legal responsibility for how materials — including spoil, demolition waste, and even inert fill — are handled, transported, and disposed of sits with the client, not the contractor. That means the county council itself is ultimately accountable for ensuring the proper tracking and traceability of material movements.
Even when subcontractors or third parties carry out the work, the duty of care cannot be outsourced.
With this in mind, it’s no longer just about operational efficiency — it’s about legal exposure. Councils that can’t produce a clear, verifiable record of where materials came from and where they ended up may find themselves in breach of environmental law.
The Sustainability Mandate: CSRD and the GHG Protocol
On top of legal requirements, regulatory standards are evolving fast. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) — now in force across the EU — demands transparent, auditable reporting of Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions.
This includes:
Emissions generated by haulage and subcontractors
Waste-related carbon output
The carbon impact of material sourcing and disposal
Many councils continue to rely on estimated averages and paper-based processes to capture this data. But these approaches are increasingly being seen as greenwashing by omission — not out of intent, but due to a lack of infrastructure.
The Operational Reality: Spreadsheets Can’t Keep Up
Let’s be honest: spreadsheets, even with the best intentions, are not fit for the kind of traceability that CSRD and Irish law require.
Manually entered data is prone to:
Inaccuracy (missed loads, incorrect figures)
Manipulation (intentional or otherwise)
Opacity (limited visibility for auditors or procurement teams)
What’s needed now is real-time, journey-level traceability — a system that can tell you:
What truck moved what material
From which site, to where
At what time, over what route
And what the carbon cost of that journey was
A Better Way: Hub360 and Real-Time Traceability
At Hub360, we’ve built a system that provides exactly that.
Used by forward-thinking local authorities, Hub360 tracks material movements and associated CO₂ emissions in real time, using telematics and smart workflows tied to individual journeys, projects, and load types.
This enables councils to:
Meet CSRD reporting standards with confidence
Ensure legal compliance under the Waste Management Act
Modernise procurement and contract oversight
Avoid reputational risk tied to unverifiable emissions data
Drive meaningful sustainability reporting — not estimates
The Bottom Line: Responsibility Can’t Be Outsourced Anymore
Whether for legal protection, compliance, or genuine sustainability leadership, councils now need to move beyond manual processes and estimated averages.
Responsibility now rests with the public body, not the subcontractor.
Hub360 exists to support this shift — and to make audit-ready traceability simple, scalable, and defensible.