For anyone interested in climate action, the government’s commitment to halve Ireland’s emissions by 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 was one of the highlights of the year. But we won’t reach this objective focusing exclusively on energy efficiency — we must turn our attention to cutting embodied carbon too, and this wil be a major focus of the Irish Green Building Council's Better Homes conference next Friday, 27 November. 

'Mannok' has been unveiled as the new identity for Quinn Industrial Holdings, a name which the company’s familiar brands Quinn Building Products and Quinn Packaging will transition to in the coming weeks.

ISO CHEMIE’s WINFRAMER thermal insulating and load bearing bracket support system for the rapid installation of windows, has gained British Board of Agrement (BBA) certification.

BIMcert’s innovative training platform for the construction industry is now open. The new platform is live with temporary free training for all.

A new property development company in the north-west is putting the passive house standard at the heart of its business. Leeds-based Pure Haus is currently embarking on its very first project, a scheme of two high-specification houses in Oakenshaw, Bradford that will be built to the passive house standard, and is designed by architects ArkleBoyce.

Simply Architecture, and their new build residential project ‘The Fairways’ in Cork, has been named the winner of the 2019 Overall ISOVER Award, as well as being named Designer of the Year 2019, at the third ISOVER Awards.

Achieving NZEB, a one-day event that aims to make it easy for the building industry to understand how to achieve nearly zero energy building (NZEB) standards, will take place this Thursday, 30 May in Youghal, County Cork.

Property Bridges, a new “peer to peer” property investment company that aims to connect small-scale investors and local developers, has announced the launch of its first investment opportunity — a passive house project in Dublin. 

Passive House Plus has launched a beta version of its new content-rich web platform for the sustainable building sector, Marketplace+.

At SEAI's 2018 deep retrofit conference, there are signs that action to overhaul Ireland's outdated, inefficient building stock is gradually moving forward 

Leading passive and low energy building contractor Bow Tie Construction is looking to recruit site supervisors and builders in the Dorset and Hampshire areas.

In this blog post, Devyn Olsen-Sawyer of the Irish Green Building Council reviews Ireland's recently complete QualiBuild programme, which upskilled Irish construction workers in low energy building techniques.

The Passive House Academy, in association with Saint-Gobain, will run a Passive House Tradesperson course on 21 and 22 October at the Saint-Gobain Technical Academy in Erith, Kent. The course will cover passive house design principles, U-value calculations, thermal bridging and airtightness, insulation materials, passive house glazing, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery systems, and much more.

There is a great urgency, as Europe moves closer to the 2020 energy efficiency targets, to develop a skilled workforce that can work together to deliver low-energy projects. One EU initiative, Build Up Skills, has been designed to “stimulate the training of craftspeople and other on-site workers in the building sector on the topics of energy efficiency and renewable energy.”

This article, originally published in 2012, details the Irish building industry's history of opposition to higher standards.

The government has announced that it plans to invest over €1.5 billion in local authority housing up until the end of 2017.

The first delivery of the QualiBuild Foundation Energy Skills training will start later this month, and the course is open to all building construction workers to apply.

Passive House Plus analyses Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council's plan to make the passive house standard mandatory for all new buildings in the district. 

Saint Gobain, the global building materials supplier, has announced that it will donate €100,000 to the Peter McVerry Trust. The money will be used to refurbish six apartments in a disused building on Pim Street in Dublin 8. The project will be complete by February 2015.

Nearly a third of construction professionals did not know about the nearly-zero energy requirement for all new buildings by the year 2020, according to a survey of Passive House Plus readers.

In this blog post, Paul Doran recalls the challenges and lessons of building a low energy home on a tight budget for his family. 

The number of certified passive house designers and consultants has passed the 4,000 mark globally, after the latest round of exams were held in more than 30 countries across Europe, North America and Asia. 

Last week's Better Building conference in Dublin heard from experts speaker on the present and future of the construction industry in Ireland. Topics at this year’s conference pushed the building industry to think beyond energy efficiency and consider full life cycle costs of materials, transportation issues, and living buildings.

The Passive House Institute has announced the finalists for this year’s Passive House Award. The winners, across six categories, will be announced on 25 April at the International Passive House Conference in Aachen, Germany.

The UK’s Passivhaus Trust will hold a conference on large scale passive house developments on 30 April in Glasgow.

AIB has announced the launched of a €350m “new homes development fund” that it says will support the construction of new homes in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The bank is inviting applications from “borrowers who can demonstrate prior experience in residential development”.

The International Passive House Days, during which passive buildings around the world open their doors to the public, took place this year from November 8-10. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the event.