The potential of the passive house standard to change the world isn’t restricted to tackling climate change – it’s about social justice too.

The first in-person event of the Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) since Covid, the 2022 AECB Conference, focussed on practical solutions to decarbonising buildings.

Organisations tackling the UK cost of living crisis and providing a new generation with the skills for green jobs have been recognised in this year’s international Ashden Awards.

The Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) has introduced a new retrofit standard catering for hard-to-treat homes and cases where homeowners want to take urgent action on climate change but are not currently able to commit to a deep retrofit.

Decarbonising buildings is “probably the most important issue” in the UK’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UK’s independent authority on climate change.

Do thicker insulated walls, triple glazed windows, & MVHR ventilation systems tip the scales unfavourably for passive house when it comes to embodied carbon?

As Russia weaponises gas exports, the European Commission has proposed a gas demand reduction plan, to cut use in Europe by 15 per cent until next spring.

The world’s first passive house hospital has been certified by the Passive House Institute – showing that the standard can be applied to even to the most demanding building types.

The AECB conference 2022 will focus on practical solutions to decarbonising buildings, with a particular emphasis on timber-based approaches with the potential to deliver low energy, healthy buildings at scale while minimising the use of precious resources and impact on the environment.

Latest climate report calls for more e� cient use of floor space in buildings

Green groups criticise lack of focus on embodied carbon.

The European Commission is proposing sweeping changes to the way in which energy ratings for buildings are allocated, in a bid to stimulate the retrofit of the worst performing buildings across Europe.

Passive House Plus editor and publisher Jeff Colley’s TEDx talk on the passive house standard is now available to view online.

The Welsh government has issued a new standard for social housing that requires an embodied carbon assessment, favours timber-based offsite construction, and bans fossil fuel boilers.

At COP26, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) recognised the UK’s Sustainable Development Foundation (SDF), along with South West College in Northern Ireland and the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre, as international centres of excellence for high performance buildings.

Coventry University research has found that 40 per cent of primary school classrooms examined in a study did not have an adequate ventilation rate to combat the spread of Covid-19.

The UK and Ireland’s oil heating industry says it has taken a “major step forward” in the use of biofuels in domestic oil boilers, with early tests concluding that hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) works in virtually all existing oil boilers.