The Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) is recruiting an executive director in what the organisation describes as a rare opportunity to shape the future of sustainable construction in the UK

Industry leaders will gather at University of East Anglia in September to share practical insights on creating buildings that prioritise environmental performance without compromising design quality or occupant comfort.

In recent years, the drive to reduce the embodied carbon of buildings has led to a resurgent interest in timber and other biobased building materials. But peering into the future, if we are to think not just about carbon but also land, water, and regenerating nature, how might we build to meet our essential needs, and what might we build with?

By Lenny Antonelli and Andy Simmonds

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.

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.

In recent years, as energy efficiency targets for new buildings have tightened, attention has turned to cutting the embodied carbon of buildings by switching from materials like concrete and steel to lower carbon alternatives like timber. But if we are serious about solving the ecological emergency as well as stabilising the climate, we must look even further than embodied carbon, and think more deeply about the core values we apply to materials and buildings, and the manner in which we use them.

By Lenny Antonelli & AECB CEO Andy Simmonds

This inspiring project may be exactly what the deep retrofit sector needs: an example of how to turn a bog standard, cold suburban home of little architectural merit into a climate champion delivering outstanding levels of energy performance, comfort and health, all while transforming the building architecturally.

Tim Martel of Optimal Retrofit describes recent advances in PHribbon, an Excel tool designed to improve the functionality of the passive house design software PHPP.

The Environmental and Sustainable Construction Association (Éasca) is merging with the Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB), the two organisations have announced.

In the current policy vacuum, many questions have been raised about the future of sustainable construction. Despite this uncertainty, there is a steady growth of interest in the AECB Silver Standard, writes architect Mark Siddall.

The AECB (Association for Environment Conscious Building) has invested over five years of extensive research to put together a unique online advanced retrofit training course, which brings together a wealth of knowledge on low energy retrofit and methodology.

Passive House + has been widely praised for its editorial content, technical information and the relevance of its advertising in a survey of AECB members.

The AECB, the Association for Environment Conscious Building, is hosting a number of passive house courses this spring – ranging from courses to become certified passive house designers to “bite size” training sessions for designers who wish to familiarise themselves with the standard.