As electricity decarbonises, the case for switching from fossil fuel boilers to efficient use of electricity to heat buildings via heat pumps has become overwhelming. But in markets like the UK where electricity is far more expensive than the European average, and people on low incomes may be chronically underheating poorly insulated homes, could a drive to electrify heating exacerbate energy poverty?

Peter Rickaby looks back on an extraordinary career, the challenge of convincing people of the need for a new approach to buildings, and the people who helped him to do just that.

One of Europe’s key climate breakthroughs came in the form of the EU’s nearly zero energy building target, as Dr. Marc Ó Riain explains in the latest part of his series on the history of low energy building.

The construction industry is moving in great numbers towards the passive house standard. In an adapted version of a speech at the Construction Industry Federation Conference in September, Passive House Association of Ireland chair Caroline Ashe Brady looks at the trek ahead.

Recent analysis has suggested a slowdown in the property sector for 2024, but what impact might a drop in inflation have? Mel Reynolds runs the numbers.

Advances in building physics in recent years are leading to an ever-increasing understanding among experts of the risks that a litany of pollutants can pose to building occupants. But this has not stopped vulnerable people from living – and dying - in substandard buildings that exacerbate these risks. Urgent action is needed, Toby Cambray explains, to better communicate and decisively tackle the risks buildings can pose to their occupants.

How flexible can heat pumps be to handle what may be inexactly defined heating demands, asks Toby Cambray?

In the latest missive in his series on the history of low energy design, Dr Marc Ó'Riain looks to some wacky and wonderful experimentation in a project that aimed to transform public perception of Milton Keynes.

To kick start the new year, have a listen to co-founders Jeff Colley and Dan Hyde on what they've learned in the 20 years since our first issue came out.

The energy crises of the 1970s did not prompt a major shift in Europe from foreign oil and gas towards energy efficiency and renewables. Will we learn this time around, wonders Dr Marc O Riain

There has been a sleuth of recent reports on how to retrofit Britain’s existing homes, but we must think deeper than the practical matter of reducing energy and carbon, to how we create beautiful places to live, writes Peter Rickaby.

Marc O Riain explores how policy on both side of the Atlantic in the 1980s sabotaged a nascent revolution in renewables and energy conservation.

As the stringent fabric-first, low energy standard enters its fourth decade, Guy Fowler asks what sort of impact it has made on the world, and where it should go from here.

While there is much debate about whether we should prioritise retrofitting homes or installing heat pumps, the climate crisis means we may not have a choice but to do both as fast as possible, writes Toby Cambray.

Insulating our homes is critical and must be our first priority, but how do we get the rest of the way to zero carbon? Dr Peter Rickaby investigates the options…