Passivhaus Perspectives: Training a sector to build quality that performs

This Passivhaus Perspective brings you insights from our PHT Patron, Coaction Training CIC. Read their take on how growing public awareness of high-performance buildings presents a critical opportunity for the construction sector. With proven standards, established knowledge, and accessible training pathways already in place, the focus must now shift to building the skilled workforce needed to deliver performance at scale.

Passivhaus Perspectives: Emma Braun, Coaction Training CIC - March 2026

“Awareness of better buildings is growing fast. The challenge now is ensuring the industry has the skills to deliver that performance, consistently and at scale.This is no longer a question of what works. It is a question of whether we have the skilled workforce to deliver it, every time.”

Emma Braun, Head of Training, Coaction Training CIC

The moment Passivhaus went mainstream and why it matters for everyone in construction.

Something shifted earlier this year. In February, Guy Martin, a motorcycle racer, truck mechanic and self-confessed energy efficiency obsessive, walked viewers through a nine-month Passivhaus retrofit of a 1930s semi in Stretford, Greater Manchester. House Without Bills aired on Channel 4 and landed not as a niche technical documentary, but as a piece of genuinely popular television. People watched. People talked about it.

That matters. Not because prime-time TV changes building standards overnight, but because it signals where the national conversation is heading. Energy bills remain volatile. The performance gap between what buildings are designed to achieve and what they actually deliver is becoming impossible to ignore. And the homes that will exist in 2050, roughly 80% of them, are already standing. Retrofit is not a policy aspiration. It is a structural necessity.

Passivhaus provides a proven route to addressing this challenge. What the programme showed, whether it was the Stretford semi, the world's first Passivhaus church-to-home conversion in Northumberland, or the energy testing rigs at Salford University's Energy House 2.0, is that this standard is not radical. It is rigorous. Comfort, reliability and dramatically reduced running costs are the outputs. The input is skill. And skill is exactly what the sector lacks at scale.

Nick Grant & Guy Martin talk efficiency. Image credit: J Woodroffe, North One TV

Why training is the lever that moves everything else

The Passivhaus Trust has set an ambitious target: training over 50% of the UK construction industry to robustly deliver certified Passivhaus buildings. It is an ambitious objective, and a necessary one. A building can be designed to Passivhaus standard and still fail to perform if the people building it don't understand what they're working towards, or why the details matter.

This is not a criticism of the industry. Airtightness, thermal bridging and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery are disciplines that require knowledge, and knowledge requires investment. In our experience, the performance gap that affects so much of UK housebuilding is rarely a failure of ambition. More often, it is a training deficit that, if left unaddressed, exposes teams to compliance risks and misses opportunities to future-proof skills.

At Coaction, addressing this skills gap is exactly why we exist. We are a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Our 21 trainers are all practising industry professionals who are working on live projects right now and who understand what it takes to deliver on site, not just on paper. That distinction matters when what you are learning must translate into action in the real world.

We share the Trust's ambition completely. Getting the UK construction industry to deliver quality that actually performs, that is the mission. Training is the route there.

What's on offer and who it's for

Two courses illustrate how this knowledge can be developed in practice.

For anyone involved in commissioning or procuring buildings - Building Performance for Clients.

This is a new course, and it addresses something often overlooked: the performance of a building is largely determined before a single brick is laid. The decisions made in the earliest stages of a project, the brief, the team, the procurement approach, set the trajectory. If those decisions don't actively support high performance, no amount of good design or skilled construction can fully compensate.

The course is short (three hours, online) and full of practical advice. It is aimed at project managers, development officers, cost consultants, planners, and procurement leads - the people who shape projects before the technical specialists arrive. It covers how to set a clear performance ambition, build a team that is aligned behind it, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that push even well-intentioned projects off course. It is standard-agnostic, which means it is relevant whether you are working towards Passivhaus, AECB Standard, LETI, or any other recognised framework.

For those on the tools and on site, the Certified Passivhaus Tradesperson.

The Guy Martin programme made visible what experienced contractors already know: achieving Passivhaus airtightness is not magic. It is method. The challenge is not that it is technically impossible; it is that without the right approach, what Nick Grant, a longstanding Coaction trainer, memorably calls "a grammar of airtightness", teams default to complexity and run into problems. With the right rules understood and embedded, it becomes reliable.

The Certified Passivhaus Tradesperson course is the internationally recognised qualification for construction professionals who want to develop that capability. It is rigorous, practical and recognised by the Passive House Institute. For contractors building (or planning to build) to Passivhaus standard, it is the credible route to demonstrating competence, to clients, certifiers, and to the wider supply chain.

Full details of dates, costs, and available funding, including CITB grants of up to 50% for eligible organisations, are at coaction.org.uk. Funding support is available for many courses, see the funding page for details. A range of other Coaction courses are available across design, delivery, and retrofit.

Sally Godber training contractors. Image credit: Coaction Training CIC

Delivering buildings that perform as intended is entirely achievable... What matters now is building the workforce capable of delivering it at scale. People at every level of the industry who understand not just what Passivhaus requires, but why, and how to get it right every time... That is what training does... Shared knowledge. Shared language. A sector that stops treating performance as a specialist concern and starts treating it as the baseline.

Emma Braun, Head of Training at Coaction Training CIC

The bigger picture

The enthusiasm generated by House Without Bills is an opportunity. It has reached homeowners, landlords, councillors, and procurement officers who may never have attended a Passivhaus conference but who now understand, viscerally, what high-performance buildings can deliver. That awareness needs to be met with capability.

Delivering buildings that perform as intended is entirely achievable. The standard exists, the knowledge is available, and the training pathways are established. What matters now is building the workforce capable of delivering it at scale, people at every level of the industry who understand not just what Passivhaus requires, but why it requires it, and how to get it right every time.

That is what training does. Not just credentials, though those matter. Shared knowledge. Shared language. A sector that stops treating performance as a specialist concern and starts treating it as the baseline.