A Healthy & Green Future

Digest all that occurred at the first virtual UK Passivhaus Conference with a quick summary from PHT Chair, Chris Herring.  

Thirteen years ago, I attended my first International Passivhaus Conference in the Bregenz opera house right on the shore of the Bodensee in Austria. There was only a handful of UK delegates at the conference, and in the final closing plenary the UK did not get a mention…we were literally not on the Passivhaus map. But I came away inspired and convinced that Passivhaus gave a way forward to achieving buildings that were truly low energy and that worked.

Jumping forward to now, the 2020 UK Passivhaus Conference just demonstrated how far we have come; a huge array of Passivhaus buildings on the ground, world-class technical expertise and a growing workforce – from design through to construction – able to comfortably work with the exacting Passivhaus standard.  Ten years ago, the UK had achieved a few pioneering Passivhaus projects. Just contrasting that with the level of technical expertise demonstrated and the scale of what is happening now was quite extraordinary, from large-scale housing developments in Glasgow, York and Ealing, to name just a few, to the ambition of some of the schools or the extraordinary St Sidwell’s leisure complex in Exeter. The growing UK Passivhaus community may not yet have achieved the level of ambition of the Bahnstadt in Heidelberg, or the complete city development in Gaobeidian in China, but from almost a standing start a little over 10 years ago it is quite an achievement.

 

So, there was certainly some reason for celebration at the conference and that is what was intended with the final Passivhaus Trust tenth anniversary celebration.  Looking back is important to take stock and to recognise what has been achieved by all of us involved with Passivhaus.  But in the end, it is looking forward that is much more important, and what the final panel and international presenters focused upon.

We may not know what will happen with Passivhaus over the next 10 years. But it is clear to anyone who understands what the Standard offers that learning the Passivhaus lessons needs to be at the core of our construction industry and the lessons need to be learnt urgently. 

Clara on Net Zero	Emma on Comfort and Hygiene	Jono on using less
Chris on demand reduction	Sally on retrofit	Jae on education

A further selection of snippets from the final panel.

 

Climate change is already happening, and if we are to mitigate its very worst impacts the next decade is critical.  It may well be the most pivotal decade in human history.  We know that demand reduction is an essential element of any solution – every piece of modelling which has been done demonstrates this.  With Passivhaus, we have demonstrated that we have the most effective demand reduction solution for the construction industry.  So, the challenge for all of us now is to make the difference and to get that message out there in any way we can.

 

Watch On-Demand

If you missed the live events, due to the online format this year, the entire conference proceedings have been recorded and are available to delegates to re-watch at their leisure. Tickets are still available to access all conference recordings here.

PDF presentation slides are freely available to all where speaker presentations have been granted. [Look out for the view slides link under each speaker in the online programme.] Do check out past conference presentation slides as well.

 

That there has been great work done and more to come and with education and engaging with the right bodies we can make huge changes. It’s one thing looking at newbuild, but the existing stock needs addressing is as equally important. I want to go over the seminars again as they were packed full of valuable information.

Anonymous Conference delegate

 

 

Further Information

2020 UK Passivhaus Conference: A Healthy & Green Future

12th December 2020

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