"Architects have a responsibility to design safe and healthy homes."

In the UK we have to design to the Building Regulations, but it is worth highlighting that the Building Regulations are a minimum standard for Health & Safety. They are not a quality standard. Building to the Passive House Standard and achieving certification provides quality assurance.

There is evidence to suggest that many new houses do not perform as perdicted. There is a "performance gap". The Passive House standard includes stringent requirements for both design and construction, therefore achieving Passive House certification can elimate the "perfomance gap". 

"Architects have a responsibility to design sustainable buildings."

We are facing a climate emergency. Climate change is now accelerating. The evidence is that we are experiencing more extreme weather such as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes and flooding. 

In December 2015 the United Nations signed the Paris Agreement to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2°C, and pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5°C. It is now widely agreed that we must limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. To achieve this the European Commission aimed to be "net-zero" by 2050.

The worlds most polluting industries are 1. Fossil fuels to provide power, 2. Transportation, 3. Manufacturing and construction, 4. Agriculture and meat production, 5. Food retail and food waste, 6. Fashion.

Taking into account the extraction and transportation of building materials, construction processes and everyday operations, buildings are estimated to emit about 40% of global emissions.  The construction sector needs to use more sustainable materials, use local materials, reuse materials, but also improve the energy efficiency of new buildings.

"We need to build with sustainable materials."

In the UK alone, annual construction output requires 170 million tonnes of primary materials and products, 125 million tonnes of quarry products, and 70 million tonnes of secondary recycled and reclaimed products. Manufacturing and delivering these products consumes 6 million tonnes of energy and generates 23 million tonnes of CO2. And 30% of all building materials ends up as waste!

"We need to build less and build better."

Designing to the Passive House standard will ensure that our new buildings will produce less carbon emissions. Certifying new buildings will ensure that they are built to the Passive House standard.