The third annual Greenbuild Europe conference will be held in Dublin on 24-25 March 2020, at the Croke Park conference centre.

Minister for finance Pascal Donohoe TD announced the World Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) Forum at government buildings recently, to be held in Dún Laoghaire on 13-14 November.

The Goldsmith Street development in Norwich has become both the first social housing scheme and the first passive house certified project to win the Stirling Prize, British architecture’s most prestigious award. 

The 23rd annual International Passive House Conference takes place outside of Europe for the first time ever this year, with the Chinese city of Gaobeidian hosting the event on 9 to 11 October. This year’s conference was rescheduled after originally being set for 21 and 22 September.

Energy Action is hosting its eighth annual Fuel Poverty Conference in Dublin on 21 October 2019, at the Croke Park Conference Centre. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton TD will open the conference.

Local authorities across the UK are starting to embrace the passive house standard by formally encouraging its use in their planning policies and local area plans. This follows confirmation from the government last year that councils were entitled to set higher building energy efficiency standards locally than is mandated by Part L of the building regulations.

Durkan Residential are set to break ground this month on one of Ireland’s largest passive house schemes to date, Rockfield. Situated on Church Road, Killiney, the scheme will comprise 47 units, including 15 generously proportioned 171 m2 houses, 16 duplexes averaging 115 m2, and 16 ground floor units averaging 80 m2 each.

Bank of Ireland has unveiled a suite of green loans and interest rates to encourage home owners and businesses to be more energy efficient. The new initiatives include a green interest rate discount for borrowers buying or building energy efficient homes, and a green home improvement loan for energy efficiency retrofits. Businesses, including farmers, will also be able to access reduced interest rates for investment in energy saving improvements.

Imagine you are a business owner in a changing, Willy Wonka-esque world wherein you have to entertain two extreme ends of your market to satisfy clients.

Rights allowing the conversion of commercial buildings into dwellings, without planning permission, are potentially creating unhealthy living conditions.

Significantly more new homes (16.5%) were built in Ireland in the first eight months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 – with double digit declines in Dublin cancelled out by strong growth in the rest of the country, new analysis by Passive House Plus indicates.

Researchers from the School of Physics at NUI Galway are seeking to recruit 100 households to measure indoor environmental air quality within Irish homes that have been built to be highly energy efficient, by deploying remote sensors within the homes.

Washington State University researchers have developed an environmentally friendly, plant-based material that they claim works better than polystyrene foam for insulation.

The pressure to build large volumes of additional housing in response to the housing crisis is driven by false logic and risks undermining both the quality of new homes and UK carbon targets, according to Richard Tibenham, lecturer in building physics at the University of Lincoln and director of Greenlite Energy Assessors.