One stubborn trope in some corners of green building is that passive house is so focused on energy performance that its advocates ignoring materials. Not so, argues Toby Cambray.

Our efforts to retrofit homes across the UK and Ireland will be severely hampered unless we engage meaningfully with and empower women homeowners and professionals, writes Ellora Coupe, founder of Her Retrofit Space.

In the latest piece in his series on the development of low energy building, Dr Marc Ó Riain describes the evolution and Impact of EPCs in Ireland and the UK.

New and tightening sustainability requirements are hitting the construction sector at an increasing pace. Irish Green Building Council membership engagement officer Lenny Antonelli goes through the main requirements – and offers clues on how to keep ahead.

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.

As the grid gets greener and the case for heat pumps as a decarbonisation silver bullet becomes increasingly compelling, questions are starting to be asked about how far we need to go with retrofitting building fabric – or whether we need improve fabric at all. We ignore fabric at our peril, warns Toby Cambray.

Near the peak of the Celtic Tiger – at a time when developers were throwing up often sub-standard homes at a record pace, one self-build project pointed to a different approach, writes Dr Marc Ó Riain.

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.

With 2023 being the warmest year on record, and construction and the built environment accounting for 37 per cent of Ireland’s national emissions, urgent action is needed to decarbonise our sector – and a green public procurement tool has the ability to help unlock transformative change, as Irish Green Building Council programme manager Rachel Loughrey explains.

It’s fair to say that green building wasn’t a thing in early 90s Ireland, which makes one extraordinary Dublin project from 1994 all the more remarkable, as Dr. Marc O Riain writes.

Shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2003, BedZed was a prominent example of architecture starting to pay attention to sustainability. But how well did it work? In the latest part of his series on the history of low energy architecture, Dr. Marc O Riain looks back at a landmark project.

In the face of an affordability crisis, first time buyers of new homes are being offered a cocktail of incentives to help them get on the property ladder, including the government’s Help to Buy and First Home schemes. Mel Reynolds asks: are these the solution to the affordability crisis?

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.

Healthy Homes Ireland (HHI) has published a series of recommendations for the improvement of indoor environmental quality (IEQ), including the creation of a cross-disciplinary national leadership body that will advocate for change and set goals.

The scale of the retrofit challenge facing the UK and Ireland will require an army of tradespeople to upgrade homes – leading many to the conclusion that a new retrofit industry needs to be built from scratch. But is a more realistic answer staring us in the face – a thriving existing industry of trusted local tradespeople, asks Dr Catrin Maby OBE.

One zero carbon energy source has historically been vehemently opposed by environmentalists. But can nuclear power overcome the high-profile failures of its past, asks Dr. Marc O Riain, or has the technology missed the boat?

While significant progress continues to be made on reducing the carbon emissions associated with heating and powering buildings, the other part of whole life carbon calculation, embodied carbon, has proved more elusive. But that may be about to change, and quickly, as Stephen Barrett of the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) explains.

The spectre of high rise and reduced spacing between homes may cast a proverbial and literal shadow over new homes, if an anticipated government policy comes to pass. Mel Reynolds asks: could passive house offer a new route to achieving higher density without reaching for the skies?

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

Mass timber comes into its own in terms of decarbonising tall buildings, which tend to rely on high embodied carbon materials such as steel and reinforced concrete. But regulatory change is needed to enable mass timber to fulfil its potential, as IGBC head of policy and advocacy Marion Jammet explains.