Irish news - passivehouseplus.co.uk

Before it was halted until January 2021, the Grenfell Tower inquiry heard a series of damning testimonies on the culture towards fire safety within leading building material manufacturers and certification bodies in the years leading up to the fire.

The need for decisive movement on deep retrofit has never been more pronounced, given the twin needs for urgent, radical action to tackle the climate crisis and jobs-intensive stimulus at a time of great uncertainty caused by the pandemic. In the following statement, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment sheds light on its progress in delivering on the government’s deep retrofit pledges.

Simon Bell of the Passive House Association of Ireland outlines how the organisation can help clients, professionals and suppliers to deliver the passive house standard.

Diageo has chosen developer Ballymore as its partner to deliver the transformation of 12.6 acres of its iconic St James’s Gate site into the first “zero carbon” district in Dublin.

The Cosgrave Group, ESB and SSE Airtricity Energy Services, are among the finalists in the SEAI Energy Awards 2020.

A landmark legal case may give tenants the chance to discover if their building poses a lung cancer risk, Passive House Plus can exclusively reveal.

The government is building cross-party retrofit commitments to ensure a long-term and continuous programme of retrofit work, Passive House Plus has learned.

ABK Architects has received planning permission for 597 homes at Shanganagh, Co Dublin, the overwhelming majority of which will be passive houses. The project has been developed in partnership with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and the Land Development Agency.

'Mannok' has been unveiled as the new identity for Quinn Industrial Holdings, a name which the company’s familiar brands Quinn Building Products and Quinn Packaging will transition to in the coming weeks.

CO² levels in rooms and other enclosed spaces should be used as a proxy for Covid transmission risk, a number of leading experts have said, as the evidence increasingly points towards airborne transmission being a major factor in the spread of the virus.

New regulations over the last decade have substantially cut operational energy use in buildings, and with more building product manufacturers now publishing environmental data on their products, now is the time to move towards in-depth life cycle assessment to reveal the full environmental footprint of our buildings, Pat Barry of the Irish Green Building Council tells Passive House Plus.

Over the past couple of months, the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) has been focusing on helping those in the industry to upskill during the lockdown.

The Department of Housing is considering short-term changes to ventilation requirements under building regulations due to the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the construction sector, Passive House Plus has learned.

Tipperary Energy Agency has secured significant new EU funding to further the development of its domestic retrofit programme, SuperHomes Ireland. The latest version of the scheme, dubbed ‘SuperHomes 2030’, is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 programme. The new programme will run for three years.

The National Insulation Association of Ireland (NIAI) has published guidelines on how home retrofits can safely re-start in the age of Covid-19. Construction activity recommenced in Ireland on 18 May.

Passive house veteran Barry McCarron has just taken over as chairperson of the Passive House Association of Ireland for a three-year term. But he believes the unique convergence of national and international events makes 2020 particularly critical for delivering a sustainable built environment.

The digital edition of Passive House Plus has seen a significant increase in readership during the Covid-19 crisis, in addition to the magazine’s marketleading print circulation.

The European Commission has adopted the EU’s new circular economy action plan, a major part of the European Green deal. The action plan aims to make the EU economy produce more durable, longerlasting, repairable consumer products, and maximise the use of recycled material.

The World Health Organisation is set to imminently publish revised guidance on ventilation as part of its Covid-19 infection prevention and control (IPC) guidance in healthcare settings, Passive House Plus has learned.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a €600,000 funding opportunity for Irish innovators to develop and demonstrate business-ready solutions for the circular economy.

The proposed programme for government agreed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party contains a commitment to upgrade at least 500,000 homes to a B2 energy rating by 2030, among a series of commitments on the built environment.

Daikin Ireland is running a new regular series of online CPD webinars to enable remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. The latest dates for June webinars have just been announced.

Saint-Gobain Technical Academy has announced the launch of its new online academy, which the company says will “continue its commitment to equipping building professionals with key knowledge about the sustainable building agenda as well as the vital skills needed to deliver it”.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has launched its annual SEAI Energy Awards and is calling on climate action champions to showcase their achievements. Now in their 17th year, the SEAI Energy Awards recognise and reward excellence in sustainable energy in business, community, research, buildings, renewables and public sector.

The airborne transmission of COVID-19 may be a risk in enclosed spaces with air recirculation or poor fresh air ventilation, with one study concluding that airborne transmission may have occurred in 48.3% of people in a poorly ventilated office and 34.3% of passengers on an air conditioned bus.

An Post has announced the launch of a new "green hub" providing end-to-end project management and money-saving advice for all levels of home retrofitting, along with a low-cost loan rate. The state-owned company said that this one-stop-shop approach will cover loan-only or full retrofit services, from initial home assessments to completed works, along with SEAI grant application and payment process.

To ensure anyone who wants to read Passive House Plus can do so easily during this challenging and disrupted time, we’re making the new issue of the magazine completely free to read, both digitally and in print. This edition is essential reading for anyone interested in how to design and spec out low energy, sustainable buildings.

Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo have developed a new procedure for recycling concrete with the addition of discarded wood.

RIBA has published a new in-depth guide to the Enerphit Standard, the Passive House Institute’s benchmark for retrofit projects.