Camden's gold star Passivhaus opportunity

Camden has just been named best council in the country based on its Audit Commission corporate assessment. So you might think I’d be happy. Well of course I am. And proud. But I’m worried that the new school in Swiss Cottage and the proposed new civic offices in Kings Cross will not be exemplars in terms of energy efficiency. I’m worried that we’re missing a golden opportunity to prove that we are the best council in the country.

Our draft Local Development Framework (planning rules) says that developers should aspire to the Passivhaus standard, which was devised by German engineers more than 20 years ago as a way to create buildings so energy efficient that they don’t need central heating. Thick walls, triple glazed windows, the warmth of human bodies and electrical appliances - these are all you need in a Passivhaus building.

I recently went on a Passivhaus tour of Frankfurt, where all public buildings have to be built to this exacting energy efficiency standard. My colleague Cllr Paul Braithwaite has just returned from a similar trip to Austria where several regions now require new buildings to be Passivhaus. And last week Cllrs Abraham, Oliver and myself (see photo below) attended a packed Passivhaus Schools conference at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) just over the Camden border in Portland Place. We heard, among other things, how schools in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium now have to be Passivhaus, both new and retro-fit.

Mairi Johnson, the Director of Design at Partnership for Schools (the public-private delivery vehicle for the Building Schools for the Future programme), said there was no earthly reason why Camden couldn’t build a Passivhaus secondary school in Swiss Cottage. Indeed she said she’d welcome such an exemplar in central London. Officers from Hampshire, Haringey, Oxfordshire, Powys and even Edinburgh council were at the RIBA conference. All of them are about to build new schools and are considering using the Passivhaus standard. Sadly no officer from Camden attended.

You might think that since Camden aspires to put “sustainability at the heart of everything it does”; since our Local Development Framework says developers should aspire to Passivhaus; and since so many Camden councillors are pushing for Passivhaus; that our new school and civic offices would both be Passivhaus. Camden’s Executive Member for Schools recently said in Full Council that the energy efficiency standard proposed for the new school was equivalent to Passivhaus. It’s not true, but if it were true, then why wouldn’t we just specify Passivhaus?

Camden’s first Passivhaus home is currently under construction in Fortune Green. Meanwhile in Islington a Camden architect is building five Passivhaus houses in Highbury. Wales has led the way on this; the first Passivhaus-certified office/residential development is in Powys and the Welsh government has just awarded contracts to architectural firms for a series of Passivhaus homes.

The Buildings Research Establishment, BRE, who are now able to certify Passivhaus buildings in the UK, has recently published a useful primer explaining the benefits of the standard. It explodes a few Passivhaus urban myths like the idea that you can't open the windows in the summer (which still does the rounds at Camden Council).

The BRE document also says: "The fabric performance requirements required for level 6 of the Code [for Sustainable Homes] are based upon the PassivHaus standard. With the exception of flats, it is not generally possible to achieve Code Level 6 without adopting a performance specification [meaning energy efficiency standard] similar to PassivHaus.” In other words, there is no other way to reach zero carbon homes without using the 20+ years of research work that has gone into the Passivhaus standard. There is no other serious energy efficiency standard out there so let's stop trying to re-invent the wheel.

Passivhaus buildings are between zero and 7% more expensive than building regulations. However if you add lifetime energy bills to the build cost, or even 20 years of energy bills, then they are cheaper. Unfortunately in Britain lifetime energy bills are rarely included to the build cost. We are a nation of short termists.

But perhaps worse than the short termism is the impression I repeatedly get from talking to planners, developers and civil servants that Passivhaus is seen as not suitable for British climes and frankly a bit German. This sort of mumbo jumbo confirms the key message of the Passivhaus Schools Conference at RIBA – the obstacles to Passivhaus are not economic and technical, they are political and psychological.

Camden won no green flags (the Audit Commission’s equivalent of gold stars) for environmental sustainability in its recent corporate assessment. Eighteen other councils around the country did, including our neighbours in Islington and the borough that is, I think, the greenest in London – Sutton. We are some way behind the curve in terms of eco action despite everything that I and the Sustainability Task Force have proposed over the last three years.

Given that fact, it seems to me that the new school in Swiss Cottage and the proposed new civic offices in Kings Cross represent a golden (or maybe gold star) opportunity to set the record straight. Let us aspire to do the best we can, to live up to our reputation as the best council in the country, and truly put sustainability at the heart of everything we do.