The national cabinet has announced plans to build an extra 1.2 million homes by July 1 2029.
What if we committed to building homes that produced net negative emissions? Put simply, such buildings remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than are emitted during their lifecycle.
Building these homes in Australia would do much more than reduce national emissions.
Building airtight homes - known as a tight building envelope - avoids unwelcome heat gain or loss.
Examples of buildings with low, zero or negative net emissions already exist in the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Building 1.2 million homes that use such technology would scale it up, driving down costs.
Building all of the promised 1.2 million homes in a future-friendly way would show our governments recognise both the long-term imperative of climate action and this immediate opportunity.
“hmmm sounds good but it would cost more money soooo…No” - The gubbermint, probably
But for real, they’ve been doing all this in Europe and north America for decades. Very frustrating as a carpenter interested in building science to see all this online but most people in Australia not wanting to spend the money and even if they did, there’s almost no one supplying the appropriate materials. It’s only recently that uPCV windows have become locally available, before that you had to ship them over form Poland yourself. This would kick start the shit out of the passive house industry.
