The International Passive House Association (iPHA) was founded in 2010 to support the growing global Passive House community, disseminate information on the Passive House Standard, and foster a greater public understanding of its significance. iPHA partners with independent Passive House organisations, called ‘affiliates’, all over the world. Over the years, iPHA has seen the number of affiliates and members grow to a massive number of 5000 members and 22 affiliates. This series of interviews highlights iPHA affiliates and their local activities and developments.
The Associação Passivhaus Portugal – PHPT was founded in 2012 following a common strategy with the Passive House Institute to promote and spread the Passive House concept in Portugal (by promoting Passive House training and built examples, as well as sharing experiences and knowledge) and managing local certification.
Founded by three members, Rafael Ribas, João Marcelino and João Gavião, the PHPT’s aim is to promote and implement the Passive House concept and to contribute to becoming independent of fossil fuel and overall sustainability in Portugal. This goal drives the association’s work and developments, which includes implementing a strategy based on training, events and communication for the benefit of the whole community, not only targeted towards the construction sector.
Nowadays, PHPT has18 strategic partners and more than 120 members, including companies and individuals. The members benefit from the association’s communications and activities and are very active on and offline. Furthermore, members gain access to special rates for all PHPT events: conferences and training.
Local Activities
Since 2012, the PHPT has been attracting technicians from different construction and design sectors to build, design, and certify Passive House buildings all over Portugal. At the moment, there are almost 200 people certified among the Certified Passive House Tradespersons and Certified Passive House Designers. Thereby, Portugal has the largest number of certified people in the world. Besides this technical training, PHPT promotes the Passive House concept in several media channels, collaborating with several institutions.
The number of projects under development shows that the Passive House standard has been already recognised by the public and by the construction sector as an example to follow in terms of building performance.
Conferences and Passive House promotion
Beyond the training, events, and technical support, since 2013 the PHPT has been organising an annual conference dedicated to promote the Passive House concept to the whole construction industry. This conference has become successful due to the increasing number of attendees and the number of companies that use this opportunity to show their high-performance products and solutions.
The Associação Passivhaus believes that living in a comfortable and eco-friendly building is not only a need but a human right written in Portuguese law. For this reason, the PHPT is in contact with several political forces, collaborating with each other to set up the importance of building comfortable, high-performance, and healthy buildings.
The PHPT also has the goal to communicate directly with the end-user, and that is why they have developed a successful partnership with the national protection consumer association (DECO).
The PHPT future plans
Last year, the PHPT organized the first Brazilian Summit dedicated to Passive Houses, using the experience of the last Portuguese virtual summit. This is the first step to create a Passive House network in Brazil and to increase the Passive House community within the Portuguese-speaking community.
The Associação Passivhaus aims to continue promoting the Passive House concept, growing the Passive House network with more certified professionals and buildings, and increasing awareness amongst politicians and decision-makers.
In 2022 the PHPT will celebrate the 10th anniversary, which will be highlighted throughout the year at various times.
Social Media
Keep yourself up to date with the activities of the Associação Passivhaus Portugal on their social media platforms:
LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Youtube
Are you enjoying this iPHA meet the affiliates series? If you are, check out the previous interviews on our blog.
Carl supports our international communication activities and is the point of contact for administrative enquiries.