AIB has announced the launched of a €350m “new homes development fund” that it says will support the construction of new homes in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The bank is inviting applications from “borrowers who can demonstrate prior experience in residential development”.

The Passive House Institute has announced the launch of a new award for window systems. 

An Taoiseach Mr Enda Kenny has opened one of the world’s "most advanced research and development facilities for space and water heating technologies" at the Glen Dimplex site in Dunleer, Co Louth.

Two leading building product companies, Saint-Gobain and Fakro Roof Windows, have announced partnerships with cancer charities in Ireland and the UK.

A virtual, online green building trade fair will take place across Europe on 18 and 19 February 2014. 

A new online passive house tutorial video series has just been launched by Energyquarter. The series is hosted by Tomás O’ Leary from the Passive House Academy, accredited Passive House Institute trainers.

See The Light, Ireland's passive house conference, takes place next Friday October 25 in Dublin. Passive House pioneer Prof Wolfgang Feist will be the keynote speaker. 

Wolfgang Feist, one of the creators of the passive house concept and a founder and director of the Passive House Institute, will speak in Dublin on 25 October at the 2013 See The Light conference.

The pioneering passive house retrofit of a derelict farm building to create a visitor and education centre at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's Stirley Community Farm, Huddersfield, is nearing completion and will be open to the public on Sunday, 1 September 2013 from 11am to 3pm.

Straw bale construction expert Bee Rowan will run a series of straw bale building workshops at Rock Farm on the Slane Castle Estate in Co Meath, starting from Saturday, 18 June.

Christoph Duenser of passive house veterans Hermann Kaufmann Architects will give a lecture on 13 June at 6pm in Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland.

The Passivhaus Trust is calling for entries to the second UK Passivhaus Awards – the only dedicated awards for passive house in the UK, with a focus on as-built performance. The deadline for applications is 15 May 2013.

Over 100 experts in ultra low energy building will address the International Passive House Conference, which takes place in Frankfurt this weekend. Speakers will present a wide range of case studies and research that, according to the Passive House Institute, demonstrates that passive house works "in all climates and for practically any type of building".

The second Better Building conference will be held on 24 April in the Croke Park conference centre, Dublin. The inaugural conference at Royal Hospital Kilmainham last year sold out with nearly 400 attendees.

Green cement supplier Ecocem are giving away €3,000 of low carbon durable concrete in a competition for residential construction projects. 

Fuel poverty has “come of age” in the last 3 years and great strides have been made in understanding the scale of the problem, Christine Liddell, professor of psychology at Ulster University, said in her keynote address to the Energy Action conference in Dublin Castle on Monday, 6 February.

Citing British research as an example, she stressed that any investment made in tackling fuel poverty would be recouped by the state.

Building Life Consultancy is to hold two-day thermal bridge assessor workshops in Dublin on 16-17 February, 12-13 April, and 7- 8 June. The workshops are intended for architects, engineers, technologists, BER assessors, CEPH designers, insulation suppliers, and anyone with a focus on fabric performance and detailing.

"There has been increased demand for hands-on training in thermal bridge calculation and surface condensation risk assessment to meet the latest IS, BS, ISO Standards,” Building Life Consultancy’s Joseph Little told Construct Ireland.

A ground breaking performance-based advertising system developed by green building and upgrading magazine Construct Ireland has been nominated for an innovation gong at the Irish Magazine Awards.

The bold offer means companies advertising green products and services in Construct Ireland don’t have to pay for adverts until they receive a pre-agreed number of reader enquiries.

The property and construction industries from 89 nations representing more than 30,000 organisations have united for World Green Building Week, from 19-23 September. The Irish Green Building Council is hosting a series of events as part of the week.
 
World Green Building Week aims to highlight the important role that green buildings play in improving the global carbon footprint, while also saving money, creating jobs and reducing poverty.



 

Joseph Little and Calina Ferraro of Building Life Consultancy, and Manfred Kehrer of the Fraunhofer Institute of Building Physics will deliver a two day workshop on Wufi Pro hygrothermal simulation software in Dublin on 15 and 16 September.

This workshop will teach attendees to use Fraunhofer’s Wufi Pro software for simulating heat and moisture transfer through building fabric for the purpose of assessing risk and preventing interstitial condensation. The focus of the workshop will be on the practical application of the software.