Passivhaus policy drivers
With major policy shifts landing in 2026, Passivhaus is moving to the centre of UK building standards. Sarah Lewis, co director at the UK Passivhaus Trust, outlines the policy drivers shaping homes, schools and local authority development and why a fabric-first, quality assured approach is gaining momentum 2026 is going to be a big year for Passivhaus in the UK.
The Scottish Government will be unveiling its plans for a Scottish Passivhaus Equivalent standard, with the second consultation on the policy taking place in early 2026. Powerful policy and funding measures, which act as ‘carrots and sticks’, are also encouraging local authorities and social housing providers to build better.
What is Passivhaus?
Passivhaus is an international quality assurance building standard that delivers high levels of air quality and comfort and addresses fuel poverty through radical reductions in the energy used for heating. Passivhaus homes and buildings are healthy, comfortable, warm, peaceful and with ultra-low energy bills. Post-monitoring data demonstrates that Passivhaus buildings perform as designed, effectively eliminating the ‘performance gap’. There are eight key Passivhaus principles, which together form an integrated whole that reliably delivers performance, comfort and durability.
Scottish Passivhaus Equivalent
The Scottish Government is currently developing a Scottish Passivhaus equivalent policy for all new buildings, with a second consultation on the policy due in the first quarter of 2026. The Passivhaus Trust has been part of a cross-industry working group with the Scottish Building Standards team, which has developed a consensus position on the standard.
The consultation in early 2026 will reveal the exact proposals for the Scottish Passivhaus Equivalent standard. It is our understanding that the proposed Passivhaus Equivalent standard will likely not require full Passivhaus certification for all buildings, although it is expected to represent a significant policy step-change. We are optimistic that the standard will draw on the Passivhaus methodology to embed the core principles and metrics that reliably deliver energy efficiency, health, comfort, and performance-in-use. Key elements that we hope to see within the Passivhaus Equivalent Standard include: meaningful, measurable ‘absolute’ target metrics; robust tools, such as PHPP (Passivhaus Planning Package), to predict performance accurately; quality assurance to close the performance gap; and adaption of health and comfort measures, such as adequate ventilation, stable indoor temperatures, good indoor air quality, and protection from summertime overheating.
We are also hopeful that buildings certified to the Passivhaus standard will be deemed to satisfy the new building standards.
If it delivers on its promise, the Scottish Passivhaus Equivalent policy should be an important step towards delivering high-quality new homes and buildings at scale. The Passivhaus Trust will be running webinars during the consultation period to encourage responses.
Scottish schools
Scottish leadership is also being demonstrated through an innovative funding mechanism for new build schools, developed by the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT). Projects receiving funding from SFT need to meet a very clear energy target and funding may be reduced if the school buildings do not perform as designed in post-occupancy monitoring. Many local authorities have been opting for the Certified Passivhaus route to guarantee good building performance, and therefore de-risking the funding. As a result, 60 per cent of new schools in Scotland are currently targeting the Passivhaus standard.
Wales
In Wales, funding conditions for social housing schemes permit the adoption of a ‘fabric first’ alternative to EPC A, which draws on the Passivhaus methodology. The recently launched ‘Tai ar y Cyd’ Pattern Book, backed by 25 Welsh social housing providers, and supported by the Welsh Government, includes Passivhaus as its suggested ‘enhanced’ standard.
The London Plan
London is fast becoming a Passivhaus hotspot, with 3,600 Passivhaus social homes completed or underway, thanks to the higher specifications of the London Plan. A minimum on-site energy reduction of at least 35 per cent beyond Building Regulations is required for major developments, with an ideal target of 50 per cent.
Local authority adoption
Councils including Exeter, Norwich, Glasgow, Herefordshire, Salford, Edinburgh, York, and Midlothian, have adopted ambitious Passivhaus programmes for social housing and public building projects.
Local Plans
Local plans developed by local authorities such as Cornwall, Bath & NE Somerset, and Central Lincolnshire, call on developers to go beyond building regulations, often drawing on the Passivhaus methodology. Unfortunately, the Written Ministerial Statement 2023 has created confusion about the ability of local authorities to set sustainability standards above and beyond national regulations. Despite that, there are still a number of other ambitious Local Plans in the pipeline.
Homes England’s Healthy
Homes guidance
The health benefits of Passivhaus have recently been publicly acknowledged in the Introduction to Homes England’s Healthy Homes guidance: “Passivhaus is a well-established design and quality assurance system aimed at reducing energy demand, addressing the ‘performance gap’ of new buildings and improving comfort levels for residents. There is significant overlap between a Passivhaus approach and the aims of Healthy Homes.”
While full Passivhaus certification is not a requirement, there are significant similarities between the Healthy Homes ‘good practice enhancements’ and the Passivhaus standard. Homes England now recognises the health advantages of Passivhaus, and Passivhaus dwellings will automatically achieve ‘good practice’ enhanced status on three specific healthy homes measures: building fabric and energy performance; overheating; and ventilation and indoor air quality.
Driving down costs
The costs of building to the Passivhaus standard are frequently presented as an obstacle, and yet Passivhaus Trust research shows an approximate cost uplift of only 4-8 per cent and that it is possible to drive down the cost to little or no additional premium.
Passivhaus has been adopted in the UK for over 15 years now, which has given UK Passivhaus practitioners the opportunity to learn from and improve the process of delivering Passivhaus buildings. A focus on early-stage design, addressing simplicity, form factor and orientation, offers cost-effective ‘easy wins’. Such design refinements are helping to bring down the uplift costs of Passivhaus, enabling mainstream developers to adopt Passivhaus at scale.
In the UK, Barratt has announced a landmark move to adopt Passivhaus at scale, with all Barratt’s London residential schemes to be built to meet the Passivhaus standard. In Ireland, housebuilder Cairn has recently adopted the Passivhaus standard for a 598-apartment project in Dublin.
Future Homes Standard
The Government’s Future Homes Standard (FHS) is also due to be announced early in 2026. Unfortunately, the indications are that it will not live up to its futuristic promise.
The FHS is not expected to include any building fabric improvements, with more emphasis on the use of heat pumps and solar PVs. Although requirements for heat pumps and solar PV panels represent a positive policy shift, they do not address indoor air quality and occupant comfort. They also fail to tackle the urgent issue of helping the national grid cope with peak load. The ideal scenario would be Passivhaus levels of fabric energy performance, alongside the heat pumps and solar panels.
A call to action
In a climate emergency and fuel poverty crisis, we should be constructing homes and buildings in the UK that are quality assured to deliver energy efficiency and comfort with excellent indoor air quality.
Passivhaus is a long-established and tried and tested international building standard that delivers excellent occupant comfort and indoor air quality, and radical reductions in operational energy.
As an absolute minimum, Passivhaus certified buildings should be considered ‘deemed to satisfy’ building standards. This is already the case in Australia and Greece, and hopefully soon-to-be Scotland.
There is no need – or time – to reinvent the wheel.
