Back in 2006 I quit my blue chip job to return home to manage the construction of a village development in rural North Cork. These were the heady days of the Celtic Tiger (feels weird even saying that now) when anything was possible. The whole thing was a family affair. It was the brainchild of my dad. He wanted to help assure the future sustainability of the locality by bringing in new people to the area. He had a very simple condition of sale to improve his chances of success – all house buyers had to be owner occupiers.
I have a formation in engineering so despite a total lack of construction experience I became immersed in the process of managing the build-out of the development. All the while I had this niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right. The climate change issue was not as pervasive back then as it is now. However, the rate of golabl economic expansion was resulting in oil heading on a trajectory to break the $100 per barrel which it would achieve in January 2008. I could see that the housing market frenzy was creating a social pressure for people to buy a house. However, I felt that the construction industry was failing people by offering them homes that were not cheap to heat. This was going to consume a significant proportion of the disposable income that home buyers had left after paying their mortgage.
Then something wonderful happened. I was approached by Brian McHugh of McHugh Insulation who brought a college friend with him to explain about a new government initiative to improve house performance standards. I was hooked. There was funding made available to aid the research and development of housing that would improve the energy efficiency of houses by 50% in one step. This was it. The initiative was tied in to the roll out of the Building Energy Rating (BER) system in Ireland. I had a clear goal, we were going to deliver A-rated houses and offer it to people at cost !
We generated marketing material to inform people of the benefits of an energy efficient home, engaged in a marketing campaign with financial adviser Eddie Hobbs and garnered great support from organisations such as the Irish Concrete Federation and publications such as Construct Ireland (now PassiveHouse Plus).
The A-rated houses were offered as an upgrade option to home buyers. The option was offered at cost less the 50% government funding. I felt that we had made a compelling economic argument for home buyers to take the A-rated upgrade option. The uptake turned out to be less than 25%. I was flabbergasted. More home buyers chose to upgrade to a natural stone fascade rather than select an option that would give them cheaper running costs and more comfortable homes.
Wind the clock forward to 2016. I’m preparing material for a presentation at the International Passive House conference in Germany. The presentation is about the merits of different foundation systems for Passive House construction – the most energy efficient building standard in the world. I spend ages going over data from the past 8 years that I was a bespoke house building contractor. Then I spot a trend. The growth in uptake of Passive House builds (today’s equivalent of the A-rated house in 2006 !) moved in tandem with the tightening of building regulations.
We absolutely need the crazy ones to show us what is possible. We need the early adopters to legitimise them. The digital age that has spawned the internet and the social media environment that it supports have supercharged modern communication. It is now very difficult to suppress good ideas that benefit society. However, if we do not cross the bridge to bring the great discoveries and advances of our time into the legislation and rules that govern society the opportunity will be lost for the majority. Here’s to the regulators !