Is Passive House necessary in Australia?
This is a question many ask, because they believe our climate is too mild to necessitate the Passive House approach.
Yet, Clare Parry disagrees. She is a Director and Principal at Grun Consulting, and is a Certified Passive House Certifier and Trainer. Clare was also one of the founding members of the Australian Passive House Association. Its vision is to lead change by educating, promoting, and supporting the delivery of Certified Passive House buildings in Australia.
Clare is the Certifier for the Owl Woods Passive House project - so it’ll be her job to provide the tick of approval that everyone else has done their jobs, and the home can actually be certified as a Passive House.
Clare however, fulfills many roles when it comes to sustainable design in Australia, and whenever I researched or talked about Passive House - it was Clare Parry’s name that came up. I’m really excited you’re going to meet her through this episode, and hear about her experience with Passive House, and really helping it get traction in Australia.
SHOW NOTES:
Meet Clare Parry from Grun Consulting.
Clare has had a lifelong interest in best practice building design, involving a holistic approach to achieve sustainable measures and provide a better option in the longer term, both for the client & the environment. Her focus is on building performance, and she works extensively with the Passivhaus standard. Her work as a sustainability consultant and mechanical engineer has involved experience as a Certified Passivhaus Designer, Trainer and Building Certifier, LEED AP, Green Star AP, WELL AP, NABERS and CBD Assessor.
In 2011 Clare founded the Australian Passive House Association and has been involved as a Director until late 2017. She is one of the first Certified Passivhaus Designers in Australia, and one of only two Passivhaus Certifiers. She is a certified Passivhaus trainer as well and you can often see her speak at national and international conferences.
Clare is a Director and Principal at Grün Consulting. Grün specialises in delivering high performance buildings. They deliver all aspects of Environmentally Sustainable Design consulting, specialising in Passive House (Passivhaus) from design through to certification. They are advocates for Passivhaus, for Net Zero, and experts in town planning, multiple rating tools including LEED, Green Star and the Living Building Challenge, and energy ratings including Carbon Neutral, NABERS & CBD.
In this episode, I ask Clare ...

What made you become interested in Passive House?
You've worked for some time  (and continue to work) as a sustainability consultant in a range of accreditation systems like LEED, Greenstar, WELL, etc. How does Passive House sit in relation to this?
You founded the Australian Passive House Association (APHA) in 2011. What compelled you to do that?
What's the APHA's role?
You are performing the role of Building Certifier on the Owl Woods Passive House project. Can you describe what's involved in that?
I read an article of yours on Linkedin ... where you spoke about industry talking about the difficulty of getting the consumer engaged in the idea of sustainability. You said "The issue is not actually about engagement. That implies that people are choosing alternatives when the options are on the table, but the truth is they really have no idea what’s possible." And then you spoke about our responsibility to educate - which is what Undercover Architect is all about. How would you like to see homeowners going about really moving the needle on Passive House and its adoption in Australia? What would you tell them to do to feel more confident to pursue this for their projects when opposition might be budget, or it being too hard, etc?

As Clare mentioned, the Australian Passive House Association is an incredibly useful resource for you if you’re wanting to embark on the Passive House journey, so check out the show notes for a link to find them.
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