Jacquie recently attended the Passive House California 2015 conference in Palo Alto. Passive House represents today’s highest energy standard, with the aim of reducing the energy consumption of buildings by up to 80%. When combined with renewable energy systems, such as solar, Passive House design can create Net Zero Buildings. For more information check out: http://passivehousecal.org/what-passive-house. The conference covered a range of aspects of environmental design. Dr Urge-Vorsatz, a UN expert on climate change, gave a global overview, while other lectures introduced tools like Declare’s red-list, an on-line resource for assessing building products & materials, http://www.declareproducts.com.