Conference Day 1 –
Saturday 14 September

Cost (for both days)	Conference DAY 1 & 2
$565.00 Plus GST	Member rates
$650.00 Plus GST	Non-member rates

Start	Conference opening
9:00am	Welcome and opening remarks

Session 1	CLIMATE CHANGE
9:20am	Title TBC Keynote: Diána Ürge-Vorsatz
10:10am	Morning Tea

Session 2	MIXED TECHNICAL SESSION
10:30am	How reliable are our cooling load predictions? Evaluating PHPP and dynamic thermal modelling approaches. Carlin Osborne/ Alvin Abon As our climate warms and heatwaves become more frequent, accurately sizing cooling systems in Passive Houses is more critical than ever. In Aotearoa New Zealand, undersized cooling equipment is emerging as a significant issue. The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) cooling load number is often misused for equipment sizing, leading to systems with only a third of the necessary capacity to maintain comfort during peak temperatures. Our research evaluates cooling load predictions using four methods, including PHPP with standard and adjusted settings, and dynamic thermal modeling with single and multi-zone configurations. We will discuss situations where multi-zone models are required, such as in buildings with rooms of different orientations and solar heat gain profiles, to ensure accurate sizing. This work is particularly significant for social housing, where small floor areas and tight budgets demand precise cooling system sizing to ensure both comfort and cost-effectiveness.
10:50am	Building materials beyond carbon considerations Emina Kristina Petrović As the embodied energy considerations are joining the operational energy as part of the established range of what we need to know, the question is what else should be considered and how. This presentation will discuss some of the more holistic systems for evaluating sustainability of building materials, and how much those are currently part of carbon figures associated with materials. The particular focus will be on commonly excluded toxicity and social justice issues.
11:10am	Design management, strategies, and measures to minimize building overheating risk for Passive Houses Design Buildings in Warm Climates with a reflection on the New Zealand Passive House Environment Vlada Acimovic – Climate change & global warming impact on the human population and the quality of living – Overheating in dwellings is a global concern – Overheating & super-insulated structures – Passive House & Architectural Design Project management – Identifying overheating risks – Risks associated with the design/ Design stage Risk Control – Design strategies, measures and tools / Early assessment of the initial design – Case Study – Certified House in New Plymouth – Designing and Building for the future
11:30am	Exploring the Potential of Natural Materials in Buildings to improve Performance and Reduce Overall Carbon Emissions Delia Bellaby and Mingtong Li The integration of passive cooling technology within buildings offers a comprehensive approach to achieving low-carbon buildings, particularly if materials used for thermal mass are also low in carbon. EBANZ and the University of Canterbury are undertaking research into natural material performance, including heating/ cooling and moisture management, considering different material locations (e.g. wall, floor, ceiling) within buildings of differing construction types.  Verified data and a plug-in to enhance precision and efficiency when undertaking energy modelling considering thermal mass are the anticipated outcomes.
12:00pm	Lunch

Session 3	Big picture carbon
1:00pm	Passive House and the Problem of Upfront Carbon Keynote: Lloyd Alter After 50 years of worrying about energy consumption, we now recognize that our real problem is carbon emissions. After decades of designing to reduce operating energy and emissions, we now must deal with upfront carbon emissions. This presents real challenges for the Passivhaus world; we now have to rethink what we build, what we build out of, and how much we build. Efficiency matters, but so does sufficiency.
2:00pm	Embodied and Upfront Carbon: MBIE overview Katie Symons (presenting remotely) This session will outline MBIE’s work to date in supporting the sector improve levels of carbon literacy when it comes to whole-of-life emissions of buildings. A major objective is to improve consistency of carbon assessments, to increase confidence in results and therefore support better informed decision making that balance cost and carbon in the building design and construction process.
2:10pm	Measuring and reducing Upfront Carbon in Aotearoa Joe Quad, NZGBC Embodied Carbon accounts for a significant portion of emissions throughout the lifecycle of a building. This session will highlight the importance of considering embodied carbon in designs and highlight some of the work the NZ Green Building Council has been doing in this space.
2:20pm	Carbon Panel Chaired by Jessica Eyers Panelists: Lloyd Alter, Katie Symons; Jason Quinn; Delia Bellaby; Joe Quad
2:40pm	Afternoon Tea

Session 4	Sustainability
3:00pm	Education as a pathway to high performance and net zero carbon buildings. Robyn Phipps A significant challenge to transform New Zealand’s building stock to high performance and net zero buildings is growing the pool of talented practitioners and designers. This paper discusses the growing need for specialist designers and a pathway to achieve this.
3:20pm	Seasonal variation in electricity demand of nearly-zero and net-zero energy houses in New Zealand Michael Jack One of the key challenges to achieving high percentages of renewable electricity supply is the temporal mismatch between non-dispatchable renewable supply and peaks in electricity demand. These challenges become more pronounced as the timescale of this mismatch extends to seasons. High-performance or nearly-zero energy buildings could reduce demand for increasingly-electrified heating in winter—reducing seasonal variability and the mismatch with supply. On the other hand, solar-powered net-zero energy buildings (which generate sufficient energy to cover their energy demand on an annual basis) could increase net seasonal variation. In this paper we explore scenarios of future large-scale uptake of electrically-heated, nearly-zero and net-zero energy residential buildings in New Zealand and quantify the seasonal variation of the resulting net electricity demand. The results strongly favour nearly-zero energy buildings over net-zero energy buildings at a national scale due to a reduction in both annual demand and seasonal variation. We also explore the regional variation in these results and determine in which regions net-zero energy buildings would and would not be favourable from a future electricity grid perspective.
3:40pm	The Future of work: accelerating skills development for the transition to zero carbon construction Casimir MacGregor This talk shares research into the skills and competencies required to transition to zero carbon construction. It outlines a picture of where the New Zealand construction sector is on its current journey. The talk will share the experiences of builders, designers, architects and others as they have sought to address climate change. The talk also outlines key strategies and initiatives  that are needed to support upskilling and increasing climate change literacy across the sector
4:00pm	How are we doing? Jane Henley (presenting remotely) What are the theories of change that we are implementing and what can we learn?  What data do we need to capture next? What are the levels of support for Innovation?
4:30pm	Latest news on Passive House: uptake and developments worldwide Keynote: Jessica Grove-Smith (presenting remotely) Jessica will share latest news and developments from the Passive House Institute (PHI), the International Passive House Association (iPHA), as well as trends from the global Passive House community. Hear about projects, components, policy development and learn about e.g. the new certification scheme EnerPHit Unit for quicker single apartment retrofits.
5:00pm	Day 1 concludes
5:30pm	NETWORKING DRINKS