The official cross-walk between the international Passive House Institute (PHI) and the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) is now out. We’ve been looking forward to seeing this since I set up the first meeting between Dr. Feist and the ILFI leadership back in 2013. Here’s the background story…
After forming the cooperative that was to become the NAPHN, in 2011, we started organizing ‘expert tours’ to bring notable Passivhaus professionals to North America. The goal was to foster and expedite knowledge transfer while rebuilding and redistributing ties with PHI and the global Passivhaus community. In 2013 our co-op coordinated a string of events along the west coast. Financing from Passive House California (PHCA), Passive House Northwest (PHnw) and CanPHI West (which later became Passive House Canada) enabled us to host a visit by Dr.Feist and Dr.Ebel from PHI.
In SF their packed program included visits to Autodesk, LBNL, SFEnvironment and a PHCA dinner in Palo Alto at the Magic Passive House. We then headed to Portland, OR, for another series of meetings, tours and events all hosted by PHnw, before taking the train to Seattle, heading towards Vancouver for CanPHI’s first ever conference.
A special stop in Seattle was arranged solely to meet with ILFI, with the intent of establishing a working relationship between the two organizations. Amanda Sturgeon and Brad Liljequist were our gracious hosts. Both parties provided overviews of their respective certification frameworks, setting the groundwork for future discussions.
The visit delivered an unexpected surprise. Dennis Hayes of the Bullitt Foundation, dropped in to say hello at the end of our meeting. He’d heard about Dr. Feist’s visit and insisted on conducting a special tour of his groundbreaking Bullitt Center. It was both a delight and honor to see these two giants of sustainability complimenting each other’s contributions to the field and simply enjoying each other’s company.
It was that brief stop in 2013, coordinated by NAPHN, where this formal crosswalk began. So much more came out of that visit, but today we want to celebrate this newly formalized PHI-ILFI crosswalk. We can’t wait to see where it takes us to next!
Zero Energy & Passive House Certifications
ILFI and PHI consider these certification programs to be highly complementary. The energy efficiency requirements of Passive House provide a targeted pathway focused on high energy efficiency for pursuing Zero Energy. The 12-month performance requirements of Zero Energy certification, in turn, provide a mechanism to validate the outcome of anticipated energy savings from Passive House. Find out more here…
