Danish architect Lone Feifer on ‘absolute’ sustainability

Episode 33. AJ Climate Champions with Hattie Hartman. Velux director of sustainable buildings Lone Feifer explains why ‘relative’ sustainability, improvement on previous standards, is no longer good enough. ‘One planet means one carbon budget with a fixed amount available for buildings,’ she says. It’s not about improving relative to previously accepted standards.

Lone also describes how Denmark’s new building regulations, effective in January 2023, will regulate whole life carbon by requiring life cycle assessment for projects and setting benchmarks for different building types. For homes, Feifer advocates the Active House Alliance’s adaptive comfort approach rather than the absolute comfort ranges prescribed by Passivhaus.

For show notes to this episode, go to www.architectsjournal.co.uk/podcasts

In association with Velux