About Us
The Challenge
Most buildings – even “green” buildings – are counterproductive: They use too much energy, provide poor and unreliable indoor air quality, are not safe in black-outs, and expensive to operate and maintain. They remain dependent on fossil fuels. The sad fact is the building industry is generally illiterate when it comes to understanding what makes buildings good or bad. Stakeholders don’t discern the direct connection between design and construction choices and climate, health, and social outcomes. Their judgment is impaired by bad habits.
To complicate things, typically, the corrective steps proposed suffer from low expectations. All involved hedge on deep reform with imagined technology fixes around the corner. They fail to recognize their own power and fall well short of the systemic change required of our built environment.
Our Approach
The Passive House Network (PHN), formerly known as NAPHN, is a high-performance building literacy program. We provide comprehensive, high-quality Passive House education to stakeholders across the building industry – from architects and engineers, to builders and developers, to regulators and policymakers. We demystify the impact of design and construction choices, form knowledge-sharing networks, raise expectations, and transform how professionals fundamentally think and work.
Passive House is widely recognized as the most powerful tool we have today to produce buildings that rise to meet our challenges, forming the cornerstone of climate mitigation and adaptation, public health, and equity impacts.
Read The PHN Difference, for a description of what makes us uniquely positioned in the US building industry.
Our Vision
A sustainable, post-carbon, all-renewable energy future – supported by buildings that are efficient, comfortable, affordable, resilient, and healthy.
Our Mission
The transformation of the built environment, using the tools developed by the Passive House Institute, is a critical effort to combat global warming. We provide training, conferences, and other events to both engage and educate design and building professionals, policymakers, and the general public. We support the success and vitality of the Passive House community.
Our Values
Our values are calls to action, making our work itself, inseparable from the world we are working to make.
- Be Curious – striving for continuous learning
- Be Inspired – maintaining a sense of wonder
- Be Visionary – imagining the future
- Be Bold – calling for urgency and action
- Be Celebratory – infusing effort with joyful promotion
- Be Collaborative – making a welcoming & equitable community
- Be Professional – working with integrity and transparency
If you share these values or will challenge yourself to live up to them to the best of your ability – join us!
PHN Structure
A Nonprofit: PHN is a nonprofit 501c(3) corporation with an independent Board of Directors. The organization’s bylaws are here – and the conflict of interest policy is here. There are board committees that help organize and govern NAPHN, and current committees and members are listed here. PHN has a formal commitment to gender and racial equity in its governance, operations and actions, across all aspects of PHN. See the current policies on board composition, here. See our statement on Equity & Inclusion, here.
Transparency
We are proud to have achieved the Bronze level GuideStar Seal of Transparency. See our GuideStar profile.
Chapters
PHN Chapters are wholly part of NAPHN. Chapters are led by Chapter Leaders based on a standard Leader Agreement. Chapters are governed by a Chapter Governance Document.
iPHA
PHN is also a member of the International Passive House Association, part of the Passive House Institute, based in Darmstadt, Germany. See the affiliation agreement here.
Two Passive Houses?
For over 26 years the Passive House Standard has been the state-of-the-art scientific foundation of high-performance and net-zero buildings, around the world. Training qualified professionals is an essential prerequisite for successful Passive House construction. Basic training can be toward becoming a Certified Passive House Designer, Consultant, or Certified Tradesperson. Specialized technical training is also available. PHN is dedicated to accelerating Passive House training across North America. Why Are There Two “Passive Houses”? Many are confused about how or why PHI and PHIUS are both promoting “Passive House” but do it separately. This short description aims to help clarify the situation while answering some basic questions. The document is in pdf format here.