The EU introduced the policy on moving towards nearly-zero energy buildings by the end of the year 2020 (Directive 2010/31/EU), defining the nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) as a building that has a very high energy performance. However, in 2013, the European Commission (EC) reported that too little progress has been made by the Member States in their preparations towards nZEBs by 2020. The slow progress towards implementation of the corresponding nZEB EU Directive is mainly due to the fact that the Directive doesn't address building sector's uptake solutions directly. However, in one of the reports the EC defined very low energy houses also as passive houses, suggesting the national governments to relate their nZEB solutions to already proved high performance solutions, such as passive house design solutions. Because Passive House design has already been translated into principles and solutions across Europe and wider, it directly corresponds to the specific issues of the nZEB implementation. Successful implementation of the nZEB criteria in member states can thus be assured by applying the passive house design principles and solutions already available and proven in the building sector across Europe and wider. Therefore, the in-depth education on Passive House design is the main focus of the project proposal. The consortium has been formed by partner countries which on their national level completely lack Passive House design education (Croatia), as well as the partner countries which have recently introduced Certified Passive House Design education (CPHD/CEPH) (Greece, Italy). All the partner countries share the need to adapt the CEPH education curriculum to regional and climate dependent building practices. The Coordinator of the project is Oikon Ltd.-Institute for Applied Ecology, in Zagreb, Croatia. The second Croatian national partner is the Faculty of Civil Engineering from the University of Zagreb, which will assure the secondary dissemination of the project's activities to the University, as well as to the relevant national Chambers. International partnership is formed with Hellenic Passive House Institute (HPHI) and ZEPHIR, from Greece and Italy, respectively, both of them affiliates of the International Passive House Association (iPHA) which is hosted by the Passive House Institute (PHI) and course partners of PHI from Darmstadt, Germany, using the existing materials of the CEPH project. HPHI, ZEPHIRand PHI will assure the expertise and experience support on delivering the Certified Passive House Designer education and certification to rest of the consortium. Each partner country has at least one Certified Passive House Designer within the participating partner's organization. Throughout the project's activities all project partners will contribute to the development of the regionally customized education materials for Certified Passive House Designers as the main priority of the project, as an addition to the existing training material for Passive House Designers. The currently available CEPH education materials, which resulted from the project by the same name (Certified passive House Designer), supported by the IEE, are focused on the Central European climate building practices and reflect Central European building practice and traditions. Since the end of the CEPH project, a lot of research has been done on the Passive House standard in different climates zones. The SEEDPass Consortium will develop new additional materials, reflecting the Passive House education to the South East European building practice and traditions. Moreover, the materials will relate to the building practice in each partner country with the regional Climate specifics. A priority of the consortium is to elaborate the additional educational material related to the project partners' countries climate and regional building practice specifics and to contribute to the update of the previously carried out CEPH project accordingly. In terms of employment, regionally based education on design of high performance buildings is the key success to demand side of the building's sector labor market. It strengthens the framework conditions for regional companies to respond to new structural challenges of the building sector and assures project partner's competitiveness on international markets. Besides establishing internationally comparative building sector expertise, the long term aim of the project is to reinforce and accelerate the implementation of the nZEB Directive on national level, which assures project's future development sustainability.
The EU introduced the policy on moving towards nearly-zero energy buildings by the end of the year 2020 (Directive 2010/31/EU), defining the nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) as a building that has a very high energy performance. However, in 2013, the European Commission (EC) reported that too little progress has been made by the Member States in their preparations towards nZEBs by 2020. The slow progress towards implementation of the corresponding nZEB EU Directive was mainly due to the fact that the Directive did not address building sector's uptake solutions directly. However, in one of the reports the EC had defined very low energy houses also as passive houses, suggesting the national governments to relate their nZEB solutions to already proved high performance solutions, such as passive house design solutions. Because Passive House design had already been translated into principles and solutions across Europe and wider, it directly corresponds to the specific issues of the nZEB implementation. Successful implementation of the nZEB criteria in member states can thus be assured by applying the Passive House design principles and solutions already available and proven in the building sector across Europe and beyond. Therefore, an in-depth education on Passive House design was the main focus of the project proposal.The consortium was formed by partner countries which on their national level completely lackes Passive House design education (Croatia), partner countries which at the time of the start of the Project had already had introduced Certified Passive House Designer education (CPHD/CEPH) (Greece, Italy), and a partner country which, as the intellectual and geographical origin of the Passive House Concept and with by far the widest practical experience thus far has pioneered the way (Germany). All the partner countries shared the need to adapt the CEPH education curriculum to regional and climate dependent building practices. The Coordinator of the project is Oikon Ltd.-Institute of Applied Ecology, in Zagreb, Croatia. The second Croatian national partner is the Faculty of Civil Engineering from the University of Zagreb. International partnership is formed with Hellenic Passive House Institute (HPHI-Greece), Zero energy and Passivhaus Institue for Research (ZEPHIR-Italy) and Passive House Institute Dr. Wolfgang Feist (PHI-Germany). Partner organizations ZEPHIR and HPHI are both affiliates of the International Passive House Association (iPHA) which is hosted by the Passive House Institute (PHI) and Course Providers in cooperation with PHI from Darmstadt, Germany. Using the existing materials of the CEPH project, HPHI, ZEPHIR and PHI assured the expertise and experience support on preparing the rest of the Consortium in delivering the Certified Passive House Designer education. Each partner country had at least one Certified Passive House Designer within the participating partner's organization. Throughout the project's activities all project partners contributed to the development of the regionally customized education materials for Certified Passive House Designers as the main objective of the project, as an addition to the existing training material for Passive House Designers. The currently available CEPH education materials, which resulted from the project by the same name (Certified passive House Designer), supported by the IEE action, are focused on the Central European climate and reflect Central European building practice and traditions. Since the end of the CEPH project, a lot of research has been done on the Passive House standard in different climates zones. The SEEDpass Consortium developed new additional materials, reflecting the Passive House education to the South East European climate, building practices and traditions. Moreover, the materials related to the building practice in each partner country with the regional Climate specifics. A priority of the Consortium was to elaborate the additional educational materials related to the project partners' countries climate and regional building practice specifics and to contribute to the update of the previously carried out CEPH project accordingly. Here, teaching materials on cooling and dehumidification were developed to meet the demand for detailed training of architects and engineers. In terms of employment, regionally based education on design of high performance buildings is the key success to demand side of the building's sector labor market. It strengthens the framework conditions for regional companies to respond to new structural challenges of the building sector and assures project partner's competitiveness on international markets. Besides establishing internationally comparative building sector expertise, the long term aim of the project is to reinforce and accelerate the implementation of the nZEB Directive by prioritizing adequate Passivhaus education on national level, which assures project’s sustainability.