It doesn't take much to reduce our houses’ net energy input to zero. And it doesn't take much to reduce the carbon content of our houses to zero.

We came close to both those requirements years ago. We do it because of the high levels of insulation and heat recovery in our homes, coupled with extensive use of natural and renewable materials.

Of course, anybody can build a zero carbon house, simply by replanting a large enough area of the Brazilian rainforest to compensate for the carbon emissions involved in the process of building the house. We do things differently. All our houses have such a very low net energy input and ouput that the lifetime carbon footprint of our houses is tiny. Some of our competitors will boast of producing a zero or a low carbon house while talking only about the impact of the construction process. For example, houses constructed mainly of glass curtain walls cannot compete with us for energy conservation, even though our houses incorporate very large areas indeed of carefully triple glazed and specially insulated windows.

Energy independence and Zero carbon input.
As we have said, thanks to sophisticated heat recovery and superior insulation, the net energy input into our houses is low. You can easily meet that requirement with solar panels, wind turbines, ground source heat pumps and so on. The cost of this technology is dropping as fast as the efficiency is improving, so we construct your home in such a way to allow you to install independent renewable energy sources in a few years. By that point, the capital costs are likely to have fallen dramatically and you will have a zero carbon, indeed a negative carbon input, house in terms of running costs.

Low carbon construction methods
Don't believe that local construction uses less energy than we do. It does not. The energy efficiency of the construction process in Sweden means that the carbon output involved in our houses is low and certainly dramatically lower than many traditionally built houses in Britain. Although it may appear to be transported from a distance, it is transported in containers to a port as near your site as we can manage. Sea transport is extremely energy-efficient and involves very low carbon emissions which we do in any case completely offset.

Although we have said that the ideal low carbon house should be designed, like ours, to produce extremely low carbon emissions in the first place rather than simply to offset them, we do incorporate the cost of offsetting the small quantities involved in transporting houses from Sweden to Britain by sea and, for the short distance, by road.

Ask us for the figures. We will give you figures for energy input, carbon emissions for the lifetime of your house and carbon emissions from the construction. We will show you what options you have to reduce them further, whether now or in the future. And invite you to ask our competitors to submit their calculations to you on a similar basis!