Celebrating innovation in sustainable homes

Mon, Jun 30, 2025 5:43 AM

The Good Homes Alliance, a proud member of the Sustainable Development Foundation (SDF), is delighted to highlight the winners of the Exemplar Sustainable Buildings Awards.

This one-off, high-profile initiative marked the SDF’s 20th anniversary, honouring two decades of transformative impact in sustainable building practice.

Image: Large Project category, Mikhael Riches - Goldsmith Street

These evidence-based awards, developed by the SDF in partnership with the Passivhaus Trust and the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP), celebrate outstanding technical rigour, policy leadership, and climate-conscious collaboration.

Particular recognition was given to new build homes, with The Seed Cohousing by Kirsty Maguire Architects winning the Small Project category - pictured below.

Located near Dundee, this highly sustainable timber home for two households meets Passivhaus Classic and RIBA 2030 targets, showing how performance-led design can be possible even on constrained, low-solar-gain sites.

The Large Project category also saw Mikhael Riches outstanding housing development, Goldsmith Street, take home the win – a 93 home Passivhaus project with community and energy affordabilty at its core.

Among the product and innovation winners were two standouts of special interest to Good Homes Alliance members:

The EcoCocon Straw Panel System, which impressed with its carbon-storing, high-performance prefabricated wall panels—offering a compelling solution for low-impact new builds.
The PACER tool by Preoptima, which is empowering Local Planning Authorities to assess and reduce whole life carbon in planning applications, promoting accountability and carbon-conscious development from the earliest design stages.

The awards spotlighted the collaborative spirit of the sector and reaffirmed the importance of performance-led, low-carbon housing solutions—values that remain central to the Good Homes Alliance’s mission.

Image: EcoCocon’s innovative straw wall system

“These awards offer a vital benchmark of excellence. They show how evidence-based, low-carbon housing is not only achievable—it’s already being delivered,” said Julian Brooks, Programme Director, Good Homes Alliance

The awards are sponsored by gold sponsor Ecological Building Systems, and silver sponsors Lamilux UK Ltd, MEAD Consulting, natureplus and Futurebuild, marking 20 years of trailblazing sustainable building practices in the UK. Kindly hosted by Introba.

Discover all the shortlist and winners on the Exemplar Sustainable Buildings Awards website here: https://esba.uk/