This month saw our founder; Tom invited to the Houses of Parliament as part of the
UK Green Building Council’s (UKGBC) release of an influential report on Healthy
House Building. The report aims to highlight the need to balance the need for
300,000 new homes a year with the quality to which these homes are built.

In a time when outdoor air pollution rightly gets a lot of exposure in the media, it is
important to consider the air quality of our homes and work places as we spend on
average 90% of our time indoors. The cost to the NHS of treating medical conditions
associated with poor living conditions is estimate to be as high as £2.5bn per year.

The UKGBC released a paper in 2016 highlighting the need and opportunity in this
space and has continued their work to date to bring it to the public’s consciousness
as the Prime Minister herself has recognised the connections between local environment and wellbeing in her 25 year Environment Plan.

It was a very well attended event with some of the big contractors, architects and
thinkers attending and an engaging address from Rebecca Pow MP, (Parliamentary
Private Secretary, DEFRA) and Ashley Bateson from Hoare Lea who were
collaborating on the report.

From Adaptavate’s point of view, this is a very informative paper and re-iterates that
the inclusion of the next generation of high performing, healthy building products
such as Breathaboard and Breathaplasta into the market is as important as ever.
This is combined with the fact that people are becoming increasingly aware of what
their homes are made of and how this effects their health.

This supports the notion that, as product developers, we need to continue to design
high-performing materials that don’t just ‘do a job’ but that can help improve people’s
lives, by creating healthy, liveable and beautiful spaces in which to work and play. It
is also our job to make sure that the materials are easy to use and specify and that
people across the spectrum understand the benefits in a clear and transparent way,
supported by substantiated performance claims and rigorous testing procedures.