AECB PHribbon Course

The next course runs in June – July 2025:

• • Session 1 – Thur 19th June 2025
  • Session 2 – Thur 26th June 2025
  • Session 3 – Thur 3rd July 2025

2.5 hours a week from 10:00 – 12:30 am, over 3 weeks (a total of 6 – 7.5 hours live teaching)

• The sessions will be a min of 2 hours, with an extra half an hour allowance each session depending on the number of questions.
• Plus 3 hours for assessment exercises in between sessions.

The course is due to run again starting from Friday 19th September – Friday 3rd October 2025, and Thursday 4th December – Thursday 18th December 2025. If you would like to register your interest to hear when booking for these autumn/winter courses becomes available please do let us know at [email protected]

• Live, online, interactive teaching, with lots of opportunity to use the PHribbon software and ask questions.
• This course focuses on how to use PHribbon to perform detailed embodied and operational carbon calculations, with exercises to practice these and receive general feedback. 
• No previous knowledge of PHribbon is required, however, you will need to be fairly familiar with PHPP and it is important to have the PHPP (version 10 and above) and PHribbon software set up ready to use.
• There are two exercises for you to do, in between the weekly sessions. There will be three attempts at each exercise, with practice examples having been given during the live sessions. The emphasis is to ensure that you understand how to tackle a range of situations and get reliable answers.
• If it should happen that a student has to miss a session, they can watch the recording of the session.
• There are 15 places available each time the course runs. Due to its interactive nature, the course requires a minimum of 5 students in order to run.

• Learn directly from the expert who developed the AECB PHribbon software, Tim Martel, with lots of opportunity to ask questions, practice use of the tool and receive feedback from Tim.
• Considering and understanding the carbon impact and energy efficiency of our building and retrofit designs is essential to decarbonising our building stock. This course aims to upskill PHPP users to design buildings that can meet the RIBA Climate Challenge and LETI carbon standards, and to provide results for local planning authorities.
• Learn how the substantially revised RICS v2.3 approach works (RICS is the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, their approach is based on EN15978).
• See how your projects measure up against the pilot UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard (UKNZCBS is still being finalised)
• PHribbon is unique, as far as we know, in that it combines embodied and operational carbon on the same graph – it is all too easy to focus on one and miss the effect of the other (also because operational targets are often for energy, not CO₂).
• Save on design time and be able to show clients the carbon reduction benefits to projects, and the impacts of different material choices, early on.
• Thinking has progressed a long way since PHribbon was first introduced. For example, we no longer regard the manufacturers view of the lifetime of a product as necessarily the right figure to use in calculations in some circumstances. In the course we will be giving examples of why those figures don’t work for some materials and how we have improved on this.
• AECB members can join a list of endorsed PHribbon users, displayed in the AECB membership directory. The endorsement will be for the relevant version/s of PHribbon. If a significant update to PHribbon is released there will be the opportunity to join/watch an AECB webinar about the update to update your endorsement to that version of PHribbon.
• Graduates can claim 8 PHI credit points towards renewal of a Certified Passivhaus Designer/Consultant qualification.

• AECB Members £162+VAT
• AECB Student Members £50+VAT
• Non-members £202+VAT

(course prices do not include PHribbon or PHPP software)

PHPP is required to run PHribbon. The PHribbon software costs £200+VAT for AECB members, or £250+VAT for Non-members. There is then a £50+VAT annual license fee. If you would like to purchase PHribbon, please click on the AECB PHribbon icon below, and do take a look at the product description which gives details about the system requirements to run PHribbon.

Discounts are available when purchasing the course with PHribbon

Member Discount Bundles*

• PHribbon software + PHribbon course = £312 +VAT (otherwise £362 +VAT)
• PHribbon software + PHribbon course + PHPP v10 = £442 +VAT (otherwise £512 +VAT)
• PHribbon software + PHribbon course + PHPP upgrade = £422 +VAT (otherwise £482 +VAT)

Non-Member Discount Bundles*

• PHribbon software + PHribbon course = £402 +VAT (otherwise £452 +VAT)
• PHribbon software + PHribbon course + PHPP v10 = £562 +VAT (otherwise £632 +VAT)
• PHribbon software + PHribbon course + PHPP upgrade = £532 +VAT (otherwise £592 +VAT)

*Discount bundles are not available when purchasing the PHribbon course at the student member price of £50 +VAT

If applicable, please proceed to Book and Purchase each of the products, to add them to your basket, and you will be guided to add a discount code at checkout.

Multi-buy discounts are available to membership levels that have supplementary members*

Multi-buy discounts are available only when the bookings are made for candidates within the same company/organisation as part of one order/transaction.

If applicable, please contact [email protected] to request an invoice for your multi-buy discount and please provide your candidate names and email addresses.

• 5% discount for a group of 2-4
• 10% discount for a group of 5-9
• 15% discount for a group of 10 or more

*Discounts are not available when purchasing the course at the student member price of £50 +VAT

In the first session we will take a look at:

• Installation
• Button 1 – Entering materials from U-values
• Button 2 – Entering windows
• Button 3 – Entering materials not in the PHPP
• Button 4 – Entering services

In the second session we will cover:

• • Review of Exercise 1
  • Creating further options
  • Demolish and rebuild
  • Materials which need special consideration -render
  • Whole Life Carbon CO2 run through
  • Introduction to EmbodR tab

In the third and final session we will cover:

• • Review of Exercise 2
  • Spotting mistakes
  • Entering your own EPDs
  • Improving your building to meet targets
  • UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard