Anke and James are a retired British couple, bought some land in Risan, and have built the first family house in Montenegro designed to German Passivhaus standards. With life-long interests in the environment and ecology, we seized this opportunity not only to build a house for ourselves and our extended families, but also as a demonstration for Montenegrins of what is possible, practical and economic while being at the forefront of sound environmental practice. We finally managed to build the EcoHouse, though needless to say, this being the Balkans, things have not worked out entirely as originally planned!

Along the way, we were recruited to help start the Montenegro Green Building Council – sadly inactive a few years after we resigned from the Board.

The world-wide network of more than 85 national Green Building Councils is coordinated by the World Green Building Council. The core mission is to: ‘Drive total decarbonization, eliminate operational and embodied carbon (Whole Life Carbon), and promote resource circularity’, by transforming the built environment to make it healthier and more sustainable.