Exemplars Library

EXEMPLAR SUSTAINABLE BUILDING AWARDS

In 2025, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, the Sustainable Development Foundation developed the Exemplar Sustainable Building Awards in partnership with the Passivhaus Trust (PHT) and Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP). This one-off, evidence-based benchmark honoured the technical rigour, policy influence, and collaborative momentum that has been demonstrated over the past 20 years, while spotlighting high-performance projects to influence future delivery. The winning projects are listed here, with the full shortlists available here.

ABOUT THe SDF

At the Sustainable Development Foundation our mission is to help tackle the climate and ecological emergency by driving the adoption of exemplary sustainability practices in buildings. Our library of exemplar projects demonstrates buildings which are fit for the future and being built, NOW.

We take a holistic approach to all aspects of building sustainably, demonstrating how exemplar projects deliver different aspects of sustainability across three cross-cutting themes:

Enable sustainable communities
Promote occupant health and wellbeing
Deliver whole-life net zero

SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS

Within the three cross-cutting themes, we use ten sustainability indicators to define high performance, sustainable buildings. Rather than just focusing on buildings which achieve, for example, low energy use, our exemplars demonstrate a holistic approach to sustainability that delivers for people, planet and communities. All the featured projects are complete or nearing completion, showing how the construction industry can be transformed to be fit for the future, NOW.