Both titles are equal in terms of qual­i­fic­a­tion with ref­er­en­ce to the Pass­ive House rel­ev­ant know­ledge. The re­quire­ments for at­tain­ing this cer­ti­fic­ate and for re­new­al are also the same. Nor­mally, Pass­ive House De­sign­ers work in plan­ning of­fices on the con­crete im­ple­ment­a­tion of the Pass­ive House Stand­ard, while Pass­ive House Con­sult­ants usu­ally con­trib­ute to its dis­sem­in­a­tion through their work as re­search­ers or speak­ers, or as de­cision makers in gov­ern­ment au­thor­it­ies.

A clear clas­si­fic­a­tion is not al­ways easy due to the di­verse edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tions, pro­fes­sions and the leg­al pro­vi­sions re­lat­ing to build­ings world­wide. For this reas­on, the Pass­ive House In­sti­tu­te has spe­ci­fied two pos­sib­il­it­ies for clas­si­fic­a­tion as a "Cer­ti­fied Pass­ive House De­sign­er":

• Provid­ing proof of an edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion which en­ables you to plan build­ings or tech­nic­al build­ing sys­tems in­de­pend­ently. This edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion should have reached a cer­tain level (e.g. dip­loma or bach­el­or de­gree) and have been at­tained in a spe­cial­ised sub­ject which primar­ily in­volves the plan­ning of build­ings or build­ing ser­vices sys­tems.
• Provid­ing proof of mem­ber­ship in an in­sti­tu­tion, whose mem­bers are en­titled to provide plan­ning ser­vices which are sub­ject to ap­prov­al by a build­ing au­thor­ity (e.g. Cham­ber of Ar­chi­tects). In case of un­cer­tainty, and out­side of Ger­many, the course/ex­am­in­a­tion host or the as­sess­ing body should be con­tac­ted.

You qual­i­fy for the De­sign­er title if you have the fol­low­ing edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion:

• Ar­chi­tect or in­teri­or de­sign­er
• Civil or tim­ber con­struc­tion en­gin­eer
• Build­ing phys­i­cist
• Build­ing and en­ergy tech­no­logy en­gin­eer
• Mas­ter car­penter
• Cer­ti­fied tech­ni­cian for struc­tur­al en­gin­eer­ing, build­ing con­struc­tion, heat­ing plumb­ing and vent­il­a­tion tech­no­logy or sup­ply tech­no­logy

If you have the fol­low­ing edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion, you qual­i­fy for the Con­sult­ant title:

• De­gree in (ana­lyt­ic­al) chem­istry, elec­tric­al en­gin­eer­ing or man­u­fac­tur­ing en­gin­eer­ing
• En­gin­eer­ing de­gree in en­vir­on­ment­al tech­no­logy and re­source man­age­ment
• Con­struc­tion in­dustry en­vir­on­ment­al safety tech­ni­cian 
• En­vir­on­ment­al en­gin­eer
• Gas, plumb­ing and vent­il­a­tion sys­tems tech­ni­cian
• Wood­work tech­ni­cian 
• Cer­ti­fied tech­ni­cian for elec­tron­ics
• En­ergy con­sult­ant
• Ar­chi­tec­tur­al drafts­man
• Geo­met­ri­cian
• Wood­work tech­nic­an for win­dow in­stall­a­tion
• Man­aging dir­ect­or
• Prop­erty sales man­ager/es­tate agent
• Eco­nom­ist

► Please up­load your proof of edu­ca­tion when re­gis­ter­ing for the ex­am­in­a­tion. The at­tained Con­sult­ant title can be changed in­to the De­sign­er title, if such proof is only ob­tained and sub­mit­ted later on (e.g. tak­ing an ex­am­in­a­tion dur­ing train­ing). If no proof is sub­mit­ted, the Con­sult­ant title will be gran­ted upon suc­cess­ful qual­i­fic­a­tion. If you have ques­tions please con­tact de­sign­er@passiv.de