I won a major project just before I left BRE (Building Research Establishment, UK) in November 2008. The project was accepted for funding by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) in the UK. The Technology Strategy Board is an executive non-departmental public body, established by the UK Government in 2007 and sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (formerly Department of Trade and Industry, DTI). The Technology Strategy Board is about supporting innovation, to stimulate technology-enabled innovation to help stimulate UK growth and productivity by removing barriers to innovation and accelerate the exploitation of new technologies. The project was to be funded under the technology priority: Components and Materials for Low Impact Buildings, which was intended to help development of innovative materials and components to be integrated into buildings to achieve the government’s target for zero carbon housing for new build by 2016. The proposed project would involve a development of a range of novel walling products manufactured using bioresin made from waste vegetable oils and natural fibres such as hemp and flax. Gypsum plasterboard was also included in the project proposal. The innovative biocomposite products would be ‘‘breathable’’ and have high thermal and acoustic properties. The materials should remove pollutants and moderate the humidity in the infiltrating air. These pollutants could be generated outdoors e.g. nitrogen dioxide, polyaromatics and particulates from traffic or be released indoors (e.g. VOCs and formaldehyde from building products). The products would be prefabricated to allow a high degree of airtightness in the construction of homes, but the breathable walls would allow sufficient air permeation and pollutants removal to ensure a low impact on the health and wellbeing of occupants. The products should contribute to a high rating required by the Code for Sustainable Homes [1]. The project required a participation of industrial partners, who are world leaders in design, production and distribution of construction products for the building industry. The production of the innovative product would fit well with the industrial partners’ business strategy for product development that would contribute to low impact, low carbon emission and energy efficient buildings. However, due to the novelty of the products, this would represent a considerable risk to the industrial company but the funding by TSB would alleviate this risk to make the project worthwhile and would contribute to the design of buildings that have ‘‘health and wellbeing’’ as the central core of consideration. Also considering the downturn situation being experienced by the construction industry, the knowledge transfer and spill-over would be an important add-on value to the project had it been funded by TSB. Indoor Air Quality and health and wellbeing were not part of the central business objectives of BRE; therefore the Environmental Consultancy and Indoor Air Quality Team was disbanded and I left BRE, the day before the announcement of funding by TSB. The project was abandoned. As there will not be future opportunity for me to work on this project, I would like to share the idea with you, maybe one day we can have innovative breathable walling products developed and incorporated into housings to contribute to the sustainable development