Zero Ambitions Podcast

How sustainable is Futurebuild? The state of green building through the lens of the UK’s biggest event, with Martin Hurn (Futurebuild)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 07:20:20 +0100

We take a look at the state of the green building sector through the lens of itss biggest dedicated show in the UK, Futurebuild.

It on 12–14 May this year and you can sign up here.

Helping us to peek behind the curtain is the event's director, Martin Hurn, a man who is, ultimately, responsible for it all.

It seemed with a conversation because this year Futurebuild was acquired by a new owner and repackaged to become a super event. The green building great big networking event has merged with UK Construction Week and the Stone and Surfaces Show.

In light of this we get into the history of Futurebuild that sheds a little light on how the impact of changes that it’s going through right now are a little more like a return to its roots.

The episode has a bit of a long wind up because we’ve included a chunk of preamble in which Jeff explains his background to Martin which wasn’t intended for the episode but it ended up revealing similarities, and differences, in their backgrounds that felt worth including.

Both Martin and Jeff have been in this working within the business of the built environment for about the same amount of time (early 00s), and both coming from publishing backgrounds. They’ve seen the heydays, boom times, and catastrophes created by the Celtic Tiger and the UK’s solar subsidisation and feed-in tariffs.

Consequently, the pair of them are able to offer a some illuminating and interesting perspectives on where they see the sector at this strange point in time.

We also let Martin plug the show.

And, at the end we do get around to asking ‘how sustainable are events?’

Notes from the show

Register with Futurebuild 2026 for your event pass
The Futurebuild website
Martin Hurn on LinkedIn

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The messy business of social value: retrofit, procurement, and the built environment, with Michael McLaughlin (LHC Procurement Group)

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:06:00 +0100

What is social value? It's a messy, ill-defined beast that's increasingly a core component of public procurement, and it's something that we worked on recently so it's been front of our minds.

We invited Michael McLaughlin (LHC Procurement Group) onto the show to talk through what he thinks about social value, and what he thinks it could be if the sector was able to organise itself better.

No shade intended and we're not suggesting that it's easy to fix things, but we have looked into it. While there's a lot of great work being done there are an unconscionable number of opportunities being wasted, and not for want of trying.

Notes from the show

Michael McLaughlin on LinkedIn
The LHC Procurement Group website
LHC on LinkedIn

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Infrared surveys for retrofit: triage, validation, and accountability, with Lucy Lyons (Kestrix)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:01:00 +0000

Lucy Lyons of Kestrix joins us this week to talk about their use of drones, infrared imaging, and AI to quicken the pace of retrofit surveying. Specifically, with regard to a case study detailing their work with Peabody housing association.

Kestrix is a software company that works with landlords to assess their building stock in terms of which homes need help and whether the retrofit works that have been carried out are performing.

They use their sophisticated broad-brush surveys and image analysis is is designed to help asset owners get the greatest value out of stretched budgets and capacity, investing time wisely and proving value for money.

Notes from the show

Lucy Lyons on LinkedIn
Kestrix on LinkedIn
The Kestrix website
The Kestrix & Peabody case study that we refer to
National Audit Office report of retrofit performance: Energy efficiency installations under ECO
NHMF award 'Best Warm Home Initiative' 2026
New Study Suggests Using AI Made Doctors Less Skilled at Spotting Cancer

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Musings on modelling performance and the impact of the Home Energy Model (HEM), with Baz Iyer (Vulcan) and Stephen Lloyd (Savills Earth)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:02:00 +0000

Baz Iyer (Vulcan) and Stephen Lloyd (Savills Earth) join us to talk about the likely impact of the UK's long-awaited Future Homes Standard (FHS) and, perhaps more importantly, the Home Energy Model (HEM).

HEM is the new model that will inform the UK's Energy Performance Certification (EPC) rating system. It's much more detailed in terms of the information that it demands about the buildings it is being used to rate, and therefore much more demanding of the assessors.

But this means that it can be much more useful for modelling the energy performance of buildings because it will better reflect how the building will be experienced by its users. It won't be perfect but the level of detail that it demands means that homeowners may be able to use EPCs to make meaningful decisions about how to improve the buildings in which they live.

This also means that, in time, it is conceivable that HEM can become a design tool in the same way designers use PHPP to predict performance and calibrate design. That's certainly what Baz is planning and why he and Stephen have been interrogating the place HEM will occupy in the UK construction sector, the impact it might have on its culture, and the opportunity that its adoption will open up.

If anyone needs some help getting to grips with this I'd recommend they connect with Baz, he's very friendly and well-informed.

Notes from the show

Baz Iyer on LinkedIn
Stephen Lloyd on LinkedIn
The Vulcan website
The Savills Earth website
Vulcan on LinkedIn
Old ZAP #1 - 'Incompetence still reigns supreme' in energy ratings: DPE certification, EPCs, BERs, and a little bit of ESG
Old ZAP #2 - ZAP Shady business #1 – overheating, and Camden: we should think about solar gain all year round, with Zoe De Grussa (BBSA)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Integrated asset management and the realpolitik of retrofit: building physics versus cost, with Anna Moore (Domna Group)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:01:00 +0000

We sat down with Anna Moore, CEO of Domna Group, to talk about its approach to the business of retrofit, pragmatic retrofit strategy, and long-term asset management for landlords. All underpinned by a layer of data collation and machine learning.

Domna is currently retrofitting around 10,000 homes per year through grant-funded and self-funded programmes, using an integrated asset management—strategy to: deliver impact and savings through a mix of strategy, support on funding, management of delivery, and quality assurance.

Importantly, Anna knows her stuff and she is fun, too.

Notes from the show

Anna Moore on LinkedIn
Domna Group on LinkedIn
The Domna website (sign up in the footer)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Post-occupancy evaluation in the built environment: validating the quality of fabric, the impact of retrofit works, and anticipating car crashes, with Tom Robins and Leigh Fairbrother (Switchee)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:05:00 +0000

We're back! And we’re talking about the value of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) with Tom Robins and Leigh Fairbrother of Switchee.

Their business is POE for landlords that’s intended to improve the quality of life for the residents that they rely on. Capturing sensor data, analysing it, and synthesising that into something their clients can use.

Essentially, this means validating the quality of fabric, the impact of retrofit works, and anticipating car crashes—metaphorical ones.

We get a really helpful explanation of Awaab’s Law around 25–30 minutes in, too. (Thank you Leigh.)

Notes from the show

Tom Robins on LinkedIn
Leigh Fairbrother on LinkedIn
The Switchee website (sign up in the footer)
Switchee on LinkedIn
PH+ coverage of that early work in Thamesmead (the Clockwork Orange estate)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Delivering high-density, high-volume Passive House in Central London, with Attzaz Rashid (Barratt London) and Joel Callow (Beyond Carbon)

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:01:00 +0100

In this episode, we are joined by Attzaz Rashid (Barratt London) and Joel Callow (Beyond Carbon) to talk about Barratt London's move into Passive House.

It was a chance to get into what attracted Barratt to developing this Lo-E homes proposition and how they came to feel confident about committing to deliver certified Passive House apartments, the team effort that's been employed to make it work, and the way this change has brought about a renewed enthusiasm for the job in some of the project's participants.

It's a really interesting exploration of how the rigour and challenges of Passive House has affected Barratt's approach to high-density building, and how the Passive House approach has come to be recognised as advantageous to Barratt, in all sorts of ways.

Finally, the critique of M&E design that's made late on in the episode is not a Barratt critique—as Az makes abundantly clear—this is one founded in Joel’s experience of inheriting issues that require Beyond Carbon’s expertise for their resolution.

Notes from the show

Attzaz Rashid on LinkedIn
Joel Callow on LinkedIn
The Barratt London website
The Beyond Carbon website
District heating and passive house - are they compatible? from the pages of Passive House Plus
Barratt launches record passive house scheme also from the pages of Passive House Plus

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Reducing the cost of retrofit through collaboration and opportunism, with Rafe Bertram

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:02:00 +0100

Is there a collaboration problem in retrofit within the social housing sector? That was the premise for this conversation with Rafe Bertram, an architect and retrofit expert—appearing in a personal capacity—who was very surprised when I posed the question because he's found collaboration to be a strength in the sector, at least in London.

In the end it led to a conversation about what he's learned from the experiences he's had working on retrofits in the social housing sector, in his community, and even doing big flashy Apple stores.

The most interesting bit though is the strategy he's using to reduce the cost of retrofit, with his theory of reactive planning. It's an approach that takes a systematic integrated asset management approach and adds strategic opportunism into the mix in a way that enables him to piggyback essential works, like roof replacement, and use them as a catalyst for getting into a building to do the sustainability stuff that's usually a lower priority.

Notes from the show

Rafe Bertram on Linkedin
Retrofit Kentish Town
The Good Homes Alliance website
Rafe's finance report for the Good Homes Alliance — “The Green Shift – The existing financial incentives for higher environmental performance of new homes” (October 2023)

More links to articles about green building, favourable finance, and better valuations:

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Circularity, supply chains, and bringing a bio-based material to market, with Daniel Dinizo and Charmaine Cu-Unjieng (NaturLoop)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 00:02:00 +0100

This episode is all about case study in circularity and a group of people turning waste into useful materials for the built environment. Daniel Dinizo and Charmaine Cu-Unjieng of NaturLoop are bringing a new bio-based product to market that transforms waste coconut husk into a material that's something between MDF and a particle board.

For us, this presented a chance to talk about how sustainable materials are developed, the challenges of bringing them to market and how responsible businesses can approach supply chain development (the big challenge now).

As professionals who work with LCAs, EPDs, and carbon calcs all the time it was refreshing to get into a product that will have an impact that can be accounted for in human terms, as well as the usual economic and environmental terms.

They're also fundraising right now, so here's the pitch from Charmaine.

NaturLoop at the Final Stage of Pre-Seed Funding
"NaturLoop, the Swiss–Philippine climate-tech startup behind Cocoboard, is at the final stage of its pre-seed round. Cocoboard is the first industry-ready fibreboard made entirely from coconut husk waste and natural adhesives—a truly biocircular material. Featured at Interzum Cologne 2025, Cocoboard embodies the shift in construction and furniture toward biocircularity—no longer a trend but the future of materials. Europe’s sustainable furniture market is set to more than double to $42.6 bn by 2032, with consumers paying around 10% more for sustainable products. NaturLoop is closing its round soon, inviting strategic investors to co-build a climate-positive business that reduces deforestation and uplifts poor coconut farmers—making the industry more future-proof."

Notes from the show

Charmaine Cu-Unjieng on Linkedin
Daniel Dinizo on Linkedin
NaturLoop on Linkedin
The NaturLoop website
A short film about Cocoboard®
An investor CTA from Charmaine
An example of Cocoboard in use as a speaker box for a Schwab System

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Greening homes and creating growth—the UK finance sector is seriously interested in green building, with Ian Bhullar and Ronnell Reffell (UK Finance)

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:01:00 +0100

In this episode we are exploring the relationship between financial institutions and the built environment in relation to sustainability, building performance and mitigating climate change with Ian Bhullar and Ronnell Reffell from UK Finance, the UK financial sector's membership organisation.

The episode itself was prompted by a report that UK Finance published in relation to the incoming UK Government's own Warm Homes Plan: Greening Homes, Creating Growth: Unlocking demand for green home finance. Its recommendations will be familiar to anyone who has been working in the green building sector but it's notable because these arguments and demands are being presented by the banks and lenders.

For us this presented an opportunity to find out what the finance sector is actually thinking about how to address the demands of the built environment in relation to climate change and the financial risk that comes with it.

Most importantly, they're serious about the matter—this is not ESG-style fluff, they know they need to draw in expertise from built environment professional and they want to know what people like you think.

Notes from the show

Ian Bhullar on Linkedin
Ronnell Reffell on Linkedin
The UK Finance website
The report itself—Greening Homes, Creating Growth: Unlocking demand for green home finance

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Big plans for tackling non-residential retrofit, with Nick Taylor and Olga Khroustaleva (Building Atlas)

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:01:00 +0100

We're joined by our new friends from Building Atlas, Nick Taylor and Olga Khroustaleva, who join us for a conversation about commercial retrofit—the non-residential kind.

They’ve got a data driven business Building Atlas that helps commercial asset owners to plan pragmatic retrofit pathways for commercial real estate.

This isn’t just important because of how much energy the non-residential sector consumes, it’s also because 70% of non-residential building assets are on course to become stranded assets because of their EPC rating and MEES regulation.

They are simplifying a complex problem into something that’s comprehensible—aggregating experience (and data) to give broad brush stroke direction that's useful.

They’ve also published a paper about retrofit strategy for commercial buildings: The Beauty in Boring Buildings: The Business Case for Retrofit Beyond Flagship Assets.

Notes from the show

Nick Taylor on LinkedIn
Olga Khroustaleva on LinkedIn
The Building Atlas website
Their recent paper — The Beauty in Boring Buildings: The Business Case for Retrofit Beyond Flagship Assets
UK Government MEES guidance — Non-domestic private rented property: minimum energy efficiency standard - landlord guidance

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Prescription heating and experiments for a just transition, with Rose Chard (Energy Systems Catapult)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 00:01:00 +0100

In this episode Rose Chard joins us to describes her multilayered and multi textured approach to innovation and research.

It's a conversation about Energy Systems Captapult's experiment in prescribing heating to keep people warm—that's pretty much it, but there was a lot to talk about.

Notes from the show

Rose Chard on LinkedIn
The Inclusive Smart Solutions project that Rose mentions
Warm Home Prescription® Insights and Impact Report (July 2024) by Energy Systems Catapult
Warm Home Prescription recommended by 93% of health professionals in latest trial (September 2023) by Energy Systems Catapult
One of the papers Jeff mentioned: Occupant Interactions and Effectiveness of Natural Ventilation Strategies in Contemporary New Housing in Scotland, UK
The other one: Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in Part F 2006 Homes (BD 2702) from 2010

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Impact, innovation, and investment: how VCs aren't a good fit for climatetech and the need for economic biodiversity, with Richard Muscat (Untangled)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 00:02:00 +0100

In a slight departure from our usual building performance themes joining us for this episode we have Richard Muscat, a man who has experienced the world of investment and tech from a fascinating range of angles and is seeking ways to do things differently.

In essence, we’re looking at the way venture capital and climatetech are organised in ways that aren't conducive to delivering the impact that's promised. We're not just picking on VCs, we're using them as a means of highlighting a bunch of systemic economic issues—chief among them is how unrealistic goals for growth (in its myriad forms) almost always leads to failed impact. Perversely, it's a bug in the impact investment space that's a feature of the broader investment system.

We also get into concepts of degrowth and economic biodiversity.

Good Homes Alliance event
Launch event of our a best practice guide to ‘Water Efficiency and Reuse in Housing’ on Thursday 10 July.

Notes from the show

Richard Muscat on Linkedin
The Untangled website
Richard's recent LinkedIn post that we mention
The Project Drawdown website
Human flourishing doesn't require perpetual growth; it requires sufficiency, by Jason Hickel
Smarter Finance 4 EU — the project Jeff's been working on and promoting because green home certification is about not just energy use, or IAQ, etc, but how residents live their lives once they leave the front door i.e. nature + cycling + public transport + climate resilience etc. all matter

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Zero Bills Homes: a new building standard for residential construction? With Nigel Banks and Emma Fletcher (Octopus Energy)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 00:05:00 +0100

In this episode we're talking about Zero Bills Homes, so we welcome back Nigel Banks, this time accompanied by his Octopus colleague Emma Fletcher*.

We're not directly talking Fabric Fifth again but the concept is central to the Octopus zero bills strategy i.e. prioritising decarbonising energy use and reducing the cost of energy use rather than focusing on reducing energy demand through fabric measures. As before, basic fabric standards are required in order to make the proposition financially viable.

As you might imagine, Jeff was keen to dig into the technical and performance side, so Nigel explains what’s going on in the standard and what they know about how well it’s functioning and Emma fills us in on how it's shaping up to evolve into a building standard in its own right.

We're particularly keen because—although we might be sceptical, which we discuss—the action that Octopus is initiating will raise standards and will shape expectations that will influence the whole residential construction sector, and could go some way to catalysing the bridging of the skills gap.

*She, too, works at Octopus Energy—she is not an actual octopus.

Notes from the show

Nigel Banks on Linkedin
Emma Fletcher on Linkedin
The Octopus Zero Bills proposition in their own words
The Octopus Tenant Power proposition
Nigel Banks' addressing the embodied carbon question on LinkedIn
Link to The Octopus Energy Tech Summit (23rd June)
The Fabric Fifth ZAP episode from last year

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofit rescue: lessons learned from fixing a disastrous programme of works in Fishwick, with Filipe Amarante and Joanna Curtis (National Energy Action)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:05:00 +0100

This episode is all about a retrofit programme gone wrong in Preston and the effort required to fix it.

It's a story that was covered in the pages of Passive House Plus back in 2018 under the headline "Disastrous Preston retrofit scheme remains unresolved" and until recently we thought it remained unresolved.

We're joined by Filipe Amarante and Joanna Curtis to talk about the Preston Retrofit Catastrophe and all the work that National Energy Action has been doing to fix the grotesque damage that was wrought on a community in the 2010s. It's a project that's consumed at least four years and—in truth—will require many more to make good.

It's not a hopeless story though. The work NEA has carried out is full of lessons for anyone who works in retrofit to learn. They've taken a worst case scenario—one so bad it's hard to imagine how you could make it any worse—and developed a remediation programme that mitigates the worst of the situation while laying out a best-practice template for how one should approach place-based retrofit programmes.

They're also hosting a NEA webinar about the programme on 10 June: sign up here.

Notes from the show

The Passive House Plus article: "Disastrous Preston retrofit scheme remains unresolved"
Filipe on LinkedIn
Joanna on LinkedIn
The NEA website
The NEA's summary report on the project (and video): Warm and Safe Homes in Fishwick
More photos of the disaster in "When retrofit goes wrong – lessons from Preston", a presentation by Kate de Selincourt, the writer who brought this story to Jeff's attention
Cathy Come Home on IMDB
A Taste of Honey on IMDB
Riff-Raff on IMDB

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Moisture: the bane of all buildings (also breathability, sweatability, and vapour), with Valentina Marincioni (UCL) and Toby Cambray (Greengauge)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 20 May 2025 00:04:00 +0100

We are joined by Valentina Marincioni (UCL, UKCMB) and returning guest Toby Cambray (Greengauge) to talk about the bane of all buildings: moisture.

Recently, they they’ve produced a simple explainer video about "breathability" in buildings for the UK Centre for Moisture in Buildings. Given Jeff's proclivity for referring to the 'sweatability' of buildings this seemed like a perfect opportunity to have Toby back and meet his colleague Valentina.

We got into the subject of moisture in some depth, discussed the key terms (vapour diffusion, hygroscopicity, and capillary action), why this all matters, what’s important to understand and how it’s easily misunderstood and easily miscommunicated.

We also play the audio from the video.

Notes from the show

Buildings Don't Breathe, the video that led to the conversation
Toby on LinkedIn
Valentina on LinkedIn
The UKCMB website and the tools and guidance they host there
The recent Historic England paper: Air and Vapour Control Layers (AVCLs) in buildings of traditional construction. A literature review to understand appropriate use
The BSI white paper about 4 Cs (context, coherence, capacity, and caution) framework for the development of moisture standards in the UK
The paper Toby wrote with Sarah Price on moisture in Enerphit: Moisture and EnerPHit - Good Practice Guide (December 2023)
Toby's appearance on the House Planning Help podcast talking about all things WUFI
The Greengauge consultancy website (Toby's consultancy, with others, too)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Battery storage, lancing boilers, and decentralised energy grids: a Decent way to manage your electricity, with Tom Cox and Sally Sattary (Decent Energy)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 06 May 2025 00:04:00 +0100

Joining us for this episode are Tom Cox and Sally Sattary co-founders of Decent Energy.

They have a software startup borne of a retrofit experience that did not meet its homeowner expectations, a proprietary software that works to maximise the value of battery storage to improve two key metrics: reducing cost of electricity and reducing the carbon intensity of the energy you do use.

There's a bunch of chat about the potential of decentralised energy management to help people in all sorts of ways, from reducing one's individual impact to helping the grid cope with occasionally, dangerously abundant renewable energy—an issue which costs every household something like £40 per year, just to turn off the generation facility let it overload the grid.

Anyway, there's loads in there. You can find Decent Energy, Tom, and Sally in all the usual places (links below).

Notes from the show

Tom Cox on LinkedIn
Sally Sattary on LinkedIn
Decent Energy's website
Decent Energy on LinkedIn
Saul Griffith's website - an author who inspired Tom to work on the problem of energy decentralisation and demand decarbonisation

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Translating retrofit for normal people, with retrofit influencer Judith Leary Joyce (Eco Home Retrofit)

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 17:39:09 +0100

This episode is a window into the consumer side of domestic retrofit that’s full of lessons for everyone involved in the retrofit sector.

We speak with retrofit influencer Judith Leary Joyce about the experience of undergoing a deep retrofit and learning how to communicate about the subject with normal people. She talks us through her journey from building an extension during the pandemic to getting deep into retrofit and eventually becoming an unlikely retrofit influencer.

Whether you work in a domestic, commercial, or industrial setting the nature and needs of normal people will remain the same, so this is an episode full of lessons and insights for anyone for anyone involved in domestic retrofit about:

- how to speak with normal people
- how to learn how to do better (TLDR: listen to yourself, or get someone to listen to you to check whether you're baffling your customers)

- how to think about their needs and understand their perspectives

- how to inspire them and inform them better prior to a project

She’s also got some fascinating insights about when people are likely to be able or willing to listen to someone talking about building performance and taking on new ideas

Notes from the show

Judith on LinkedIn
Judith on Instagram
Judith on Facebook
Judith on Twitter
Judith on Linktree
Judith's Eco Renovation Home website
Beginner's Guide to Eco Renovation: Understand the Basics and the Best Questions to Ask by Judith Leary Joyce (I couldn't find a properly independent bookshop stocking it)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Embodied carbon and how sustainable is MMC? With Richard O'Hegarty (RKD, UCD) and Oliver Kinnane (UCD)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:24:00 +0100

Returning champions Richard O'Hegarty and Oliver Kinnane join us to discuss a recently co-authored paper: Understanding the embodied carbon credentials of modern methods of construction (MMC).

Get ready for a long meandering discussion that gets into what they learned and what they think about accounting practices for embodied carbon, as well as plenty of chatter about MMC and why we hate the term (but not what it is).

Notes from the show

Richard O'Hegarty on LinkedIn
Oliver Kinnane on LinkedIn
A link to Richard's post about the paper and a link to Jeff's comment
The paper itself: Understanding the embodied carbon credentials of modern methods of construction
Their UCD webpage
That Compromised insulation paper (**warning, sadly paywalled but check it if you can**)
RKD's website
The RKD and Hibernia Real Estate-produced paper: Understanding Net Zero Commercial Real Estate
ZAP 8 May 2023: How should we calculate carbon and how long should a building last? With Dr Oliver Kinnane and Dr Richard O'Hegarty of University College Dublin
ZAP 1 May 2023: MMC is value engineering that should benefit everyone, with Emma Elston and Amandeep Singh Kalra of Be First Regeneration

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Can we meet the skills gap the way we currently deliver training and what is the purpose of education? With Nathan Gambling (BetaTalk and BetaTeach)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 00:03:00 +0000

For this episode we were joined by Nathan Gambling. For those that are new to him, he's heating engineer of some repute, a renowned educator, and a fellow podcaster.

The episode revolves around the nature of education and learning, the skills gap—specifically focusing on heat pump and retrofit education—and a post that Nathan put up a few weeks ago about an educational experiment he tried out that led to us thinking about the purpose of education.

In essence, the episode is about how people learn and how this should shape our approach to meeting the skills gap. Nathan is a great communicator and you should check his podcast.

Notes from the show

Nathan Gambling on LinkedIn
BetaTalk - The Renewable Energy and Low Carbon Heating Podcast
Nathan's recent LinkedIn post about his teaching experiment
Nathan's old LinkedIn repost about that weird arrangement of radiators
That Gatsby report we talk about: Closing the Retrofit Gap
BetaTalk episode: How boiler engineers transition to heat pumps

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

There is methodology for defining what ‘net zero carbon’ means for buildings in the UK and it looks great, with Jess Hrivnak (RIBA), Jane Anderson (ConstructionLCA), and Julie Godefroy (CIBSE)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:18:17 +0000

This time around we're talking about the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (UKNZCBS) with three of its architects: Jess Hrivnak (RIBA), Jane Anderson (ConstructionLCA), and Julie Jodefroy (CIBSE).

The UKNZCBS is the first cross-industry standard for net zero carbon-aligned buildings, albeit in a pilot form. The standard has been developed to enable stakeholders to prove whether a building aligns with the UK’s carbon and energy budgets by providing a single, agreed methodology for defining what ‘net zero carbon’ means for buildings in the UK.

This probably won't be the only episode we'll produce on the subject and we'll be watching its progress with great interest.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

A 'global' standard for residential retrofit? With Paul Bagust (RICS Head of Property Standards), Steven Lees (RICS Senior Specialist - Residential Survey), and Robert Toomey (RICS Senior Public Affairs Officer)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 00:02:00 +0000

Last year the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) released its residential retrofit standard. Given that they're one of the construction industry's oldest, largest, and most influential institutions this felt significant.

Importantly, the RICS organisation has a global footprint, so it has the potential to influence good behaviour far and wide. We're also hopeful in light of the success of the RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment standard. That is in terms of its apparent impact, adoption, and reach.

In order to get into the subject a bit more we invited Paul Bagust (Head of Property Standards), Steven Lees (Senior Specialist - Residential Survey), and Robert Toomey (Senior Public Affairs Officer) to join us to talk about the standard and the impact they want to see it have.

Notes from the show

Paul Bagust on LinkedIn
Steven Lees on LinkedIn
Robert Toomey on LinkedIn
The old Passive House Plus article about the Preston retrofit catastrophe that Jeff mentions
The RICS consumer guide to energy will be here once it's published (one for the listeners of the future)
The website for Scotland's Green Home Festival – details for 2025 are incoming

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Can we address the decarbonisation of homes by focusing on health? With Jenny Danson (Healthy Homes Hub)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:05:00 +0000

Can we address the decarbonisation of homes by focusing on health? That's the mission that Jenny Danson has set for herself in establishing Healthy Homes Hub, and it's a question that manages to subvert Betteridge's Law of headlines, too.

Healthy Homes Hub is a network, built around an online platform, that's dedicated to transforming the way people experience social housing, and its environmental impact, by creating healthier housing environments. Comprising a series of eight dedicated hubs that cover everything from policy and finance, to retrofit and air quality, the platform enable easy access to important information, insights, and thought leadership.

Jenny has over 25 years of experience in social housing, as a supplier and client-side, driving innovation, delivery and improving lives so she knows what she's talking about.

The project was borne of a frustration with seeing time and effort wasted as people across the sector carry out the same kinds of work, repeatedly, starting from scratch when they could share resources and pool experience. In a sector where capacity is in short supply this time could be easily put to better use.

We talk through the challenges faced by the sector and how a focus on people and health can be used to drive us towards delivering on decarbonisation targets, but train our attention on outcomes for the people living in the 'building assets' not just the performance of the fabric and technology that comprises their home.

While it's explicitly aimed at the social housing sector, the platform offers a wealth of information resources and sharing of experience that could be useful far beyond the provision of social housing.

Notes from the show

Those ventilation papers that Jeff mentioned

Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in Part F 2006 Homes (BD 2702) by S. McKay, D. Ross, I. Mawditt, and S. Kirk (2010)
Occupant Interactions and Effectiveness of Natural Ventilation Strategies in Contemporary New Housing in Scotland, UK by Tim Sharpe, Paul Farren, Stirling Howieson, Paul Tuohy, Jonathan McQuillan

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Innovating and maturing: Loco Home Retrofit is an "emerging" retrofit one-stop-shop, with co-founder Chris Carus

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:02:00 +0000

Joining us on Zero Ambitions this week is Chris Carus co-founder of Loco Home Retrofit, a Glasgow-based 'emerging one-step shop'.

Loco Home Retrofit is a retrofit operation that's most interesting for its approach to developing a viable retrofit offer, focused on building trust in communities and with its supply chain as a means to catalysing the decarbonisation of our homes (or at least Glasgow's homes).

And now, they're hiring, seeking to fill three positions (below) so if you know of anyone suitable please share the ads:

As much as anything else, we love how they think about the retrofit challenge. Their considered approach to building a proposition and a method is what has really sold us, possibly because it resonates with our UX-focused approach to everything, but mainly because it seems to make sense.

Notes from the show

The Loco Home Retrofit website
Chris on LinkedIn
Loco Home Retrofit on LinkedIn
All three job ads, again
Chris's interview with BE-ST after winning the Gamechanger award at the Accelerate to Zero Awards 2023
Designing an ‘optimal’ domestic retrofit programme by Aaron Gillich et al (2017) – The paper Chris couldn't remember the name for
Loco Home Retrofit's 2023/24 impact report detailing their innovation efforts to date
Research Report - The right time for heat pumps in retrofit (Alan Clarke for Passive House Trust) – the other paper that Chris and Jeff reference

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Eliminate construction waste – Loop Your Spare instead: circular thinking and platform technology that reduces the cost of construction for everyone, with Jay Stuart

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 00:02:00 +0000

The first episode of January 2025 marks the long overdue, first appearance of Jay Stuart, a long-time friend and colleague of Jeff and a firm fixture of the green building scene in Ireland.

Jay joined us to talk about his latest project: Loop Your Spare. It’s a SaaS platform designed to match 'spare' construction materials with projects that need them on other sites before they have a chance to be classified as waste.

It’s a concept that could largely eliminate the concept of waste and minimise the need for recycling in construction by enabling materials to remain in their highest-value states, thus retaining their value and mitigating the need to put them through all of the (ultimately destructive) processes involved in recycling.

While we’re looking to Ireland in this specific case the issues are universal and the solutions should be able to cross borders with relative ease. It’s really an episode about smart thinking, with specific reference to a bunch of the projects Jay has worked on in the past and what’s coming up in the future.

We've wanted to get Jay on for ages because he’s an innovative and unconventional thinker who simplifies complex challenges in accessible and unexpected ways. He’s also massively experienced, having lectured at University College Dublin’s School of Architecture, worked with leading Irish construction businesses like Ecofix and D/RES, and worked as a government advisor to name just a few things.

Also, it’s an episode that continues the conversations from last year’s episodes with Chris Clarke and Don’t Waste Buildings and their calls to do something about egregious construction waste in the UK.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Speeding up external wall insulation installation and preparing a retrofit start-up for scale, with Max Bloomfield (VundaHaus) and Alex Whitcroft (KIN; VundaHaus)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:02:00 +0000

What's it like trying to scale a retrofit start-up?

This episode welcomes Max Bloomfield and Alex Whitcroft, two of the folks from VundaHaus, to talk about their product, its ongoing design and development, and their preparations to scale the business as they raise investment.

VundaHaus designs and manufactures a rapid-fit insulation solution for external wall insulation (EWI) of residential homes. It's a a sophisticated off-site, MMC, insulation jigsaw that’s been developed to make the logistics of installation much easier than traditional EWI.

There's more to the story but you can listen to that on the episode.

Notes from the show

The VundaHaus website
The KIN website
Max Bloomfield on LinkedIn; email Max here
Alex Whitcroft on LinkedIn; email Alex here
The TransformER project

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Experiments in low-carbon retrofit for a high-status building (with a basement), with Natalie Black (Enbee Architecture + Design) and Toby McLean (Allt Environmental Structural Engineers)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 10:40:24 +0000

This week's episode is all about the lessons learned in carrying out a low-carbon retrofit.

Natalie Black (Enbee Architecture + Design) and Toby McLean (Allt Environmental Structural Engineers) joined us to talk through their experiments and experiences on the renovation of a derelict house in Muswell Hill, London that was shortlisted for the Architects Journal Retrofit and Reuse awards this year.

This is a project that could easily be misrepresented as a Grand Designs-style endeavour that's only representative of what you can do if you've got loads of capital and capacity, but that wouldn't be fair. This project should really be seen as an example of what you can achieve when you've got loads of capital and the capacity to experiment.

The lessons learned here aren't going to solve the housing crisis but they can contribute to resolving the climate crisis, and this is what's motivating our guests. Like many of our listeners, Natalie and Toby are built environment professionals who have become increasingly driven to change how they work by the dawning realisation that the climate crisis is upon us.

We also discuss whether you can actually have a low-carbon basement.

Links for the PhD applications are below too.

Notes from the show

PhD #1 - Balancing Supply and Demand: Developing a Net Zero Energy Framework for Difficult-to-Retrofit Buildings in Nottinghamshire
Nottingham Trent University deadline 8th Dec, start Apr 2025, Led by: Dr Orla Williams (UoN), Co-Supervisors: Dr Kate Simpson (NTU) and Prof Richard Bull (NTU); Community Supervisor(s): Phil Berrill (Nottinghamshire County Council), Chris Beattie (Inspire)

PhD #2 - Sustainable Construction UK: Investigating the UK construction industry’s culture in relation to meeting long-term social, economic and environmental goals
Nottingham Trent University, deadline 14th Feb, start Sep 2025, led by Prof Gavin Killip and Dr Ani Raiden

PhD #3 - Re-imagining energy retrofit and home adaptation to deliver safe and resilient homes during interconnected energy, health, housing and climate crises
Nottingham Trent University, deadline 14th Feb, start Sep 2025, led by myself with Dr Penelope Siebert and Prof Rowena Hill

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Why we need to tell better stories about the built environment, with Liz Male (LMC)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:02:00 +0000

Our guest, Liz Male has been on our radar for a while. She is a figure who has been working in the construction sector since the 1990s, an ally to the sustainability sector, a great communicator, and an experienced thinker.

When we met earlier in the year we talked about a lot of things, but the consistent theme of our conversation was 'why we need to tell better stories about the built environment'. That said, we kept our powder as dry as we could and moved on to discuss when we might be able to get her onto the podcast to talk about it from the ZAP platform.

We get a lot into the chat. Of particular interest is the historical perspective that Liz can offer. A lot has changed since Koyoto

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Notes from the show

Liz Male on LinkedIn
Liz Male Consulting Ltd website (LMC) website
LMC on LinkedIn
National Energy Foundation

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Don't Waste Buildings, which means retrofitting them and building them better. With Leanne Tritton (Ing Media), Will Hurst (Architect's Journal), and Richard Nelson (Abyss Global)

Jeff and Dan — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 12:58:00 +0100

Apologies for the delay, the lost podcast has been returned and is ready for release.

'Don't Waste Buildings' should be a straightforward proposition. It seems obvious. Especially so in the face of the climate crisis. Unfortunately, the business of the built environment is not yet on board completely.

Our guests for this episode are the founders of UK-based campaign group Don't Waste Buildings, Will Hurst (Architects Journal) Leanne Tritton (Ing Media), and Richard Nelson (Abyss Global).

They're a group who are seeking to remedy this challenge by pressuring government and persuading business to both do better. They're doing some really interesting work and they're new, so they need support.

Please note: the graphic we refer can be found here (about 15 minutes in). I'll update this reference with a link to the Passive House Plus article once it's published.

Notes from the show

Don't Waste Buildings on LinkedIn (the best starting point)
The Don't Waste Buildings holding page (a proper website is imminent, so keep an eye on www.dontwastebuildings.com)
Will Hurst on LinkedIn
Leanne Tritton on LinkedIn
Richard Nelson on LinkedIn
Zero Ambitions - Construction's embodied carbon problem: how do we incentivise retrofit over 'demolish and rebuild', with Joseph Kilroy (CIOB)
The AJ article by Kunle Barker that Will refers to: Without architects’ close expert involvement, government plans to retrofit millions of homes will be prone to unintended consequences such as mould
Something about that 'burning fossil fuels to save the planet' nonsense that Jeff was referring to Future Energy Scenarios 2023 Released, sadly he couldn't find the actual article he remembered
He found this as well: Ability of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) to generate negative emissions
The Indy Johar LinkedIn post that Will refers to
LRB's James Butler article about Grenfell: ‘This much evidence, still no charges’

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Performance guarantees, measuring what works, and EPC reform, with Steven Heath (Knauf Insulation)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 00:02:00 +0100

This week we're speaking with Steven Heath, technical director at Knauf Insulation (UK and Ireland) and a really interesting and experienced person in the sector.

So while we had him, we ran through a bunch of our favourite hoary subjects: measuring performance, performance guarantees, and what we think about EPCs.

Knauf is a firm that's done some really interesting work in all of these areas and has even managed to make headway with the UK state in getting them to think about the value of testing performance, with EPCs and whatever SHDF is called now (the state-driven money tap for decarbonising social housing).

Notes from the show

Steven Heath on LinkedIn
Knauf Insulation's website
The ZAP episode with Kate Crawford about HTC and the 'snug factor': A new way to measure performance, negative energy use, and learning from disaster zones, with Kate Crawford (KLH Sustainability)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Sustainability, sufficiency, and sequestration – the language we use and what it means, with Lloyd Alter

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:02:00 +0100

A long-overdue episode with friend of the show, Lloyd Alter, about a blog he wrote and his book "The Story of Upfront Carbon".

We get into the language of sustainability, carbon, and lots of the words that are ubiquitous in this space (sustainability and the built environment, obviously).

We get into the sustainability of travel, to some extent too,

Lloyd's book: The Story of Upfront Carbon: How a Life of Just Enough Offers a Way Out of the Climate Crisis

InnovateUK – Net Zero Heat Open Day
A showcase of IUK innovation lab projects including Transform-ER

Thursday 3rd October, online, 9am-12pm
Register here

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Developers can build sustainably and at scale, if they want to. With Nicola Cronin and Stephen O'Shea (Cairn Homes Plc)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:05:00 +0100

A wise woman once said: "sustainability is the doing, ESG is the talking about it".

Today an Irish house-building giant has made a major move on Passive House — publishing a positioning paper and announcing the ongoing construction of over 1,700 homes to the standard.

Joining us to talk about this are Nicola Cronin (Senior Sustainability Analyst) and Stephen O'Shea (Head of Sustainable Construction and ESG Reporting).

Rather than this being another episode about Passive House we're more concerned with why a massive housebuilder has chosen to build to the standard. In this case, the answer highlights the positive impact that corporate reporting – in this case ESG – can have on the practice of construction.

Where we've often derided ESG factors as a corporate fig leaf, in this instance ESG factors have driven institutional change. Most importantly, the scale of this change clearly illustrates the massive impact that big developers can have. If they choose to try.

In short, we're talking about how change is made and why change is made.

Links are below.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

How can we embed sustainable design into the construction process? With Mhairi Grant (Paper Igloo)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 00:03:00 +0100

Jeff invited Mhairi Grant, co founder of award-winning architectural practice Paper Igloo, to join us to talk about the challenges of ensuring that one's ideas for sustainable design actually make their way through to the construction phase.

The subject was sparked by a conversation she and Jeff had about lessons learned from a flawed project (that we discuss) and what it takes to ensure that our best, or even just easiest ideas are delivered upon in the build phase.

Usually, we'd think about specifying a project in a way that can resist value engineering, but sometimes the project can be scuppered by something as simple as an easily avoidable comprehension issue.

Notes from the show

Mhairi Grant on LinkedIn
A link to Scotland's Passivhaus Consultation: Building Regulations: Determining the principles for a Scottish equivalent to the Passivhaus standard: Stage 1 consultation
The Paper Igloo website
Paper Igloo on Instagram
The Passive House Plus feature on Mhairi's own home in Stirlingshire

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Why is making UK homes more efficient so difficult? Leyla Boulton (Green Conservation; Financial Times)

Dan and Jeff — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 00:03:00 +0100

Why is making UK homes more efficient so difficult? So asked journalist Leyla Boulton earlier this year in the pages of the Financial Times.

Seeing a retrofit article in the FT piqued our interest, even more so once we realised Leyla is a senior editor with an esteemed background in political and environmental reporting. She was reporting on Kyoto where no one cared.

Since beginning her retrofit journey Leyla has become a campaigner and it's this that you'll hear as we discuss the mainstreaming retrofit for the able-to-pay market, an endeavour borne of her experiences delving into the retrofit sector motivated by efforts to make her own home more energy efficient.

Typically we talk about the barriers to take up, a desperately unhelpful planning bureaucracy, poorly designed institutional support, hamstrung local authorities and councils, and the need to do better in designing a system that works.

Do check Leyla's article if you can. In spite of the broad air of dismay at how difficult things are, she describes meeting lots of helpful and enthusiastic people who were hamstrung in their efforts.

Notes from the show

Leyla Boulton on LinkedIn
Five Lessons from a Neighbourhood Campaign (FT, December 2023) - a free-to-read article in the FT on Leyla's campaign (the others are paywalled)
Why is making UK homes more efficient so difficult? (FT, April 2024)
The More in Common research at E3G webinar and slides (July 2024)
Planning reform for retrofit of listed and conservation area homes - the public-facing report on our Green Conservation campaign's meeting of councils to share best practice on planning reform for retrofit (June 18 2024)
Leyla and Anne-Marie Huby's Green Conservation campaign website
The Transform-ER project video on the plan to design a system that enables the retrofit sector to scale and upgrade one million homes a year by 2030 (Transform-ER stands for 'Transform. Engage. Retrofit.')
Chris Procter's Climate Emergency Conservation Area Toolkit (direct DL link here)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

What can we do about waste in construction? Diversion from landfill isn't enough and there's money to be made. With Chris Clarke (SCAPE)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 00:02:00 +0100

In the UK every day the construction industry produces enough waste to fill a football stadium.

Rightly, former guest, Chris Clarke (SCAPE) has got a bee in his bonnet about construction waste and is making efforts to draw attention to the issue. He's not just concerned with the profligate use of resources and the impact on carbon emissions, it's the lackadaisical nature of the waste itself.

Waste management accounts for £1.5BN of construction spending every year. In an industry that's operating on margins so tight that any kind of change can be seen to be prohibitively risky, it seems absurd that such a significant amount of waste is priced into every single large-scale project.

But, while waste, accounting, reuse, circularity, and MMC are all concepts that have an important part to play, but most important is the front-end work that can be done to reduce waste at the point of design.

Whichever way we look at it, when we're asked where we might find the money to drive the circular economy or reduce emissions, it would seem that there might be a simple answer. Even if the solution itself isn't so simple.

If we're hoping for infrastructure changes that will make a significant contribution to net-zero efforts and generate revenue, it looks like we might have an easy-ish mark.

Notes from the show

Chris Clarke on LinkedIn (chrisc@scape.co.uk)
Construction Waste Portal website
SCAPE's approach to sustainability
SCAPE - Building for Public Good: A Charter for Change - a policy/lobbying piece produced for the new UK government
That Danish development with the recycled brick slips in Architect's Journal
We Build Eco in the pages of Passive House Plus
Chris's last appearance on Zero Ambitions
Innovate UK's Circular Economy Innovation Network

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Net zero neighbourhoods and financing change, with Cat Magill (Living Places)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 00:02:00 +0100

Something-like twelve months on from inception we thought we'd catch up with what's happening at Living Places, the multi-disciplinary, impact-focused consultancy co-founded by this week's guest Cat Magill.

Where last year Rufus Grantham came on the podcast to tell us all about the organisation he was in the midst of founding, this year Cat joined us to tell us about what they've been up to.

There was plenty to talk about, but in short, the finance part isn’t that easy. However, they're making progress and figuring out how to make it happen, and Cat tells us all about it.

Notes from the show

Cat Magill on LinkedIn
Living Places website
The West Midlands Combined Authority's outcome funding report: Creating a market for place-based outcomes
Research about conversations with your neighbours: Do you listen to your neighbour? The role of block leaders in community-led energy retrofits
The official evaluation paper about the first social housing decarbonisation demonstrator in which none of the projects delivered to schedule: Whole House Retrofit (WHR) and Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator (SHDF(D))
Here’s an article from Inside Housing about the same thing: Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund: majority of councils failed to retrofit single home by deadline
Accelerating Net Zero Delivery, the UKRI paper that we refer to as being authored by PwC and Andrew Sudman (there were more authors)
And some academic research that followed up on it: Climate policy as social policy? A comprehensive assessment of the economic impact of climate action in the UK
Last year's episode with Rufus
Dan's presentation about the Energiesprong Comfort Plan retrofit research on YouTube

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Running a successful retrofit one-stop-shop isn't easy but it can be done, with Caroline Ashe Brady (KORE Retrofit)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 00:04:00 +0100

This week's guest is Caroline Ashe Brady of KORE Retrofit in Ireland, one of the objectively successful one-stop-shop retrofit providers to have emerged over the past few years.

Caroline is a business leader who we’re a proper fan of, so apologies in advance for our ‘so Caroline please tell us, why are you so great’ style questioning. That said, you can trust us in this opinion, we’ve done the work with these guys.

Caroline was happy to talk about their method, process, challenges and offer up some top tips for how to make it work in the sector, which should be valuable to anyone involved wherever they're based.

KORE Retrofit is a business that is ambitious about doing better and has demonstrated that retrofit can be a commercial success. It's not easy, and no-one is perfect, but KORE is operating with a practical plan about how they’re going to do better, not just offering up words.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The challenging life of a retrofit coordinator: problems with process, products, and performance, with returning champion Lisa Pasquale

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:04:00 +0100

Returning champion Lisa Ann Pasquale rejoins us on Zero Ambitions to talk about dogs and retrofit. Mainly retrofit though.

Informed by Lisa's experiences as a retrofit coordinator, technical lead at RetrofitWorks, and Technical Manager at The Retrofit Academy she knows an awful lot about the challenges faced by retrofit practitioners. Windows, ventilation, product information, and the inflexibility of insurance-backed guarantees all come in for a well-justified shoeing.

Notes from the show

Lisa on LinkedIn
Lisa's video about her own home retrofit (it's brilliant)
Lisa's first appearance: What makes for a successful retrofit (February 2022)
RICS residential retrofit standard

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

What should we do to get more women into retrofit? Well, we should get behind 'Her Retrofit Space', with Ellora Coupe (Her Own Space and now Her Retrofit Space)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 00:40:32 +0100

Returning champion Ellora Coupe joins us to talk about the recent report that Her Own Space has published about the place of women in the retrofit sector, which is heartening, insightful, and damning in equal measure. A great piece of work that everyone interested in the sector should heed.

Perhaps more importantly, she's with us to promote the incoming launch of its professional sister network Her Retrofit Space, a network for professional women working in the retrofit sector. It's a network that she's created to fill an obvious cultural deficit and in her words "empower professional women to drive retrofit". It sounds brilliant.

Finally, a deserving heads-up for Graphenstone as the first signed-up partner for Her Retrofit Space.

Notes from the show

Ellora on LinkedIn
The Her Retrofit Space survey and sign-up web page
Judith Leary Joyce – How you and your builder can save the planet (TEDx St Albans) (Judith is a member advocate of Her Retrofit Space)
Katie Hart (also a member advocate of Her Retrofit Space and neuromarketing professional)
The Her Own Space website
The Her Own Space Facebook group

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Building better performance: raising construction standards on site and in education, with Joseph Little (TUD)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 09:38:53 +0100

This week we're going by Joseph Little, Head of Construction & Building Performance in the School of Architecture, Building and Environment at TU Dublin. He joined us to talk about the journey he's been on leading the MSc in Building Performance over the last seven years, but we got into a lot more.

Joseph has been deeply involved in the promotion of better building standards by measuring the performance of buildings for years. Not least with the five Breaking the Mould articles he wrote that Jeff published years ago, sounding the alarm on moisture, condensation, ventilation and a bunch of other issues.

We get into all of it and tried to be mindful to keep it to a 'reasonable' length. I'm sure we'll have him back though.

Notes from the show

Joseph Little on LinkedIn
BE-ST Fest Summit 2024 - The UK's biggest festival for a zero-carbon built environment, Wednesday 6th November 2024
The Built to Last case studies hosted on the Dublin City Council website
Joseph's papers and articles on the TU Dublin Arrow repository
This is A link to the Springboard web page for TU412 Postgrad Certificate in Building Performance open until the end of August 2024, apply during June to get best chance of a subsidised place; oddly, it'll only direct you there if you're in Ireland, so more info can be found here on the TU Dublin website
Partial fill cavity wall: have we reached the limits of the technology? By Joseph Little
Breaking the Mould 1 by Joseph Little
Breaking the Mould 2 by Joseph Little
Breaking the Mould 3 by Joseph Little
Breaking the Mould 4 by Joseph Little
Breaking the Mould 5 by Joseph Little
Thermal bypass risks: A technical review (September 2022), by Mark Siddall

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofit as a movement for social change (there's more to it all than fabric and finance), with Dan Hill (Dark Matter Labs)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 28 May 2024 00:02:00 +0100

This week we're thinking about retrofit differently with Dan Hill from Dark Matter Labs (DML). Or rather, we're talking about retrofit's potential to become a movement for social change.

In reality, retrofit is about much more than fabric and economics, it's about people and how they live. With that in mind we should be thinking much more about engagement. This is itself a massive challenge because thinking about people properly, as the users of a building, requires a massive shift in how retrofit practice is organised and enacted.

Dan has 25 years of experience from working in housing and planning in senior roles at housing associations, Newham Council, CICs, and in a bunch of other consultative roles.

We really enjoy talking about these subjects with him because he has gifted us different ways to thinking about the sector, even when we're talking through familiar territory. So, listen up, eh?

Updated notes from the show

Dark Matter Labs' published work on Retrofit
DML on 'Community Powered Retrofit'
Retrofit Reimagined Festival 2022 videos of sessions
Retrofit Reimagined Festival 2023 website
Retrofit Reimagined Festival 2023 videos of sessions
Report on Feasibility for a Regional Retrofit Impact Fund, with a focus on Outcomes based financing with West Midlands Combined Authority and Partners
Common Wealth report The Case for Community Energy Democracy
Report on the embodied carbon of retrofit materials versus operational carbon
A report on the concept of Embodied biodiversity from Expedition Engineering
The reference about the 40% figure (fig 1.7) and the maritime trade in fossil fuels

Notes from the show

Dan Hill on LinkedIn
The Dark Matter Labs website
The 'People-First Retrofit' panel about the Energiesprong Comfort Plan research we did, held at Futurebuild 2024
That story about the Tory Minister who thinks swimming in sewage is good actually
The Catalogue of Good Practices a hybrid green finance catalogue for the reconstruction of Ukraine
The National Retrofit Hub website
The Civic Square website
The HEAL (Home Energy action Lab) Linktree page

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Place-based hybrid finance to rebuild Ukraine and catalyse better building standards everywhere, with Iva Merheim Eyre (SMARTER4EU)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 21 May 2024 00:02:00 +0100

This week we're joined by Iva Merheim Eyre from SMARTER4EU to talk about her recently published report the Catalogue of Good Practices, a document that details a variety of place-based hybrid finance models that have been used to rebuild and renovate homes in locations as wide-ranging as the postwar Balkan states to London's own Westminster.

This is all part of a concerted effort to use finance to drive better building standards across the world, not just the EU, and there's a lot we can all learn.

Notes from the show

Iva Merheim Eyre on LinkedIn
The Smarter Finance 4 EU website
The Catalogue of Good Practices a hybrid green finance catalogue for the reconstruction of Ukraine
Let's build green and elevate
A call to action for municipalities to get in touch with SMARTER4EU

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Peter Rickaby returns to ZAP: a lot of words about energy, retrofit, and natural building materials, all the way from South Africa

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 14 May 2024 00:02:00 +0100

Jeff and Dan are joined by Dr. Peter Rickaby again. We were due a catch up so we recorded the conversation because he's always interesting.

Peter should need little introduction, so we'll just say he's our favourite retrofit expert (sorry everyone else) and our most frequent guest on the show.

He's only returned to the pod, not to the UK. In principle he's migrated to South Africa and is supposed to be retiring, but that's not exactly worked out so far. He has made it to Johannesburg though.

Bu, if you haven't encountered him before Peter is one of the heads behind PAS 2035 and Ireland's BER system, amongst many other achievements. Go back and check the earlier episodes too.

We had planned to talk about his experiences with the energy situation in South Africa and what we might learn from it but, as ever, we meandered all over the shop covering all sorts: retrofit, natural building materials, heat pumps, fabric first, fabric fifth, novel recycling, embodied carbon etc.

Past appearances

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The UK has a weird relationship with heat pumps: under appreciated influencers, wild pricing, and bad vibes. With Andrew Sissons (Nesta)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 07 May 2024 00:03:00 +0100

This week we're joined by Nesta's Deputy Mission Director, Andrew Sissons, to discuss his take on why the UK has such a weird relationship with heat pumps.

It was inspired by an excellent Twitter thread on the subject that gained quite a bit of attention the other week.

We talk through it all so you might as well listen, or just take a look at the thread, either way it should be interesting.

Notes from the show

Andrew Sissons on LinkedIn
Nesta's website
The Twitter thread: Why have heat pumps become a bit of a contentious topic in the UK?

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Building with straw on a continental scale and experiencing retrofit as a resident. With Cypren Edmunds (European Straw Building Association)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:04:00 +0100

The other week we had a chance to have a conversation with Cypren Edmunds, President of the European Straw Building Association about building with straw, experiences in retrofit, and the meandering path that led him to the green building trade.

For us, it was a really interesting chat because we got to talk about how he got into greed building via sport, the music industry, and playing an active role in his community. The wasn't a built environment professional embarking on a curious diversion in a construction career, it's someone who did something else first and found their way into the building trade later in life, led by interest and making the most of the breadth of their experience.

And we got to talk about music for a while, but we cut most of that out because we thought most of our listeners wouldn't be too into it.

Notes from the show

Cypren Edmunds on LinkedIn
The European Straw Building Association (ESBA) website
The European Straw Building Association (ESBA) on LinkedIn
The Association of Straw Bale Building UK (SBUK) website
The SBUK Members Directory
The SBUK on LinkedIn
That 80s Loadsamoney character on TV
A map of straw buildings in the UK (database)
A straw construction technical guide from The School of Natural Building
Straw BIM

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The energy performance of buildings matters, to me and EU and everyone we know, with Ciarán Cuffe (MEP)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 00:02:00 +0100

The Recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is now enshrined in EU law, which has big implications for the built environment everywhere. Even the South East of England.

To mark the occasion and get the lowdown on what this all means, we invited friend of the show Ciarán Cuffe back on to talk about it.

For those who might not remember, he's the Irish Green Party MEP and Rapporteur to the EU who has been deeply involved in driving it through. And, as a qualified planner and architect he's a politician who really understands his brief.

Notes from the show

Ciarán Cuffe on LinkedIn
Ciarán's own website
A summary of the EPBD
The Green Party and EFA's promo on the new law
Ciarán's current slideshow on the law (on LinkedIn)
His appearance on Zero Ambitions Podcast last year

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

A new way to measure performance, negative energy use, and learning from disaster zones, with Kate Crawford (KLH Sustainability)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:02:00 +0100

Kate Crawford is a building nerd who is obsessed with measuring performance. She's currently, Technical Director at KLH Sustainability, a multidisciplinary consultancy working in the built environment.

Kate has a very interesting background in terms of her experience and she's now working on a very fascinating project in which she's researching and developing a "Smart Meter Enabled Thermal Energy Rating (SMETER)" system that uses a new approach to measuring building performance and a different kind of metric for assessing it.

The result has been something that they call "the snug factor", which is the heat-transfer coefficient of the building (Kate explains it all in the episode). The way they generate their heat-transfer coefficient has led to incredibly accurate estimations for energy use in a home.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Designing for deconstruction using natural building materials. With Chloe Donovan (Natural Building Systems)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 00:03:00 +0100

This week we're talking about modular construction and Natural Building Systems with MD Chloe Donovan.

Chloe is a really interesting character with a fascinating product that she's bringing to market. Unusually, she's a farmer who got into building and then found herself as an entrepreneur in the febrile world of modular building and MMC.

We talk about all sorts, from the challenges of propagating a biogenic supply chain to the ever-contentious subject of calculating embodied carbon, and a little about what's going on in MMC.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote our day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Monitoring will make your buildings be worth more money, Utopi has proved it, with Falk Bleyl (CTO at Utopi)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:02:00 +0100

Up next we're speaking with Falk Bleyl, CTO at Utopi, about their sensor-based data platform technology. He describes it as an ESG platform which is true but it massively underplays the true value of what their product offers.

Heads up, normally, we'll at least try to couch the conversation within a broader context but in this episode, we've barely bothered. We were content just to talk about the product, how it's deployed, and its impact precisely because the value it offers addresses things we talk about nearly every week.

So we could be accused of having created an advertorial, but we don't care because it's not.

In the most reductive sense, Utopi offers a glorified post-occupancy evaluation (POE) platform. They install sensors, monitor them, manage and interpret the data, and advise their clients on how to respond to what they learn.

It is a service that is as relevant to the most red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist landlord as it is an aspirant socialist housing provider.

Utopi uses sophisticated monitoring and maintenance strategies to prove a direct cause-and-effect on the value of the building assets. This is massively important for a world where the public sector is instructed to copy the private sector and indulge political desires for market-based decision-making, whether it's more efficient in reality or not.

Utopi's platform proves that efficiency pays, POE pays, and (tangentially) retrofit pays.

Notes from the show

Falk Bleyl on LinkedIn
Utopi's own website

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

“Use less stuff”: embodied carbon, value chains and the potential for change in the Declaration de Chaillot. With Lloyd Alter (Carbon Upfront), Kelly Alvarez Doran (Ha/f Climate Design), and Will Arnold (The Institution of Structural Engineers)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 00:01:00 +0000

Lloyd has been in Paris. He came back very enthused and excited by his experience there and wanted to communicate why to our listeners.

“In the face of the climate emergency, a swift transition of the buildings sector is a direct requirement to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement”.

Approximately, 1,400 people from 70 countries gathered in Paris for the Buildings and Climate Global Forum and the Declaration de Chaillot was the result

Lloyd Alter, Will Arnold, and Kelly Alvarez Doran were there. The question is, what does this declaration mean? Will it actually have a real impact on the way we build, or is it just another bit of paper that will be quickly forgotten?

This feels like a very positive sign because it’s pulling together the usually loose strands of how we appreciate the built environment and what needs to be done to make it work better for everyone in it, as well as the environment around us.

Notes from the show

Lloyd Alter on LinkedIn
Kelly Alvarez Doran on LinkedIn
Will Arnold on LinkedIn
The UNEP page on the Declaration de Chaillot
The Institution of Structural Engineers web page
The Buildings and Climate Global Forum web page

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

What do we do about ‘the office’? A retrofit challenge we don't speak about enough. With Harry Browne and Séamus Guidera (RKD)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 00:02:00 +0000

This week we got into an area of retrofit that feels neglected: commercial space. It's a subject we definitely touch upon but never really get into , so in order to remedy that we're getting stuck in.

First up is a conversation with architects Harry Browne and Séamus Guidera of RKD Dublin who came recommended to us by friend of the show Richard O'Hegarty.

In a sector less driven by traditional sustainability issues, and more driven by hardcore commercial issues, it seemed right to start by speaking with folk who know their stuff.

Harry and Séamus have been grappling with the big commercial questions around place of the office in the future and the renewal of these built environment assets, offering commercial clients the sort of strategic that hasn't been necessary in this sector for decades.

Nowadays, asset owners are thinking about impact, in terms of how the building asset's use influences and interacts with its surroundings, how they can make offices more attractive places to be, not just providing serviceable desks.

This evolving approach encourages engagement with tenants to plan for the future, incorporating changing use alongside changing climate, and how to make the renewal and retrofit process more efficient in terms of resource use and minimising waste.

There's loads to get into. Too much. but this is a start.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Fundamental problems in building design and how we manage thermal comfort, with Susan Roaf (Heriot-Watt; ICARB)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 00:02:00 +0000

We are delighted to bring you a conversation with Professor Emeritus Susan Roaf, of Heriot-Watt University this week to talk about a bunch of fundamental problems in building design and the management of thermal comfort.

She is a wonderful guest and we're looking forward to having her back.

Originally, we planned to talk about her article COP 28: Net zero buildings by 2050? You have got to be joking! a well-judged critique of the outcomes at the most recent COP but we meandered a bit more than expected, but we still managed to cover most of the issues she raises.

In the end, we took in a shared colonial history and its influence on the way we approach managing thermal comfort, problems with architectural education, the flaws in solely thinking about decarbonisation of the grid as a panacea, problems with designing buildings have an over-reliance on technology, as well as her colourful and storied background.

In some ways with could be considered a counterpart to last year's episode about thermal comfort with Huda Elsherfif and Andy Simmonds, so check that too if you haven't heard it already.

Notes from the show

Susan on LinkedIn
Her article COP 28: Net zero buildings by 2050? You have got to be joking!
Her book, Energy Efficient Building: A Design Guide

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Fabric fifth: rethinking the hierarchy of retrofit, with Nigel Banks (Octopus Energy)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:02:00 +0000

This week we're joined by Nigel Banks, Technical Director - Zero Bills & Low Carbon Homes at Octopus Energy.

Nigel joined us to discuss his recent article: Fabric Fifth, a slightly polemical riposte to fabric-first dogma, and an interesting philosophy for retrofit. As it turned out, it’s an apposite follow-up to last week's episode with Fionn Stevenson.

Fabric Fifth - Nigel Banks

ASHPs ASAP
Get Smart
Measure & get comfy
Solar & Storage
Fabric Fifth

We also touch on Octopus's zero-bills proposition, but we'll do a full episode about that soon.

Notes from the show

Nigel on LinkedIn
The Fabric Fifth article itself
An article about Chris Warboys' SAP conversion tool
The academic paper Jeff mentions: UK Passivhaus and the energy performance gap
Nigel in the pages of Passive House Plus

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofit: "We need to tackle low hanging fruit first", so what does that mean? With Fionn Stevenson

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 00:02:00 +0000

We were blessed to enjoy a great conversation about retrofit and what we should consider our priorities, with the vastly experienced retrofit firebrand Fionn Stevenson.

It was a challenging, surprising, and free-wheeling conversation spurred by a call to action she made on LinkedIn some time ago, in which she decried fabric-first approaches and declared: "We need to tackle low hanging fruit first".

That post we're referring to:

"This is why " fabric first" as a blanket approach to retrofit is not always the best solution. Some properties will do better with cheaper renewable energy heating options without the expensive faff of additional external wall insulation, lack of construction skills and building physics understanding - which is massive in the industry. Just massive. We need to tackle low-hanging fruit first."

Now, we don't expect you to agree with everything she has to say, but you're only doing yourself a disservice if you don't listen.

Notes from the show

Fionn on LinkedIn
The Know Your Home logbook for homes platform, and its Seedrs capital raising page

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Natural materials, healthier homes, and the culture of sustainable building, with Will Kirkman (Ecomerchant)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We enjoyed the company of Ecomerchant’s Will Kirkman a business that's specialised in sustainable and natural building materials for the building trade and consumers.

We mainly rambled our way around the culture of building in the UK, how embodied carbon has always been on the Ecomerchant agenda and the impact that sustainable and natural building materials have on the buildings they make and the people who occupy them.

Notes from the show

Will on LinkedIn
The Ecomerchant website
The We Build Eco website
Stewart Lee's taxi driver argument
UBS white paper: Rethink, rebuild, reimagine (on laying the foundation for better buildings)
UBS report: Retrofit revolution
UBS report: Under one roof (opportunities for public and private stakeholders to decarbonize the global building sector)
UBS report: Building society (looking at the social opportunity of retrofitting and the relationship between retrofitting and area regeneration)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Engineering low-impact buildings and advice from self build, with Tara Fraser (Build Collective)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:02:00 +0000

This week is all about the challenges of low-impact building in the sphere of self build with Tara Fraser, a chartered civil and structural engineer, and a director of Build Collective in Bristol.

On the recommendation of former guest (and Tara's colleague) Beth Williams, we recently had a chat with her about a self-build project she worked on that should find itself into the pages of Passive House Plus magazine, and we thought it’d be interesting to explore it, and a few broader themes, for the podcast too.

This is because in green building it's the self-builders who have been the pioneers, which intrigued us to wonder what lessons might be taken from the self-build experience that can be used by other builders.

It’s pretty nerdy this one, but don't worry if you get lost on some of the detail, that's fine, it'll pass, and we return to the common ZAP themes pretty quickly.

Notes from the show

Tara on LinkedIn
The Build Collective website
Tara's colleague, Beth Williams, on the podcast last year

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Shady business #2: shading for housing in a changing climate, with Tom Dollard (Pollard Thomas Edwards)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 09:51:59 +0000

Part two of our series on shading, this time with a return appearance from Tom Dollard of Pollard Thomas Edwards who joined us in January 2023 to talk about lazy thinking.

Ostensibly, this time we met to talk about the Good Homes Alliance design guide for shading, as a follow-up to December's episode with Zoe De Grussa.

On reflection we realised that the guide does a good enough job without us disecting it, so we spent more time discussing why such a guide is necessary, how the industry needs to change, and why it’s struggling to do so (culture, economics, and politics…the usual).

Content warning: it is a very rambling episode but in spite of its very loose sense of direction the conversation does cover a lot. The warning is just because we only really talk about shading 20 minutes in, so heads-up if you read this before you start listening.

Also, it’s a very UK-heavy discussion because those were the conditions in which the research was created, but they’re pretty-much analogous for a great deal of Ireland, North America, and probably great swathes of Europe too.

Please check the link below, download the PDF, read it, and share it - it’s a brilliant piece of work.

Notes from the show

Tom on LinkedIn
The Pollard Thomas Edwards website
Shading for housing: Design guide for a changing climate, published by the Good Homes Alliance in collaboration with the BBSA

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

A view from COP28, and relearning how to be an architect for after the Oil Age, with Kelly Alvarez Doran (Half Climate Design; Architecture 2030 Senior Fellow)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 00:04:00 +0000

With us this week is new friend, Kelly Alvarez Doran, via an introduction from Lloyd to talk about his experiences at COP28 and his carbon reduction consultancy Ha/f Climate Design that's challenged itself to reduce Canadian construction's emissions by half.

We get sidetracked almost immediately while we talk about Kelly's background as an architect, working in mining, and the big changes to philosophy on building after working in Rwanda.

In spite of the early diversion, we spent the whole conversation consistently hitting the same key themes themes:

Embodied carbon and life cycle analysis
Designing for the end of Oil-Age architecture
Rethinking the role of building design in the age of embodied carbon

Kelly's great. He'll be back. Hopefully without any sound issues next time (it gets better after a bit).

Also, XPS = Extruded polystyrene insulation.

Notes from the show

Kelly on Linkedin
Conversations on the phasing out of oil felt paradoxical amidst the Dubai backdrop (The Architect's Newspaper, January 2024), Kelly's original view from COP28
Embodied Embodied carbon values of common insulation materials (Canadian Architect, April 2021) i.e. the article with the chart that names brand names alongside embodied carbon values and egregious payback lead times for common insulation materials
The YouTube video of the Straw Panel vs. Conventional Construction Burn Test that Kelly refers to
The Ha/f Climate Design website
Building LCA for Architects Online Course (OneClick) a free primer course for architects by Kelly
The UK Government Flood Risk Tool

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Conservation-led retrofit and energy efficiency for working buildings, with with Heidi Hopper-Duffy and David Hughes (Iarnród Éireann)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:02:00 +0000

This one is about conservation-led retrofit and the retrofit of commercial (or institutional) building stock. We were invited to see a recent Iarnród Éireann (Irish Railway) retrofit project and meet with Heidi Hopper-Duffy (Environmental & Sustainability Manager) and its architect David Hughes (Senior Conservation Architect & Energy Specialist).

Ostensibly, we're talking about energy efficiency and conservation of built heritage. The project was led by David, a retrofit of a historic building shared between Iarnród Éireann and the Chief Medical Officer's (CMO) office. We talk about it but you'll get to see the works in much more detail when Jeff features it in the pages of Passive House Plus.

In this case, the railway, guided by David and Heidi's experience, can be lauded as a leader in its field and these sorts of projects are illustrative of the challenges and opportunities that come with working in a large company or institution.

We also cover broader bits: design for deconstruction, BERs, what should we be quantifying i.e. carbon or energy, or what?

Mind the background noise - we had a few unexpected background interruptions from an occasionally boisterous meeting room next door.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The cost of sustainability, accounting for language, and the taxonomy, with Archie O'Donnell (KOSMOS)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 00:02:00 +0000

The first of our Dublin field recordings is with Archie O'Donnell a long-time face green building in Ireland, a fella who Jeff has a lot of time for, and someone Alex and I hadn't met yet. It was a good call.

Originally trained as an architect, Archie has worked his way through the industry, recently joining Danish/Irish consultancy KOSMOS, so there was plenty of scope for the conversation to meander from observations on how the green building industry has changed and is changing, to costing sustainability, accounting for language, the impact of the EU taxonomy and imminent evolutions in energy rating.

Interestingly, we didn't recognise the significance of Jeff's Calvinball analogy though, so listen out for that.

In Calvinball nature of the game was to make the rules up as you go along, so you're never really held accountable, you can't lose, and the game you're playing can't be brought to an end. This definitely echoes the nature of our fossil fuel, ESG, and sustainability accounting systems.

Notes from the show

Archie on LinkedIn
The KOSMOS website
Calvinball - check it, Jeff may have stumbled onto something there

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

PH+ Revisited: that archive building in Hereford, the one that uses passive house preservation, with Nick Grant and Alan Clarke

Lloyd and Dan — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 11:25:09 +0000

This week we have Lloyd's latest Passive House Plus Revisited, a conversation with passive house heads Alan Clarke and Nick Grant about the passive house archive project that left Lloyd so smitten when he visited it last summer.

That we’re discussing archive systems shouldn’t put folk off - the point is about thinking differently, about what the challenge really is, recognising the reality of systems, the elevation of simplicity, and reclaiming the phrase “value engineering”.

Notes from the show

Follow Nick Grant on Twitter and Bluesky
Follow Alan Clarke on Twitter and Bluesky
The Passive House Plus article that inspired the episode: Hereford archive chooses passive preservation, by Kate de Selincourt
Elemental Solutions, their practice
The Conservation Physics website that we mention

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

How to normalise low-energy heating without radiators: an overnight success story that's fifteen years in the making, with Ethan Wadsworth (ThermaSkirt)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:10:00 +0000

Happy new year! This week's episode brings you a conversation with Ethan Wadsworth of DiscreteHeat the manufacturers of our new favourite energy efficient (non-radiator and non underfloor) based heating system ThermaSkirt.

We're not there to bang on about a product we like, what we found interesting about this one is that it’s an overnight, award-winning success that took fifteen years to bring to fruition.

This means that our conversation is mainly about what’s changed in the heating and building space to enable the growing demand for ThermaSkirt, and what that can tell us about the broader market for products related to sustainability and decarbonisation. Ethan had a lot to say about why the product is relevant now, not just what it does and how it works.

There's a lot that folk in the decarbonisation sector could learn from these guys because they’ve really considered the customer experience of both the end consumer, the distributor, and the installer. This is proper business strategy using analysis of all user journeys and experiences, so we love it.

We also talk about heating design for a bit too.

Notes from the show

The ThermaSkirt website
Ethan Wadsworth on LinkedIn
Thermodul vs Thermaskirt® – Skirting Heating Systems Compared, the Thermodul-produced article we start talking about
The ThermaSkirt YouTube channel
ThermaSkirt on Instagram

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

PH+ revisited: Seeing the wood for the trees (part two), with Andy Simmonds (AECB) and Lenny Antonelli (PH+)

Jeff, Dan, and Lloyd — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 11:05:13 +0000

Happy post-Christmas day, hope you made it through OK.

Today we have part two of the latest Passive House Plus revisited, looking at Lloyd Alter's favourite article of 2021: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of construction.

Again, we're joined by authors Lenny Antonelli and Andy Simmonds talking about mass timber, embodied carbon, why we should just use less and, unexpectedly, the place of AI.

It turned out to be an extra long one but it felt deserving of the space, so rather than butcher the conversation we thought we'd just cut it in two and let you hear the lot. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Notes from the show

The PH+ article: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of construction
Lenny Antonelli on Linkedin
Andy Simmonds on LinkedIn
An article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: Can Architects Survive in a World Where We Have to Build Less?
Another article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: The Key to Green Building Is to Use Less Stuff
A link to the Half earth paper: Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people
The AECB Youtube channel
Biomass - a burning issue, the AECB-commissioned article by Nick Grant and Alan Clarke (only the cached version appears to exist online now)
The Guardian article about the 10% contributing the most carbon emissions
The Finnish paper Lloyd references: The sufficiency perspective in climate policy: How to recompose consumption

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

PH+ revisited: Seeing the wood for the trees (part one), with Andy Simmonds (AECB) and Lenny Antonelli (PH+)

Jeff, Dan, and Lloyd — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 09:30:00 +0000

Merry Christmas!

This week we have a Passive House Plus revisited two-parter for you, led by our occasional co-host Lloyd Alter, looking at his favourite article of 2021: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of construction.

We're joined by authors Lenny Antonelli and Andy Simmonds and the conversation wheels around, covering the place of mass timber as a solution to construction's problems, embodied carbon, why we should just use less, and why it's so hard to use less, amongst lots of other things.

Notes from the show

The PH+ article: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of construction
Lenny Antonelli on Linkedin
Andy Simmonds on LinkedIn
An article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: Can Architects Survive in a World Where We Have to Build Less?
Another article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: The Key to Green Building Is to Use Less Stuff
A link to the Half earth paper: Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion people
The AECB Youtube channel
Biomass - a burning issue, the AECB-commissioned article by Nick Grant and Alan Clarke (only the cached version appears to exist online now)
The Guardian article about the 10% contributing the most carbon emissions
The Finnish paper Lloyd references: The sufficiency perspective in climate policy: How to recompose consumption

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Shady business #1 – overheating, and Camden: we should think about solar gain all year round, with Zoe De Grussa (BBSA)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 00:33:27 +0000

It's all about shading, overheating, and solar gain with Zoe De Grussa this week. She's the author of that infamous Camden overheating case study that Jeff always references and, at the time of writing, is technical and sustainability consultant at the British Blind and Shutter Association (BBSA).

We cover Camden, but perhaps more interesting is the conversation around the difficulties in modeling shading, and the consequent difficulty in communicating its value to a project.

Despite shading measures being 3-4 times cheaper to install at the point of a building's origination, rather than retrofitting it when there's a problem, it's all too often one of the first things value-engineered out of the specification.

Notes from the show

Zoe on LinkedIn
The BBSA website
The Home Energy Modeling Consultation
Zoe's infamous academic paper: Overheating Camden Case Study. A London Residential Retrofit Case Study: Evaluating passive mitigation methods of reducing risk to overheating through the use of solar shading combined with night-time ventilation. (You can pay for a version here too, if you want.)
A BBSA video of the Camden case study
Some new research from the Blinds Make Better Campaign, in collaboration with the University of Salford Energy House Labs
The Good Homes Alliance shading guide: Shading for Housing Design Guide for a Changing Climate

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

POE and its value to retrofit, and what does a Head of Sustainability do? With Loreana Padron (ECD Architects)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:02:00 +0000

We are joined by Loreana Padron to talk about what it is that a Head of Sustainability does and, more broadly, the value of post-occupancy evaluation (POE) to all the stakeholders in a retrofit project.

Loreana tells us about the path she's taken to becoming Head of Sustainability at Architecture firm ECD, a leading sustainability-focused practice, and we take some time to revisit the Wilmcote House project which we featured way back in 2021.

This time, we're more focused on the POE aspect, in part, driven by the inclusion of the Wilmcote House project in Marion Baeli's 10 retrofits revisited project which we featured back in April.

Some listeners may want to go back to episode, 23 EnerPHit at Scale with James Traynor of ECD Architects. It's a very old one, so please bear in mind that as badly produced as this podcast may be now (still) we've got a lot better. The content is excellent still though because James is brilliant and it's an amazing project.

Listen out for news about the retrofit design course she's been editing and the 'secret' group of heads of sustainability, something that should be a much more common model for sharing knowledge, providing an opportunity for bigger practices who can invest in research to share it with smaller practices to further the cause.

Notes from the show

Loreana Padron on LinkedIn
Wilmcote House on ZAP in 2021 (e23): EnerPHit at Scale with James Traynor of ECD Architects
ECD's page on Wilmcote House
Passive House Plus on Wilmcote House
That canary air monitor that Jeff mentions: Canairi

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Standards and specifications, and why they don't always work like we want them to, with Sarah Price, the author of PAS2035/2030 (Retrofitting dwellings for improved energy efficiency)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:50:34 +0000

Today we're talking about standards. In short, it's about how standards are written and why retrofit shouldn’t just be about products or carbon. It's never short with us though, is it?

We're sure that all of our listeners will have complained about PAS2035/2030 at some point, admiring its ambition while lamenting its restrictions. We've all certainly wondered how they come to be like that too.

So, we thought we'd have a go at humanising the UK's most prominent retrofit specification and guidance, by introducing our listeners to its author, Sarah Price. We meander our way around PAS, CarbonLite, Passive House Plus, the great Preston retrofit catastrophe, and even get onto the cases for, and against, spray foam insulation.

Notes from the show

Sarah on LinkedIn
Wikipedia's page on PAS
BSI's page on PAS 2035/2030
The great Preston retrofit catastrophe in Passive House Plus magazine
The CarbonLite building standard (don't judge it on the web page)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Roadmaps for fuel poverty and retrofit: we know what needs to be done so why can’t we do it? With Tania Jennings (Chair of the Association of Local Energy Officers, London)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 00:03:00 +0000

We invited Tania Jennings back. Most folk in the retrofit or social housing space will probably be aware of Tania from LinkedIn and the myriad jobs she has.

If you don’t know her yet, check her LinkedIn.

Anyway, she wrote a thing for Architect’s Journal about fuel poverty, Covid, and inevitably retrofit and it was excellent.

It sparked a conversation about why we’re barely making a dent in resolving the massive pile of retrofit problems in front of us, one that seemed ripe for the podcast, so we brought Jeff and Alex into it too.

Broadly, we need better roadmaps and collaboration to enable the change we want to see. We know that the solutions are, it's just that we're not able to deploy them if we carry on going about things the way we currently are.

Notes from the show

Tania's article: Poor housing and Covid deaths: it’s the same damn map
Wikipedia's page on Malthusianism
The Association of Local Energy Officers (you don't need to have that specific job title to join their ranks)
Check the National Retrofit Hub

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Driving change in building design and the things that inspire you to do better, with Cedric Burgers (Burgers Architecture)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:04:00 +0000

If you fancy, you can settle in for a long one this week, in which Jeff and Dan speak with award-winning Canadian architect and passive house designer Cedric Burgers.

We cover all sorts because he has led a pretty interesting life and he has a lot to say about sustainable building design, particularly his love for passive house as a philosophy, the drivers of change in favour of sustainable design, and the experiences and people that have influenced him.

It's long but there's a lot in there and we could have gone on.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Biogenic building, whole life carbon, and natural fibre insulation. With Sam Baumber (IndiNature)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:04:00 +0000

This week we're talking about natural fibre insulation and the potential of biogenic building products with IndiNature manufacturer (and co-founder) Sam Baumber.

It feels like a timely follow-up to last week's episode about quantifying embodied carbon, particularly in relation to the role biogenic products have in providing a mid-to-long-term carbon buffer. But we get into the other aspects of interest, addressing fire safety, health, thermal performance, and economic benefits.

It wasn't intended to sound like an advertorial but, listening back it does a little. This is because it's a product that we're enthusiastic about. We hope that you are too.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Can you have a zero carbon building? The answer is “no”. With John Butler (Sustainable Build Consultancy; CAT)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 00:02:00 +0000

If you’re looking to understand how to approach carbon accounting in the built environment, we’ve got you. Brought in to tackle some big questions around accounting for carbon we were joined by sustainable building expert John Butler.

Jeff’s been talking about getting John on for ages, for reasons he explains in the episode, and when we caught sight of an article he’s co-authored for the next issue of Passive House Plus we realised that we had the perfect excuse.

John provides us with a lot of experience and context for understanding the subject. It’s a nerdy episode too, in a good way, so it may bear a few listens because we cover a lot in an hour.

We start with a discussion of the process of creating the underlying EPD data for straw and go from there, through making net calculations, accounting for carbon stored in buildings, institutional guidance, concrete and carbonation.

Notes from the show

Last call for Retrofit Reimagined
If you're near Glasgow on 11 November, go!

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Construction's embodied carbon problem: how do we incentivise retrofit over 'demolish and rebuild', with Joseph Kilroy (CIOB)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:02:00 +0000

Jeff received a press release that piqued his interest, so we invited the man behind the call to action, Joseph Kilroy, (Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB)).

Joseph joins us to talk about their ideas for increasing the pace of change required to meet the ubiquitous net zero 2050 targets. They're calling for government to incentivise better building practices by using the tax system to create an economic environment that supports the spirit of climate legislation rather than undermining it.

Specifically, we talk about the impact that charging the full rate of VAT for demolition in Ireland would have if a reduced rate for repair and refurbishment was maintained, and the idea of introducing a levy for demolition as a similar catalyst. But these same ideas could probably be applied much the same anywhere.

Notes from the show

Retrofit Reimagined
If you're nearby Glasgow on 11 November, go!

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Getting real about energy research and making heat pumps chic, with Mike Fell (UCL; pump:chic)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:02:00 +0100

This week we're joined by Mike Fell, energy researcher at UCL, amongst many other things.

We've been following Mike's work for a while, (mainly because the pump:chic work is really interesting to us) and when we clocked he's co-authored this paper about realist approaches in energy research we saw an opportunity to bring him onto the podcast.

Realist approaches ask not just ‘what works?’, but ‘for whom does it work, under what circumstances, and why?', all good subjects for enquiry in any project.

It's much less academic than it might sound. We think it's a really valuable way of approaching research so we wanted to talk with Mike about how he's been using the approach and give us a chance to promote it all to our listeners.

We also want folk to check out all the other interesting things he's up to as well. Check the links below.

Notes from the show

Realist approaches in energy research, by Mike Fell, Katy Roelich, and Lucie Middlemiss (this link should be fine but if anyone has any problems do let us know)
The Baking Forecast Twitter account
ShouldIBake.com
The power of getting real(ist), a blog about the paper, for if you want to dip in quickly
The pump:chic website
Mike's pump:chic glamour photography Instagram account
Nathan Gambling's LinkedIn post that we mention
Mike's blog about Airbnb: Peer-to-peer energy: what can we learn from more than a decade of Airbnb
Mike's blog about energy access: How fair is flexibility?
Mike's website for his art projects, like the Mechanical Choir that we mentioned

Retrofit Reimagined
If you're nearby Glasgow on 11 November, go!

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Stranded assets, financing sustainability, and carbon as a risk factor, with Alexandra Hedesiu (EnerSave Capital)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:02:00 +0100

This week Jeff introduced us to a new friend he met while working on a EU funded green finance project, Alexandra Hedesiu, Head of ESG & EU Advisory Services at EnerSave Capital.

The EU Life-funded project is called Smarter Finance for EU, and its aim is to develop the market for credible green home certifications and associated green mortgage, loan and development finance products, with €8.5bn worth of projects already built or planned under a previous phase of the Smarter initiative.

As well as getting into the drivers of how large sustainability projects get financed, Alex was able to highlight how the demands of finance are changing the construction industry for the better and how sustainability is being recognised as a risk factor by money men.

It's pretty clear that finance is going to demand more accountability from the construction industry, in terms of sustainability strategy and reporting, and that some developers are already feeling the pain of stranded assets. This is all before we touched on carbon pricing.

It seems clear that all businesses that work within the built environment should think about how they're going to step up in their own accounting and reporting, because pretty soon every entity in the supply chain will be having questions asked of it.

Notes from the show

Alex on LinkedIn
EnerSave Capital's website

Retrofit Reimagined
If you're nearby, go! More Retrofit Reimagined 2023 is happening in Machynlleth (Centre for Alternative Technology, 21-22 October), and Glasgow (11 November).

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Thermal comfort in building design: thinking ahead and taking lessons from East Africa, with Huda Elsherif (calfordsedan) and Andy Simmonds (AECB)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0100

In the midst of a weirdly warm October for this part of the work, we're talking about thermal comfort in building design with Huda Elsherif and Andy Simmonds about a project they've been collaborating on in Tanzania.

While the lessons we can learn from it might not be immediately obvious, there are plenty of them there to be had as our climate grows warmer. In terms of building design it's already clear that we should be thinking ahead, planning for today's needs and building with one eye on future adaptation.

Air conditioning is an incredibly convenient solution in the global north, but it's very fragile, and a reliance on it does not lead to an adequate supply of resilient building stock if we're designing for a climate with higher temperatures. The overuse of air condition has appalling implications when we consider its inefficient use of energy, implicit challenges in generating enough energy to meet demand (already a problem in California), and big problems down the line when buildings designed for air conditioning can't use it.

We also get to touch on cultural difference in building design and the impact that can have, wherever we are, the inadequacy of the assumptions made in standardised guidelines (i.e. the deficiencies in SAP or DEAP), and a few mosquito facts.

Notes from the show

Huda's employer calfordsedan
Huda Elsherif on LinkedIn
Andy on LinkedIn
Andy's own practice SimmondsMills
Andy's own case study about the project in Tanzania

Retrofit Reimagined
If you're nearby, go! More Retrofit Reimagined 2023 is happening in Machynlleth (Centre for Alternative Technology, 21-22 October), and Glasgow (11 November).

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

A schism in building standards: promoting passive house and high performance building in the USA, with Zack Semke (Passive House Accelerator)

Alex and Dan — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:02:00 +0100

Lloyd Alter introduced us to Passive House Accelerator earlier this year and it turns out that we're doing some quite similar work, promoting high-performance building, sharing innovation, and elevating thought leadership.

Instead of starting a blood feud, we decided to invite Zack Semke onto the podcast to talk about what they're up to and see what we can learn from them. As it turns out, they're doing some really interesting stuff and Zack had already interviewed Jeff ages ago. Seems like we should look into collaborating.

We had a chat about their stateside perspective on high-performance building, how to make sense of the place of passive house globally, and the schism between PHI vs PHIUS standards(European vs US).

It went into a bunch of other things too. All fairly familiar subject matter, substantially less Brexit than usual but more naked culture war nonsense. Whatever we think about the nuance of the standards, it's clear that US adoption of passive house has massive potential to push things forward.

Notes from the show

Retrofit Reimagined
If you're nearby, go! More Retrofit Reimagined 2023 is happening in Bristol (6 October), Machynlleth (Centre for Alternative Technology, 21-22 October), and Glasgow (11 November).

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronising way)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Building a place for women in retrofit, with Ellora Coupe (Her Own Space)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:02:00 +0100

We've a slightly different episode for you this week. Our guest is Ellora Coupe who we think has a big part to play in the retrofit space without performing one of its traditional roles.

Ellora is the founder of Her Own Space, a platform that provides a women-only space to share knowledge, insight, support, and help in all things to do with renovation.

It's an incredibly engaged community that has an awful lot to offer the whole industry if we're open to paying attention and offering some support. We're very enthused.

Also, you can donate money to Her Own Space here.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The benefits of energy efficient building are much more than energy efficiency, with Marion Jammet (Irish Green Building Council)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:02:00 +0100

It was about time we had someone from the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) join us on the podcast. So Jeff invited Marion Jammet, the IGBC's Head of Policy and Advocacy, to join us to talk though a recent white paper they published in conjunction with the Institute of International and European Affairs.

The paper is titled: Reviewing the Co-benefits of Energy Efficiency in an Irish context and it's well worth a look for all of our listeners. While its focus is on the situation in Ireland specifically, it's relevant to all of us. The themes, problems, and solutions discussed in the document are broadly the same wherever you are, even if the details and the politics differ.

You can find the paper here.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retail perspectives on retrofit and high performance building, with Andy Mitchell (Green Building Store)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:01:00 +0100

We often talk about the notion of selling high performance building to people but we rarely seem to talk with people who actually deal with the customers.

In an effort to fill this gap we were joined by Andy Mitchell, MD at Green Building Store, a long-established retailer of all the things a high-performance building might require, and a passive house specialist.

We start with ventilation before meandering our way through customer needs, the value of design, passive house, window sills, retrofit, and all the sort of things you might expect from us by now.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Get your heat from the streets: Kensa Utilities' plans for geothermal district heating, with Lisa Treseder (Kensa Utilities)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:01:00 +0100

More heat-related chat this week.

We're with Lisa Treseder of Kensa Utilities joined us. She’s the string-puller behind Kensa’s Heat the Streets project the success of which has garnered national coverage because of its innovation and its success so far (which is now up for an award).

Heat the Streets is a pioneering project in which Kensa sought to provide a Cornish village, that wasn’t on the gas grid, with its own grid infrastructure using a geothermal heat network and heat pumps.

So, we talked about how the project got started, the challenges of decarbonisation, what they learned about user behaviour, where they see opportunity in the space, what's motivating Kensa, and what they plan to do next

There are loads in there for anyone who's thinking about heating decarbonisation and community-based solutions. What's particularly heartening is that this has worked here and shows plenty of potential to work elsewhere too.

Vote Kensa for the EHPA's People's Choice Awards

And, sign up for more information with Kensa's newsletter.

Notes from the show

Lisa on LinkedIn
Kensa's Heat the streets website
A webinar about the subject: Low cost, clean heating for new build developments
Sign up for Kensa's newsletter
Kensa Utilities' website

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Scaling high performance buildings AKA EnerPHit is no more expensive than retrofit, with Mel Reynolds

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 00:01:00 +0100

'EnerPHit need not be any more expensive than retrofit': those are the words that we put into the mouth of this week's guest Mel Reynolds. He stood by them, even if they weren't his own, but advisedly. It's not necessarily easy, but it can be done, and it can be scaled up.

Mel took us through his experience in working on high-performance buildings, learning passive house principles, undertaking his own new builds, and applying everything he's learned to carry out EnerPHit-standard retrofit. The standards and good practices that he's learned have been incorporated as common sense standards to uphold whatever project he's working on, and he's made it work.

The long and short of the conversation is that good planning and design will improve your impact (comfort and carbon) without necessarily increasing construction costs.

Notes from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Viability of heat networks: why consider them, where's best, and what do you need to make one work? With Dave Pearson (Star Refrigeration)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:01:00 +0100

Returning champion, Dave Pearson of Star Refrigeration joins us to talk about the viability of heat networks. There loads we can learn from Dave's experience, so keep a notepad handy.

Rather than talk in the abstract, we discussed the conditions that make them viable, why anyone should consider one, and how we can make them happen.

Notes from the show

Dave Pearson on LinkedIn
The Star Refrigeration website
An example of Dave's blunt and incisive candour on LinkedIn
The 'Fairopoly' website and animation
Should I Bake and the Baking Forcast Twitter feed (I won't call it X, it's like when Peter Mandleson rebranded the Post Office as Consignia, remember that?)
The new Passive House Plus, featuring the River Clyde Homes project in which Dave and Star are involved

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

PH+ revisited: Let's get decarbonisation done, with Toby Cambray (UCL, Greengauge Building Energy Consultants)

Lloyd Alter and Dan — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 00:01:00 +0100

Lauding an alternative viewpoint to always aiming for the loftiest standards, in this PH+ Revisited Lloyd is championing Toby Cambray's Insulate Britain-inspired article, from February 2022: Let's get decarbonisation done.

It's an article about taking a differently-considered approach to domestic decarbonisation strategy and one that Lloyd has referenced frequently because of its refreshingly pragmatic look at prioritising our action. Should we favour deep, whole-house retrofits as per traditional Passivhaus dogma, or should we push for the installation of heat pumps and do just enough retrofit to make it all work?

You can read what Lloyd has written about 'heatpumpification' in response to Toby's article on Treehugger but this feels like sufficient summary for here:

"He breaks my spellchecker by verbing heat pumps, writing that while you could just install heat pumps, "this does not however mean that it’s a good idea to put a heat pump in a building with poor fabric efficiency. Although there are cases where other constraints mean we have little choice, ultimately we need to both (mostly) Insulate Britain and (mostly) Heatpumpify Britain." Heatpumpify and heatpumpification have been added to my dictionary".

Retrofit is a part of the climate discourse that can often feel dominated by a puritan attitude towards fabric-first approaches and the heresy that Toby presents feels like a practical philosophy that balances high-performance building with an awareness of embodied carbon.

We also make sure that Richard Lowes gets his credit for authoring this new verb: to "heatpumpify" a home or building.

And, when we get around to learning iMovie, there might be a little bit of video on our Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page, so give us a follow there if you can.

Notes from the show

Let's get decarbonisation done, from Passive House Plus (February 2022)
Toby Cambray on LinkedIn
Greengauge Building Energy Consultants
Lloyd's Treehugger piece in response to Toby's article

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Finance is the easy part: place-based innovation can catalyse mass-scale retrofit, with Rufus Grantham (Living Places)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Joined by returning champion, Rufus Grantham, we're talking about using community and place-based approaches to catalysing large-scale retrofit. To this end he's set up a new consultancy Living Places and he'll tell you all about it this week.

We're not pretending it's actually easy, but if you create the opportunity the finance will follow, and setting up the opportunity is a lot harder than finding money that wants to be put to 'work'.

We cover everything we can in the time we have: net zero neighbourhoods, innovative finance in lieu of debt, social benefit opportunities, supply chains, and touch on the limited (or limiting) role of green mortgages.

We're really looking forward to seeing what happens with this one.

Notes from the episode

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Regional energy, local heat, and mass decarbonisation: a new model on the River Clyde, with Duncan Smith and Richard Orr (River Clyde Homes)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:01:00 +0100

Welcome home Duncan Smith! And, we're pleased to introduce Richard Orr, Head of Asset and Regeneration at River Clyde Homes.

We've been alluding to the things that Duncan is up in his new role as Head of Energy & Sustainability, so we were delighted when he said he'd come back to tell us all about his new life in Greenock.

The work they're doing should be as significant for private developers as it is for the social housing sector. It's a big strategic project, providing better homes for their tenants, and better living for a whole community on the River Clyde.

They're being very ambitious and they're well aware that they won't meet all of their lofty aspirations, but what they're achieving already feels pretty significant. Approaching asset development and renewal with a long-term vision that is addressing: fuel poverty, demand reduction, localised energy generation and distribution, community wealth building, and even a carbon offsetting scheme that could really make a difference.

Notes from the episode

River Clyde Homes
The Passive House Plus article about this inspiring project
'Back to the Future': the Green Building, built in 1994 in Dublin's Temple Bar
Vertical farming on Brass Eye
IndiNature - Natural fibre construction insulation
The Politics of Change and a Real Green New Deal (part 1), with Robin McAlpine of Common Weal
The Politics of Change and a Real Green New Deal (part 2), with Robin McAlpine of Common Weal

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Fabric second, not fabric first: impact, heritage, retrofit, and strategy, with Kit Knowles (Ecospheric)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:02:00 +0100

Kit Knowles is a sustainability consultant whose pioneering practice, Ecospheric, is forging its own path, concerned with making the greatest impact, getting things done, and big backer of research so they can learn how to do better.

This week’s episode can be summarised as being about “the inherent conservation of energy principles associated with a building” i.e. design before fabric, and doing the work on paper before you get close to construction. Hence, ‘fabric second, not fabric first’.

His firm, Ecospheric, is an award-winning consultancy that supports planners, architects, and developers in designing and delivering pioneering eco developments that save carbon and drive technological change. There’s every chance that you’ll have encountered his work before, particularly the renowned Zetland Passive House in Manchester.

We touch on a bit of everything but there’s loads more to see to check the Ecospheric website.

Notes from the episode

Ecospheric's website
Zetland Road in Passive House Plus: The deepest greenest retrofit ever?
Ecospheric on Twitter (or X as it's known now, apparently)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

PH+ revisited: 'Cold Truths' about heating and energy in Britain, with Kate de Selincourt

Jeff, Dan, and Lloyd — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Today, we have a new show on the feed. Long-time friend and contributor to the Zero Ambitions Universe, Lloyd Alter is taking the reins to look back at some of the fine work that Jeff has commissioned over the years, with a mind to making it more accessible to a wider audience.

So, in parallel with the main show, Lloyd will be curating a tour through some of the best of Passive House Plus, interviewing the work's authors, and looking at the subject matter from a transatlantic perspective.

This week we are joined by journalist Kate de Selincourt to talk about her 'Cold Truths' two-part feature, published back in January of this year. It might seem out of place to be discussing it in July, but these issues shouldn't just be seasonal because if we're only talking about them in winter it's already too late to act.

Kate's links

Kate's own website
Kate on Twitter
Her appearance on our 'overheating' episode last summer
Kate’s research on the PHT website: the Passivhaus Trust Costs & Benefits research report
1. Download the Benefits summary guide (part two) here
2. Download the Health & Wellbeing PDF from here (it's referenced in the further reading section)

Lloyd's other links

Safety checks run down and boom time for criminals: this is why the UK is becoming the ‘dustbin of Europe’ - Lloyd shared this article with us shortly after the conversation, which neatly sums up much of our conversation
A paywall-free link to the FT article Lloyd mentions 'The battle over M&S Oxford Street and construction’s carbon footprint'

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Air quality matters: health, ventilation, and (obviously) retrofit, with Simon Jones (Air Quality Matters)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 00:01:00 +0100

Air quality matters, that's the subject for this week in our conversation with Simon Jones and it's all about ventilation. In this instance, Air Quality Matters is Simon's new consultancy offering outcome-focused ventilation strategy.

Simon is a professional with nearly 20 years of experience within the housing, construction, and building services sector. He's an Associate Member of both The Institute of Environmental Science and the Institute of Air Quality Management, and; he's acted as an expert advisor to Government during the pandemic. And, there's more, so check his website and LinkedIn.

Our chat covered ventilation for the home and the workplace, and for health. The broad growing demands around regulation, precipitated by the prevalence of mold and damp, and the work-from-home time bomb, around employer responsibilities.

Notes from the episode

Simon on LinkedIn
Air Quality Matters, Simon's consultancy website
Health and Safety Authority's Code of Practice for Indoor Air Quality
BESA focus areas for indoor air quality

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The Buildings Action Coalition: collective action to accelerate progress in all areas of the built environment, with Scott Foster and Barbara-Ann Murphy

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 00:57:43 +0100

This week we are spreading the word about the Buildings Action Coalition (BAC), a coalition of professionals from all areas of the built environment, from all over the planet, brought together to support a UN-backed global target for 'near-zero emissions and resilient buildings to become the new normal by 2030'.

Mindful of this 2030 decline, the BAC is bringing professionals together to "turbocharge our progress and work together to make this a decade of delivery".

Jeff was able to arrange for us to be joined by Scott Foster (former Director of Sustainable Energy for the UN Economic commission for Europe, and former guest of the podcast, alongside Barbara-Ann Murphy, CEO of The Enniscorthy Forum (the BAC's parent group) and a Local Councillor.

This really should be of interest to most of our listeners and something we believe that you'll all benefit from.

Notes from the episode

The Buildings Action Coalition web page
The Enniscorthy Forum
The BAC webinars so far (scroll down halfway the page to find them)
The Buildings Breakthrough Target

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Influencing retrofit policy and the things you need to make it work, with Gillian Campbell (Policy Lead at Existing Homes Alliance Scotland)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This week we're joined by Gillian Campbell, the Communications and Public Affairs Lead at Existing Homes Alliance Scotland, a professional with a wealth of experience in the housing sector.

Gillian has been involved in some really interesting work around influencing government policy around their retrofit strategy. In particular, their research has revealed insights that are relevant to anyone in the retrofit sector: from the need for good messaging, to the importance of timing in using it, and the fundamental need for frameworks that support and enable consumers to act. Whether the audience is a homeowner or asset manage, in Scotland or North America, the lessons are largely relevant to all.

Notes from the episode

The Existing Homes Alliance Scotland
Building blocks for successful customer journeys to net zero homes – EHA Policy Paper
Owning the Future: a framework of regulations for decarbonising owner-occupied homes in Scotland – Report for the EHA by Dr Catrin Maby and Louise Sunderland
Affordable Warmth – Next steps for clean heat in Scotland – Report by WWF Scotland
The Novoville platform we mentioned

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

How do we build better? Advice and training for low energy building, with Peter Warm and Sally Godber (Warm and Coaction)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0100

This week we met Peter Warm and Sally Godber, a father and daughter team well known in low energy building for their work at their Warm consultancy. Although Peter may now be retured they've both been instrumental in Warm, consultancy in volved in testing and certification of buildings, as well as training for professionals.

We hadn't intended to focus on passive house, again, thinking that we could dig into their experience as certifiers for low-energy buildings. Our idea was to ask about the basics of how to approach building better, interrogating the things that they commonly see going wrong, and offer some top tips for what to avoid.

They've been heavily involved in the delivery of flagship developments like Goldsmith Street, as well as being notable for their long-running practice. However it took a while for us to get to that because of some remarkable news about their Coaction non-profit.

Unexpectedly we were waylaid by some exciting developments in the work that their new training non-profit has been making, setting out to revolutionise training within the built environment by offering a basic grounding in PH (building physics) first to architectural students with plans to make this available to all professions within the built environment.

We did cover the top tips but only late on: the tl:dr is to get an experienced energy, retrofit, or passive house consultant involved at the earliest opportunity to help steer you right; it is an investment, not a cost.

Notes from the episode

The Warm Consultancy's website is here
Coaction's website for training is here too
The webinar Sally mentions is available to members of the Passive House Institute (PHI) and accessible here; we believe that it is the Quality assurance concepts for fast deep renovation approaches but I don't have a login so I can't check
They also recommended checking last year's Efficiency Now campaign from the PHI as a place you can find some information in lieu of a login
A Passive House Institute 'step-by-step article': Overall retrofit plan for step-by-step retrofits to EnerPHit Standard, by Jan Steiger and Eva Vahalova
Here’s some more info on the stepwise approach that is mentioned frequently too

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

A structural engineer who 'gets' green building: managing risk, climate, and the future, with Beth Williams (Build Collective)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 00:05:00 +0100

This week Beth Williams joined us to talk about structural engineering and sustainability.

She's an associate at Build Collective, (one of Jeff's favourites), and a professional who is long-steeped in green building practice. While there were some rash accusations of 'nepo baby' status, it seems that economic casualty seems fairer.

Trained as an architect Beth went where the work was after the global economic crisis in 2008 and found her true calling in structural engineering. As the only Passive House-qualified structural engineer in the UK, she is well-versed in trying unconventional approaches to structural design, planning for the future, and considering best use of resources.

Notes from the episode

The Build Collective website
Here’s the link for the ACAN talk and a link to the ACAN event page
IStructE Climate Emergency info
An IStructE retrofit event
ICE Decarbonisation info
ICE Knowledge Networks (some of which are geared towards climate emergency issues)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

An outsider's view on green building in UK and Ireland, AKA 'Lloyd loves wood now', with Lloyd Alter (Upfront Carbon; Passive House Accelerator)

Alex and Dan — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 00:01:00 +0100

This week we have a transatlantic expert's perspective on the state of sustainable building in Ireland and the UK. Friend of the show, Lloyd’s Alter joined us after a research trip and drinking holiday to the UK.

We thought it would be interesting to ask him to tell us about what learned on his travels and he offered us hiss thoughts on wood, the inspiring projects he visited, the people he met, cycling in Dublin, ventilation, air quality, transport, and all sorts.

Notes from the episode

That Extinction Beckons art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery
The Retrofit23 exhibition at the Building Centre
Architype's case study of the Hereford Archive and RecordsCentre
Why Do we Make Everything So Complicated, a piece by Lloyd about that 'Radical Simplicity' Nick Grant article he references; I couldn't find the actual article but I'll update the notes with the link if Lloyd sends it on
Seeing the Wood for the Trees, by Lenny Antonelli and Andy Simmons, from the pages of Passive House Plus
The Deluded World of Window Replacement, from Lloyd's Substack, Upfront Carbon

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Meeting the skills gap: one-stop-shop training, an Irish approach to education, with Lis O'Brien and Benny McDonagh (TUS)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 30 May 2023 00:03:00 +0100

With the world waking up to the need to rapidly decarbonise buildings, quick-fire, quality education and training tailored to the industry's needs is essential. But doesn't training in how to fly drones for budding building pathologists sound too much like fun?

This week we spoke to Lis O'Brien and Benny McDonagh of TUS about an exciting new platform, DASBE (the Digital Academy for the Sustainable Built Environment), which offers an excellent range of eye-opening courses designed to help Irish designers and tradespeople play their part in the war on carbon.

For UK and international listeners, this episode is a fascinating insight into the development of new, more nimble educational and training approaches that may bridge the gap between trades and design professionals in the advancement of sustainable building and retrofit know-how.

Notes from the episode

DASBE (the Digital Academy for the Sustainable Built Environment)
Build Up Skills App
The BIMzeED portal - anyone can register with this link in order to access the 12 modules

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Architects don't need to solve every problem with a building, with Charlie Luxton

Alex and Jeff — Tue, 23 May 2023 00:02:00 +0100

People off the telly don't tend to know the first thing about sustainability, let alone possess a properly anoraky understanding of the subject, but Charlie Luxton is different.

Jeff and Alex spoke to Charlie about his approach to sustainability, how to communicate about the benefits of sustainability, asking more questions to our clients, and about the state of architectural education, among other things.

For those who, like Jeff, have been living under a rock these past 20 years, Charlie Luxton has presented numerous shows across British TV, including Building the Dream, Homes by the Sea and Impossible Builds (More 4), World's Wierdest Homes, SuperCommuters, Best Laid Plans (Channel 4), Modern British Architects (Channel 5), Britain’s Hidden Heritage (BBC 1), Restored to Glory and Rebuilding The Past (BBC 2), Homes and Property (ITV) and The Great Treehouse Challenge (Sky Living).

Charlie and his wife Kate Luxton also run an architectural practice, Charlie Luxton Design, whose work seems to be annoyingly well conceived.

Kudos to Grace Fraser from heat recovery ventilation supplier Airflow for connecting Jeff and Charlie.

Notes from the episode

Salk Insitute: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/louis-kahn-salk-institute
Ditchley park: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditchley_Park
The Camden project Jeff mentions: https://passivehouseplus.ie/news/design-approaches/study-extreme-overheating-not-reflected-in-building-simulations
Charlie's house - https://charlieluxtondesign.com/charlie-builds-house/
Charlie Luxton Design's office, Black Barn Studios: https://charlieluxtondesign.com/buildings/black-barn-studios/
Airthings - Internal air quality monitoring: https://www.airthings.com/en-gb/
Skipton Building society's carbon profiling of its building portfolio: https://www.skipton.co.uk/about-us/our-environment
Charlie's Cornish holiday home: https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/self-build/charlie-luxton/
Helen Macarthur Foundation: https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/
RHS Malvern garden built from waste materials: https://charlieluxtondesign.com/rhs-malvern/

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about user research, websites, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofit - Who do you trust? With Dr. Peter Rickaby

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 16 May 2023 00:02:00 +0100

This week, Jeff, Alex and Dan are joined by Dr. Peter Rickaby, a man who should need little introduction to those who know the sector well, and to the listeners of our podcast, he's been on twice before.

To those less familiar with him, he's an expert in the sector, who's devoted a career to improving energy efficiency in the built environment in the UK with a particular interest in retrofit.

This week, rather than talk about a particular piece of work or technology, we wanted to talk about a slightly more esoteric subject: who can you trust? In other words, how difficult is to know what to do about anything. It's something we talk about amongst ourselves a lot, and presumably you our listeners find yourselves talking about much the same.

The challenge here can probably be best summed up by the endless heat pump debate, in which we're asked to often hold two contradictory and correct positions at the same time: every home can be heated by a heat pump vs. not every home is suitable for a heat pump. We thought Peter would be a great person to talk about it because of the length and breadth of his experience, and he's a great speaker.

We took in the housing market, heat pumps, hydrogen, retrofit, snake oil and more. In spite of our conversational meandering and rambling, we did actually manage to come up with, albeit a very short list, of people that we do think you can actually trust. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

How should we calculate carbon and how long should a building last? With Dr Oliver Kinnane and Dr Richard O'Hegarty of University College Dublin

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 09 May 2023 00:02:00 +0100

This week we're joined by Dr. Oliver Kinnane and Dr. Richard O'Hegarty of University College Dublin to discuss their recently published paper: A whole life carbon analysis of the Irish residential sector - past, present and future.

In some ways it's quite a technical episode, delving into calculation methodology, but one tempered by lots of meandering diversions. The pair are academics who both occupy positions in the rarefied world of academia and can hold their own space at the coal face of the built environment, and this is one part of a body of work that is focused on unpicking the sort of detail that the industry really needs.

Their paper looks into carbon consumption in the residential sector, from both an operational and embodied perspective, forecasting results in line with Ireland's national development plan and climate action plan using a methodology that accounts for consumption, not just production.

Notes from the episode

The paper we're discussing: A whole life carbon analysis of the Irish residential sector - past, present and future
Their previous paper: Whole life carbon quantification of the built environment: Case study Ireland
Grant Chalmers' tweet illustrating changes in regional carbon consumption: April 2023 median carbon intensity gCO2eq/kWh) and power consumption breakdown (%). Data via Electricity Maps, table via R {gt} package.
Another paper: Small Penises and Fast Cars: Evidence for a Psychological Link
The Building in a Climate Emergency Research Lab

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

MMC is value engineering that should benefit everyone, with Emma Elston and Amandeep Singh Kalra of Be First Regeneration

Alex and Dan — Tue, 02 May 2023 00:01:00 +0100

This week Alex and Dan were joined by Emma Elston (Sustainability Associate) and Amandeep Singh Kalra (Associate Director) to talk about all things MMC (modern methods of construction).

The pair are working on some pioneering projects that are utilising MMC in order to deliver value throughout the supply chain, including a construction pattern book that could be of massive value to everyone involved, long into the future.

Notes from the episode

Be First Regeneration website / LinkedIn
The Be First design team's Instagram
Modernise or Die by Mark Farmer
We haven't included the UK government website, as per Emma's recommendations (we're sure you'll be able to Google it though)
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A Moore

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Listen to Accelerate to Zero, Sara's podcast produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Informed architects will want to do more: convincing clients to do better and Michelin stars for building performance, with James Woodall (Sustainability Lead at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 00:01:00 +0100

For a change, it's an episode that mainly concerns sustainability for non-residential building design.

Friend of the show, James Woodall joined us to talk about his experiences in sustainable architecture in all its complexity, and how to help clients do better work by challenging briefs, asking difficult questions, and then help clients to answer those questions.

We also covered the untapped potential for rewarding positive outcomes by promoting them (i.e. a Michelin star guide for building performance), how the effectiveness of building design is impacted is affected by location and climate, the importance of understanding embodied carbon versus operational (and how the emphasis and importance of each is will flip at some point soon), and the great work LETI is doing in creating guidance for retrofitting commercial buildings.

Notes from the episode

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
The paper about embodied carbon that we mention: A whole life carbon analysis of the Irish residential sector - past, present and future by Richard O Hegarty and Oliver Kinnane
The LETI website, do check it and sign up to their mailing list, it's right there on the homepage.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofit, risk, and reward: how energy efficiency is set to increasingly affect the value of property, with John Baguley (Director of Technical, Risk and Compliance, Countrywide Surveying Services)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 00:01:00 +0100

John Baguley, Director of Technical, Risk and Compliance at Countrywide Surveying Services joined us to talk about how sustainability in the built environment is being affected by market forces, and how energy efficiency is likely to impact market conditions.

A vastly experienced professional who has seen all sides of the industry his experience affords him a different perspective on all the usual angles.

There are no simple solutions but we discussed how energy efficiency is affecting property valuations (well, it is and it isn't), how change is likely to be driven, and the writing that we're able to see on the wall.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Unsustainable ambition and the absence of content

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:01:00 +0100

Events conspired against us this week and we didn't manage to get a recording together. Sorry.

In lieu of having something ready for you, we decided that we'd recommend some of the things that we're listening to. These are all personal recommendations, some related to our subjects, some not. They're all worth a listen though.

-------------------------------------------------
The Blindboy Podcast - Topographica Hibernica

Web / Apple / Spotify link to episode

-------------------------------------------------
Alex's recommendations

Evil Genius with Russel Kane - Marlon Brando

Apple / Spotify link to episode

Guardian - Today in Focus Mouldy flats and bidding wars: how did the UK rental crisis get so bad?

Apple / Spotify link to episode

The History of the English Podcast (Alex just said it’s worth working through this one from the start)
Apple / Spotify link to episode

-------------------------------------------------
Jeff's recommendations

Lex Fridman Podcast - Sam Altman: OpenAI CEO on GPT-4, ChatGPT, and the Future of AI

Apple / Spotify link to episode

Lex Fridman Podcast - Eliezer Yudkowsky: Dangers of AI and the End of Human Civilisation

Apple / Spotify / YouTube link to episode

The Blindboy Podcast - Witches Piss and Horses Skulls

Web / Apple / Spotify link to episode

-------------------------------------------------
Dan's recommendations

Tech Won’t Save Us - Why Green Capitalism Won’t Fix Climate Change w/ Adrienne Buller

Website / Apple / Spotify link to episode

Ten Thousand Posts - Posting through the Housing Crisis

Apple /Spotify link to episode

Trashfuture - Busting Offsets feat Dr Jess Green

Apple / Spotify link to episode

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Learning from our mistakes? Looking back at ten retrofits, ten years later, with retrofit pioneer Marion Baeli (PDP, Passivhaus Trust)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 00:01:00 +0100

This week we're with Marion Baeli, an architect who is a retrofit pioneer, a partner at PDP London, a board member of the Passive House Trust, and the author of seminal retrofit-related text Residential Retrofit: 20 Case Studies.

Some time ago we saw her posting about the impact DPEs are having on the property market in France and we realised that we had to have her on.

We talk about the imminent reprise of her book, a look back at ten of those case studies and the lessons learned since (that's how we justified the clickbaity "mistakes" in the title, it's more about lessons than mistakes, that's why we added the question mark).

We also discuss progress and the significant changes that the retrofit industry has seen since the book was first published in 2012 (air source heat pumps, as it turns out).

Obviously, we talk about EPCs and DPEs too.

Notes from the episode

Marion Baeli on LinkedIn and on the PDP website
Le Monde Sans Fin - the french comic book about
Princedale Road retrofit project in Passive House Plus and on PDP's own website
The Scottish Housing News podcast we guested on, about the impact of passive house policy there, where we met Andrew Kubski who we reference; it's worth a listen
Sara's podcast Accelerate to Zero, produced at BE-ST, on Apple or Spotify

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Systems design for passive houses, radon research as a proxy for ventilation, and some further education. With Dr. Barry MCarron (PHAI, CREST)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:01:00 +0100

In this episode, we had the pleasure of Dr. Barry McCarron's company, from his car, during a break in the conference he was attending.

If you’re looking for an inspiring journey into academia and leadership in low-energy building, Barry’s story has you covered. We also talk about how passive house certification appears to mitigate risk from radon, the impact of further education (as opposed to academia), and how proper systems design is essential to making even passive houses work properly.

Barry earned his doctorate at Queens University Belfast in a piece of academic research of real consequence: comparing the levels of the deadly cancer-causing gas radon in passive houses to other dwellings.

Radon, the radioactive gas which kills roughly as many people as road deaths in Ireland, can increase in low-energy buildings. Barry's research covered why passive houses appear to buck the trend, itself something of a proxy for the wider ventilation conversation.

Now at South West College in Enniskillen - who recently developed the groundbreaking passive house premium-certified Erne Campus - he is the chair of the Passive House Association of Ireland and is doing powerful work to bridge the gap between academia and the construction industry.

Notes from the episode

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Passive house can lead to more than just houses: community engagement, control pathologies. and propagating systemic change. With Helena Fitzgerald (Department of Economics at the University of Limerick)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:39:40 +0000

Our guest on this episode is Helena Fitzgerald, a passive house designer, and architect whose experience of building her own passive house led her to move beyond architecture.

Taking a stance on passive house - as an attempt to be green - prompted self-reflection in Helena, which took her career off on what might seem a wild tangent. Now a research fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Limerick, Helena's new direction is focused on equitable, community-centric, scalable sustainability.

Helena's home is a striking, architect-designed, one-off passive house. It's a home beyond reproach in terms of energy efficiency, although we might query the stove today, knowing what we now know about biomass. That said, its rural location bakes in car dependency and renders it a home that couldn't be for everyone - criticisms that are addressed directly, and thematically, in the course of our conversation.

As ever, it was a roving conversation with familiar themes: the importance of acting in a manner that is results-driven to guarantee desirable outcomes; technology on its own isn't enough, systemic solutions and localised community engagement are just as integral.

We even start nudging at revolution.

Notes from the episode

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Unconventional approaches to space heating: infra red, ceramics, and the necessity for good design. With John Morehead (Wain Morehead Architects)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:02:00 +0000

This week we’re talking space heating, with John Morehead of Wain Morehead Architects.

Last week Jeff had hoped to talk about the absurd space heating assumptions in the standardised calculations that go into things like EPCs and BERs, so we decided to dedicate this week's episode to it. Jeff's been keen to get John on for a while, so it seemed like a prim opportunity to tempt him to join us, and it worked.

That said, we didn't talk much about those assumptions and, unexpectedly, we started with a discussion of Feng shui. Don't worry though, we quickly segue into the discussion about space heating and the use of infrared heating as a complementary heating system.

It should be said that with the appropriate design strategies and post-occupancy assessment in place, there are massive opportunities to create spaces that better suit a user’s comfort needs, as well as making them more energy efficient, which will save money.

There's not much by way of show notes, we kept it mainly anecdotal. However, he did ask us to plug TUD's Master of Science in Building Performance (Energy Efficiency in Design).

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email us about websites, branding, and communications - Everything is User Experience; zap@eiux.agency
Join ACAN
Join the AECB

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

EPCs are just a ritual (pt. 2): what could we be doing in order to do better, with Adrian Leaman and Bill Bordass (UsableBuildings.co.uk)

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 14:48:29 +0000

Here we go, part two of last week's recording with returning guests, Bill Bordass and Adrian Leaman.

This continues our response to that Times article that was doing the rounds last week, now looking at what we should be doing, in lieu of appropriate and demanding guidance from the institutions that dictate terms.

We pick up where we left off. Enjoy.

Notes from the episode

The Usable Buildings website
The article that sparked the episode - EPCs are a national scandal, from The Times
Newly Restored: E.F. Schumacher on Film (1977)
Energy Performance of Non-Domestic Buildings: Closing the Credibility Gap
Energy Performance in Use Government Policy
Building performance evaluation in the UK: So many false dawns
Buildings the Key to Energy Conservation (1979)
How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration (2023), by the unpronouncable Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner - 'Would have been better if they had not eulogised Gehry and toned down the hyperbole', as reviewed by Adrian
The chart that Jeff refers to again from The Energy Performance Survey of Irish Housing
Sleepwalking into unsustainability, a presentation
The National Retrofit Hub LinkedIn page

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

EPCs are just a ritual (pt. 1): fundamental flaws in how we assess energy performance and how we got here, with Adrian Leaman and Bill Bordass (UsableBuildings.co.uk)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:02:00 +0000

This week we've got a two-parter for you with returning guests, Bill Bordass and Adrian Leaman.

At first, we thought we'd do an episode in response to that Times article that was doing the rounds last week, and we did. It just didn't turn out as we expected.

At the last minute, we asked Bill Bordass and Adrian Leaman if they'd like to join us. Jeff had remembered just how deeply those guys had been involved in the subject of energy performance assessment, so we asked them, they were free, and we were delighted.

Bill and Adrian were really generous with their time, hence us having enough for two episodes this week. The first part (this one) was mainly spent looking into the past while Bill regaled us with a tale of what might have been, how EPCs came to be what they are, and where it all went wrong. Part two is more focused on how we might do better in the future.

It has a particular UK focus but the themes are universal. There are lots of lessons that we can learn from the tension between modeling and estimation, and the reality of how buildings perform in use.

We start the episode proper about seven or eight minutes in, so you can jump ahead, but you may miss Adrian's story about his energy efficiency tour behind the Iron Curtain and Albanian refugee defectors.

Notes from the episode

The Usable Buildings website
The article that sparked the episode - EPCs are a national scandal, from The Times
CIBSE TM 22
Buildings the Key to Energy Conservation (1979)
The chart that Jeff starts talking about from The Energy Performance Survey of Irish Housing
Energy Performance of Non-Domestic Buildings: Closing the Credibility Gap

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofit, energy ratings, and improving Europe's energy performance, with Ciarán Cuffe MEP

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:03:00 +0000

With the EU closing in on a major revision to perhaps the single most important legislative driver for decarbonisation of buildings, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), we spoke to the architect of the proposed changes, Ciarán Cuffe, who gave us some fascinating insights. It was a chance to talk about thinking big and the challenges associated with instituting large-scale change.

A veritable sustainability, built environment, and political polymath, Ciarán is the Green Party MEP for Dublin and rapporteur for the European Parliament on the next recast of the EPBD.

Originally published in 2002, the EPBD is the reason we have EPCs/BERs/DPEs, for all their flaws and benefits. It’s also the reason we have the nearly zero energy building (NZEB) standard as a mandatory requirement for new buildings across Europe since 2019.

But the original directive and previous recasts have left certain problems unresolved, and Ciarán told us about work to update the directive to ensure it can help to drive meaningful change in decarbonising the European building stock.

It's worth noting that Ciarán's not just a politician too. He’s a qualified planner, architect, lecturer at Technological University Dublin, and a former Minister for Planning in the Irish government.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Passive house doesn't cost more to build, with Dr. Shane Colclough (UCD, Ulster University, Passive House Association of Ireland)

Alex and Jeff — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 00:05:00 +0000

All new homes in Scotland are set to be built to a Scottish equivalent of the passive house standard, under plans announced by the government recently. But at what cost?

A recent article in Project Scotland, while describing the aim of the policy as “admirable”, warned that it will “undoubtedly lead, at least in the short to medium term, to greater expense in a construction industry already suffering from spiraling costs and, ultimately, the price of housing rising.”

But does this concern stand up to scrutiny? To find out, we spoke with Dr. Shane Colclough, an academic and energy consultant who co-authored two papers comparing fully costed breakdowns of building to the passive house standard versus building regulations in Ireland and Northern Ireland, respectively.

But even if construction costs increase, that doesn’t mean development costs or house prices increase by a single penny, as construction economist Prof Tom Dunne argued in the progenitor of Passive House Plus magazine way back in 2007 (link below: Safe as Houses).

Notes from the episode

Dr. Shane Colclough on LinkedIn
The article that prompted this episode: Will the Scottish Government's move towards 'Passivhaus' support zero carbon ambitions?
Ulster University paper Cost Optimal UK Deployment of the Passive House Standard
Shane's Investigation of nZEB social housing built to the Passive House standard
And that 2007 article on why higher energy performance specs don’t mean higher development costs: Safe as Houses
Shane in Passive House Plus
Passive House Association of Ireland (PHAI)

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Industrialising retrofit: how do you say Energiesprong and what's it all about? With Ele and Emily from Energiesprong UK.

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:03:00 +0000

We sat down with Ele George and Emily Braham to talk about all things Energiesprong and how they're making things happen for other people in the retrofit industry. They don't have all the answers, but they're determinedly seeking them with the right questions.

Energiesprong UK is a project that's finding ways to mitigate the myriad barriers to improving people's homes, reducing maintenance costs, and developing robust supply chains. From finance to manufacturing, managing relationship-between tenants and landlords, they're prototyping ideas and developing processes that are catalysing a nascent retrofit industry.

Importantly, a fascinating outcome of the novel approach that they're taking is how it supports inclusion and diversity, without even having to make an additional effort.

They are full of ideas. We learned a lot and were imbued with a massive sense of hope after speaking with them, enjoy.

Notes from the episode

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Reflections of a Treehugger: talking green building with Lloyd Alter

Alex, Dan, and Jeff — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 00:05:00 +0000

For almost two decades transatlantic commentator Lloyd Alter has been the rarest of creatures: a popular writer of insightful articles about green building, mainly via the pioneering green living website Treehugger.com.

The day before our interview, Lloyd and the rest of the editorial team at Treehugger were told to clear their desks, due to a change in business model that focused more on search engine algorithms, and less on the kind of nuanced, considered pieces that have made Lloyd so renowned.

We caught up with Lloyd to reflect on his time at Treehugger. We set out to talk about the state of reporting and publishing in the green building sector but the discussion ended up covering a lot of other ground, ranging from perhaps the most boneheaded culture war of all – the gas cooker variety - to the shortsighted lack of design consideration for aging populations.

Roaming cross-cultural perspectives on the built environment, sufficiency, consumption, change, the language of green building, gas stove outrage, transport, adaptation for aging populations, and plenty more.

Notes from the episode

Lloyd Alter on Treehugger
Up Front Carbon, Lloyd Alter on Substack
"Caledon homes come laden with luxury" the article about McMansions that Lloyd decries early on
That Observer article about retrofit with our very own Sara Edmonds in it
George Monbiot's wood-burning confessional
Lloyd Alter on LinkedIn
Fanchea Kelly was the lady from the CIH podcast; she's CEO Blackwood Homes and Care, a charity that deals with retrofit in terms of accessibility rather than energy efficiency
Sanctuary magazine
The Heat is On, Ryan Philp's Substack
Goldsmith Street social housing

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

What motivates retrofitters? With retrofit researcher Dr Kate Simpson (Imperial College)

Alex, Jeff, and Dan — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 00:04:00 +0000

We like Kate Simpson, a doctor and a Research Associate at the School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London.

It was a bit of a weird episode where the conversation didn't really go to plan and, at times, Jeff found himself being interviewed by our guest. It was good though.

From a researcher's perspective, we discussed what motivates retrofit consumers and suppliers, as well as the potential for and nature of retrofit one-stop shops.

Notes from the episode

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Lazy thinking and unsustainable myths: how expensive is low-carbon construction? A conversation with the authors of 'Building for 2050: low cost, low carbon homes' Alison Crompton (AECOM) and Tom Dollard (Pollard Thomas Edwards)

Dan, Alex, and Jeff — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 00:05:00 +0000

Insidious misconceptions, false myths, and the lazy thinking pervades the green building sector, we're not happy about it, and nor are the authors of 'Building for 2050 Low cost, low carbon homes'.

This is a recently published BEIS research paper about how low carbon construction is held back by a false understanding of what it costs, how hard it is, and what its users actually think about living with it.

Alison Crompton (AECOM) and Tom Dollard (Pollard Thomas Edwards) were very generous with their time and took us through as much of the project as we could manage.

If you want more, you'll probably find everything you're looking for at www.buildingfor2050.co.uk.

In fact, you definitely should take a look at their website.

This is the article that Sara posted back in December about how low carbon building was being held back by misconceptions about costs.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

More bridges than the River Clyde: unpicking the quality of a retrofit and RIP Paul Doran

Jeff and Dan — Sat, 21 Jan 2023 00:05:00 +0000

Today we saw a LinkedIn post today that Dan wanted Jeff to explain to him; at the heart of it was an image of a retrofit job that looked lacking.

Sadly, the LinkedIn post came down but here's the article it presented. It'll make more sense if you take a look too but it's not absolutely essential, you'll get the gist without it.

Reading through the post's comments Dan didn't know what to make of it, so he ask Jeff to tell him what he was looking at and to try and school him a little.

We also took a little time to acknowledge the tragic death of Paul Doran, one of the best and most forward-thinking builders Jeff has ever encountered. So we took a few moments to pay tribute to a modest man who had a big impact in Ireland.

Notes from the episode

Link to the Paul Dorian Go Fund Me page https://www.gofundme.com/f/qpgyk-paul-doran-hero-dad-fundraiser
Link to Jeff's blogpost about Paul Doran
Paul's seminal feature Why passive house doesn't cost extra
Paul's Flat pack passive house article
There are more links on the blogpost and Jeff's LinkedIn tribute
The Preston retrofit catastrophe
Defective blockwork story

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Hybrid heating: a place for fossil fuels alongside renewables? (Stephen Kelly, OYA Energy)

Alex, Dan, and Jeff — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:05:00 +0000

We had a contentious discussion last Friday about hybrid heating systems, a transition technology that could play a role in the decarbonisation of home heating.

Stephen Kelly of OYA Energy joined us for a grilling from a very skeptical Jeff, to make his case for the use of heat pumps alongside legacy gas boilers. It's important to note that this is intended as a transition technology, not an ultimate end.

Also, we do not discuss hydrogen as a hybrid heating solution, for obvious reasons.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

'Incompetence still reigns supreme' in energy ratings: DPE certification, EPCs, BERs, and a little bit of ESG

Alex, Dan, and Jeff — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:02:00 +0000

It's all about how 'incompetence still reigns supreme' as we meander recklessly from GDPR, to jaywalking, before getting into the substance of the podcast.

Mainly, we discuss DPE certification (the French EPC) and some appalling advice that was sourced by the French version of Which? magazine, Que Choisir, in an article about shopping around for your DPE. We also talked about EPCs, BERs, and a little bit about ESG (the post-punk band as well as the 'ethical' the value metrics).

Some references from the show

The origins of jaywalking
Another Way of Looking at a Country's Carbon Footprint: A Tale of Switzerland and South Africa
Post-punk classic, UFO, by ESG
Ain't no half-steppin' - Big Daddy Kane (prod Marley Marl)

Some French-language links

We prefer to do rough translation with deepl.com
Que Choisir, the militant French Which?
Wikipedia background about About Que Choisir
Information about DPEs, as EPCs are fashioned in France
Government information about DPEs
A DPE database containing some information translated and read out on the podcast
A direct link to the online issue of Que Choisir that we used

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

New year, old us: looking back on 20 years in green building (Passive House Plus, Construct Ireland, and Everything is User Experience)

Jeff, Dan, and Alex — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 01:15:56 +0000

We'd arranged to have a post-Christmas catch-up about a few things and Alex suggested people might be interested in hearing about the genesis of Passive House Plus and its progenitor, Construct Ireland magazine, and the changes we've seen throughout the green building industry across those 20 years.

First off, we had a post-Christmas catch-up to find out about Jeff's family's developing taste for seagull and our various breaks.

If you want to skip that chatter entirely feel free to jump forward 12 minutes or so, that's when we start the proper conversation, however, Jeff did manage to quickly turn things around to SAP calculations about five minutes in.

And, at the end, we managed to squeeze in a bit of chat about how differently retrofit appears to be approached in France, with specific reference to the advice offered in the French version of Which? magazine.

Some references from the show

Heat pump installer gets suspended for fraud
Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
The Construct Ireland archive on Passive House Plus

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Talking turkey: the perils of life in a passive house, with Ross Cremin (Cremin Surveying)

Jeff, Dan, and Alex — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 00:05:00 +0000

On the night before, the night before, Christmas, we spent the morning with Ross Cremin a QS with a lot of experience in passive house building [I know what I wrote – Dan].

Broadly, we talked about what it's like to live in a Passivhaus building, eating seagulls in celebration of Christ, heating homes, and all the other usual things.

It's worth highlighting that Jeff suggested we speak with Ross apropos of an anecdote he drew from in the Passive House Plus feature on Ross's house and in Jeff's 'Virtuous Luxury' TedX Talk about the value of the Passivhaus building standard.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Revealing opportunity with thermal imaging, a chat with Stewart Little of IRT Surveys

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:05:00 +0000

We spent a little time with Stewart Little, a former architect who's been working to support energy efficiency and retrofit in the built environment for more than 20 years.

With IRT Surveys he has led a business that uses thermal imaging to highlight energy saving issues in the built environment and an online platform that uses property data that shows its users how to save energy and access funding.

Stewart was excellent value, with plenty to offer from years of experience and his Rockstar-related origin story, but we were really keen to speak with Stewart because his story highlights just how much things have changed for the green building sector, and how much opportunity is being recognised.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The man who said 'heat pumps are not the answer', with Ryan Philp (Daikin)

Alex, Jeff, and Dan — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 00:05:00 +0000

This week we're with Ryan Philp from heat pump manufacturer Daikin who caught our attention thanks to his article titled Heat Pumps Are Not The Answer.

In truth, he is a firm believer in heat pumps, just not heat pumps as a 'magic bullet'. So, we talked about that a lot, as well as efficiencies, embodied carbon, and heat networks. You also get to hear four white men talk about diversity issues.

Some references from the show

Ryan's article, Heat Pumps Are Not The Answer
The Heat Pump Association of Ireland
Future Homes Hub, for whom he is a technical advisor
Stemazing, an inspiring scheme that Ryan mentions at the end for achievements in diversity and representation

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Meeting Muyiwa Oki, talking impact and sustainability with RIBA's incoming president

Dan, Jeff, Rachel, and Sara — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 09:09:21 +0000

We were delighted to be able to have an early-doors chat with Architectural Manager and incoming RIBA president Muyiwa Oki.

As one might expect, it was very architecture heavy: we talked about the impact of architecture on all of the things we usually talk about, as well as the impact he is going to have on architecture.

He's a fella with a lot of great ideas, so we're really looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

(Also, new theme just dropped. We've moved on from the stock music to something a bit more real.)

Some references from the show

That Irish Times article about the appalling award winner
That RIBA exhibition Long Life, Low Energy: Designing for a circular economy

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agency
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Leading sustainability in Scottish architecture, with Chris Stewart, President of RIAS

Sara, Jeff, and Dan — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 00:12:00 +0000

Back in the summer Glasgow-based architect Chris Stewart became the new President of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS), so a chat with him was right up our street.

He has long been a strong advocate for the incorporation of sustainability into architectural practice and education, so when Sara found herself on a tour of Shetland in his company she seized an opportunity to book him for the show.

As an individual with a strong track record in ecological design for the built environment, we were delighted to hear about his plans for his premiership and were particularly enthused by his eagerness and willingness to instigate some very necessary change.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Contact Zero Ambitions Partners to talk about any professional help you might need (zap@eiux.agency)
Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

BE-ST Fest 2022 - Ep05 - Funding the decarbonisation of the build environment, with Eddie McAvinchey (Scottish National Investment Bank)

Alex — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 01:00:00 +0000

In our last episode from BE-ST Fest 2022 Alex and Eddie McAvinchey (Scottish National Investment Bank) explore the funding stages available to companies, from concept to commercial scale, as well as the role of the Scottish National Investment Bank in supporting innovative supply chain companies, housing projects, heat networks, and more.

ICYMI - BE-ST Fest 2022 was a day of inspiring speakers, expos, demos, workshops, and other activities, aimed at promoting and advancing our journey to a zero-carbon built environment.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

BE-ST Fest 2022 - Ep04 - Disrupting the industry to achieve net zero, with Christina Gaiger (former RIAS President)

Alex, Duncan, Jeff, and Sara — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 10:21:29 +0000

In episode four of our mini-series, the ZAP team and Christina Gaiger discuss the need for a shift in perception within the industry of the domestic market and how it must become more accessible in order to achieve net zero.

ICYMI - BE-ST Fest 2022 was a day of inspiring speakers, expos, demos, workshops, and other activities, aimed at promoting and advancing our journey to a zero-carbon built environment.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

BE-ST Fest 2022 - Ep03 - A contractor's perspective on the challenges holding back procurement, with Jennifer Phin (A.C. Whyte & Co.)

Alex, Duncan, and Jeff — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 02:00:00 +0000

Episode three of our mini-series from BE-ST Fest 2022, where we spoke with Jennifer Phin, MD of energy-efficiency contractor A.C. Whyte & Co.

Following her appearance on the BE connected panel discussion, she shared more of her experiences of her leading a retrofit business in a rapidly changing environment.

ICYMI - BE-ST Fest 2022 was a day of inspiring speakers, expos, demos, workshops, and other activities, aimed at promoting and advancing our journey to a zero-carbon built environment.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

BE-ST Fest 2022 - Ep02 - Aiming for sustainability at speed and scale?

Alex and Jeff — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 19:52:55 +0000

In ep two of our mini-series from BE-ST Fest 2022, fresh from the BE Inspired panel, we spoke with Ele George from Elevate, Catherine Cosgrove chair of the Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA), Quam Temidayo from Microsoft, and Jeff Colley.

Representing different facets of the industry, we explored some less commonly discussed retrofit topics (for this podcast at least), such as the need for more re-use in retrofit, how looking at the health of occupants is a way you get motivate change, and how digital technology can be harnessed to link social and commercial value in order to move the sustainability agenda at pace and scale.

ICYMI - BE-ST Fest 2022 was a day of inspiring speakers, expos, demos, workshops, and other activities, aimed at promoting and advancing our journey to a zero-carbon built environment.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

BE-ST Fest 2022 - Ep01 - Net zero needs more ambition, with Chris Stark (CEO of the Climate Change Committee) and Stephen Good (BE-ST)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 01:05:00 +0000

In this first BE-ST Fest 22 interview we spoke with Chris Stark, CEO of the Climate Change Committee (or Committee on Climate change, both names appear to be out there), and returning guest Stephen Good, CEO of BE-ST to discuss the journey to net zero as well as touching upon the BE-ST Fest Summit itself.

Chris was there to give the opening keynote address, discussing the role of the built environment in addressing climate change. After the main event he and Stephen offered us a few more of their thoughts on why the journey to net zero is tremendously exciting but requires more ambition, more imagination, and perhaps taking some inspiration from the Victorian's infrastructure investment programmes.

ICYMI - BE-ST Fest 2022 was a day of inspiring speakers, expo, demos, workshops, and other activities, aimed at promoting and advancing our journey to a zero carbon built environment.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

BE-ST Fest 2022 (a short intro to our ZAP mini series)

Alax, Jeff, and Sara — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 01:00:00 +0000

Last week, we went to BE-ST Fest 2022, we've definitely mentioned it before. We mention it again because while we were there we took an opportunity to catch up with some of the speakers and some friends of the show.

So, we have a little episode with Sara, Alex, and Jeff to set the scene and introduce the series, as well as offering a little of their experiences having been there as host, panelist, and interviewer.

In this friendly natter we also discussed lighter topics including:

Did Jeff waffle on for 7 minutes, or was it 10?
The unexpected role the podcast had to play at BE-ST Fest
How pleased we were to have our first ever in-person podcast audience
What should they call next year's BE-ST Fest?

ICYMI - BE-ST Fest 2022 was a day of inspiring speakers, expo, demos, workshops, and other activities, aimed at promoting and advancing our journey to a zero carbon built environment.

Some references from the show

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Getting sustainability into new-build housing, with Robbie McGrath, Head of Sustainability at D/RES Properties

Alex, Sara, and Dan — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 13:22:44 +0100

We caught up with friend of the show, Robbie McGrath, Head of Sustainability at D/RES Properties in Ireland. He's a mechanical engineer who meandered his way into sustainability, working as a sustainability consultant with corporate asset managers in the nordics and (bizarrely,) the British Embassy in Finland.

We talked about loads of stuff. He's really interesting.

Some of the references from the show

Silken Park, Ireland's largest commercial Passivhaus development, as featured in Passive House Plus, as well as D/RES's own case study.
D/RES's Tinakilly Park, the recent development that we discuss, that featured heavily in a recent issue of the magazine*.
The GRESB website. Bizarrely, I couldn't find an explanation of the acronym anywhere on there; I'm sure that Robbie explains it at one point. Otherwise, it seems like a really good scheme.
That story about rushing foundations to beat building regs in the UK.
Ireland's Building Energy Rating (BER) system for judging A1 on homes.
Polar Night Energy, the Finnish company that heats up sandpits.

*"The magazine" is always Passive House Plus.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Burnout, bureaucracy, Energiesprong and Ealing (part two), with Tania Jennings Principal Domestic Energy Officer at Ealing Council

Sara, Alex, and Dan — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 00:06:00 +0100

Part two of our long, rambling chat with Tania Jennings about delivering public sector projects including an Energiesprong scheme. She has experience that wraps in collective procurement as well as keeping the momentum up throughout lockdown.

Tania has a keen insight into the many opportunities, as well as the difficulties, in trying to make our homes safer, warmer, and more efficient.

Some of the references from the show.

BE-ST Fest 2020
Energiesprong in the UK
Retrofit Reimagined
Energiesprong in a day
That 2040 documentary
The West London Alliance, the public sector partnership between seven West London local authorities of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, and Hounslow.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Burnout, bureaucracy, Energiesprong and Ealing (part one), with Tania Jennings Principal Domestic Energy Officer at Ealing Council

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 00:02:00 +0100

This week we had a long, rambling chat with Tania Jennings about delivering public sector projects including an Energiesprong scheme. She has experience that wraps in collective procurement as well as keeping the momentum up throughout lockdown. Part two up on Thursday.

Tania has a keen insight into the many opportunities, as well as the difficulties, in trying to make our homes safer, warmer, and more efficient.

Some of the references from the show.

BE-ST Fest 2020
Energiesprong in the UK
Retrofit Reimagined
Energiesprong in a day
That 2040 documentary
The West London Alliance, the public sector partnership between seven West London local authorities of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, and Hounslow.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Hydrogen, Alex's passivshed, a practical approach to retrofit, and some social housing chat

Alex, Duncan, and Dan — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Guestless, we had a chat amongst ourselves and talked a lot about social housing and retrofit. Eventually, we even got on to talking about Alex's passiv shed.

We've got some links below to the things we talked about.

A link to the BE-ST Fest 2022 web page.
Jan Rosenow's article 'Is heating homes with hydrogen all but a pipe dream? An evidence review'.
That Richard Seymour book: The Disenchanted Earth: Reflections on Ecosocialism & Barbarism (it's really good and a very easy read).
Ryan Philip's blog 'Heat Pumps are not the Answer'.
That Guardian article about how the Scottish rent cap will affect social housing.
The white paper we wrote about how social housing could be a catalyst for the retrofit industry.
We'll add a link to some photos of Alex's shed. Keep an eye on his LinkedIn profile.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

‘Dream house’ sustainability and environmental activism in Hollywood with Ed Begley Jr (Better Call Saul, St Elsewhere, Six Feet Under)

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 00:14:00 +0100

We got a chance to have a chat with a bonafide celebrity, Ed Begley Jr. As well as being a TV and Hollywood actor, Ed is a long-time environmental activist, and in those terms, Ed is a man who walks the walk, not just red carpets.

Jeff got in touch with him to speak about the Platinum LEED house he was able to build following the success of his reality TV show. The interview was actually conducted for Passive House Plus magazine, but we thought it might work as a podcast episode too, so we recorded it and have a version ready to put out as a bonus episode on the Zero Ambitions feed.

We talked about Ireland, what it's like to be a sustainability-focused person promoting better practice in a land of overconsumption, his long-time interest in environmentalism, the challenges of any resource-conscious building project, and Ed's three pillars for driving progress in sustainability activism.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofitting for heritage, as well as the future with Dr Marina Topouzi (Environmental Change Institute) and Nigel Griffiths (Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance)

Sara, Jeff, and Dan — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 02:18:00 +0100

The immensely knowledgable and experienced Marina Topouzi and Nigel Griffiths joined us for a chat about retrofit, this time adding heritage into the mix and acknowledging the past, not just thinking about the future.

Marina Topouzi is a research associate at the Environmental Change Institute's energy research programme in the Lower Carbon Futures team. Her current project researches deep renovation policy initiatives and policy mixes across the world including both technology-focused and people-focused policies. Marina has been involved in building the Eco Retrofit App - a risk management tool to support low-energy skills literacy and mitigate the risk of poor-quality retrofits. She is a steering group member for the BSI PAS 2035: 2019 Retrofit standards.

Nigel Griffiths is a sustainability and energy efficiency expert in the built environment with over 25 years’ of experience as a practitioner, project manager, author, and consultant. As Director of the Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance, he works at the cutting edge of sustainability for heritage buildings. He is the author of numerous reports and several books on sustainable building including the Eco House Manual (Haynes 2007, paperback edition 2016) and more recently From Retrofit to Regeneration: A blueprint for post-Covid recovery.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Talking Carbon with a Tier One Contractor, a Conversation with Allan Smith, Low Carbon Manager for Morrison Construction

Alex and Dan — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 11:09:58 +0100

Alex and Dan took some time to speak with Allan Smith, Low Carbon Manager at Morrison Construction, to find out about how a tier one contractor is approaching the low-carbon game.

The conversation took in the viability of the Passivhaus standard at scale, the responsibility for leading your supply chain in learning how to deliver for you, a little bit of retrofit, and a little about the difference between private and public sector demand.

**OUR OWN SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
(We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs)
Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Speak to Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (Everything is User Experience)
**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Part 2 - Housing Policy with Gavin Smart & Callum Chomczuk of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH)

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 10:43:50 +0100

A great discussion with Gavin, the Chief Executive of the CIH, and Callum, who is the National Director in Scotland. We had a fascinating conversation that covered a wide range of housing policies, including new builds, retrofits, the private rented sector and loads. This is the second part of the podcast we recorded.

Bonus Episode - United Nations Centres of Excellence for High Performance Buildings with Scott Foster & Jenna Crammer

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 07:06:32 +0100

Last year before CoP26, we spoke to Scott Foster, the Director of Sustainable Energy and Jenna Crammer at the Green Building Alliance in Pittsburgh. This year between the 21st and 23rd of September, the U.S. will host the first ever Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh. The three-day event will feature a high-level plenary, topical roundtable with energy and science ministers from 31 countries, CEOs and experts, side events, technology demonstrations, and other activities. As the High-Performance Buildings Initiative – Centres of Excellence will feature throughout the summit, we thought we would rerelease the episode we did last year.

Part 1 - Housing Policy with Gavin Smart & Callum Chomczuk of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 20 Sep 2022 05:10:00 +0100

BONUS EP #2 ZAP x CIH from Scotland's Festival of Housing 2022 - the UK private rental sector

Alex, Dan, Duncan, and Callum Chomczuk — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 02:38:00 +0100

This Zero Ambitions bonus episode is the second part of our CIH collaboration, produced a Scotland's Housing Festival 2022.

Again, we're joined by Callum Chomczuk (National director, CIH Scotland) following the 'Four nations - one PRS system' session.

That session introduced PRS reps from across the UK presenting their take on the priorities and challenges faced by the PRS housing system, particularly looking at post-devolution divergence across the regions.

We were joined by:

Alice Simpson | Board member, CIH Scotland

Professor Ken Gibb | Director, UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE)

Daryl McIntosh | Policy manager, Property Mark

Douglas Haig | Board member, CIH Cymru and non executive Janet Hunter | CEO, Housing Rights

Many thanks to our speakers and all the guys at the CIH who helped us out on the day.

The CIH podcast can be found on the CIH website, Spotify, and the usual other apps.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

BONUS EP #1 ZAP x CIH from Scotland's Festival of Housing 2022 - the right to a home

Alex, Dan, Duncan, and Callum Chomczuk — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 02:00:00 +0100

We don't have a standard Zero Ambitions episode this week so we're putting out this bonus episode that we recorded back in May.

We are joined by Callum Chomczuk (National director, CIH Scotland) following the festival's opening session "The right to a home". It is the first of a collaborative two-parter we produced a the Chartered Institute of Housing's Glasgow Conference, Scotland's Housing Festival 2022.

At this session our speakers talked about why human rights and dignity must be at the heart of our housing policy, as well as the notion that having a stable, secure home is central to every aspect of our health, wellbeing, educational attainment.

We were joined by:

Gavin Smart | CEO, Chartered Institute of Housing

Dr Elaine Webster | Director, Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law, and Senior Lecturer at Strathclyde Law School

Fanchea Kelly | Chief executive, Blackwood Homes and Care

Mike Dailly | Solicitor advocate and principal solicitor, Govan Law Centre

Many thanks to our speakers and all the guys at the CIH who helped us out on the day.

The CIH podcast can be found on the CIH website, Spotify, and the usual other apps.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Re-up: The Politics of Change and a Real Green New Deal (part 2), with Robin McAlpine of Common Weal

Duncan, Sara, Jeff, and Dan — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 02:00:00 +0100

First, thanks for the heads-up, Joe!

Part two of our chat with Robin McAlpine is an experienced political strategist and founder of the Scottish think tank, Common Weal. (Again. it's a little profane at points, so be warned if you have kids about.)

Over the two episodes, we discuss the political landscape, the actual economics of change, how power is exercised in order to activate and inhibit change, and what plans to achieve a zero-impact society might actually look like.

Links to other things that we mentioned
Common Weal website
Common Weal's Green New Deal for Scotland
Common Weal t-shirts
La Haine, "so far, so good" clip
Do watch the whole film though, La Haine
Tales from the Mall, by Ewan Morrison

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Retrofit, procurement, contracting, and preparing for the future: a conversation with Jennifer Phin from A.C. Whyte

Alex, Dan, and Jeff — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 21:00:00 +0100

Last week we met with 'friend of the show; Jennifer Phin, MD of A.C. Whyte & Co., a firm with decades of experience delivering energy efficiency through retrofit measures

As part of our ongoing conversation about the challenges around retrofit, she has a lot to offer the discourse.

Our discussion included the role of procurement in delivering successful retrofit, the need for greater client-side literacy (to appraise cost vs value), and the desperate need for a stronger education strategy across the board, from building up the body of specialised personnel that the industry needs, to the sorts of education that benefit the occupants, post installation of measures. All common themes, underpinned by a long-term, coal-face contractor's experience.

You'll find A.C. Whyte & Co online and on LinkedIn, but we definitely recommend checking the Skills Academy video.

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The state of retrofit – with Russell Smith of Parity Projects and Retrofit works

Dan and Sara — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 03:00:00 +0100

This week Dan and Sara had the chance to speak with retrofit pioneer Russell Smith, of Parity Projects and Retrofit Works. As a long-marcher in the retrofit space, we talked about the challenges of being a first-mover in the retrofit industry, the perennial problems it faces, and the necessity for significant culture change at all levels.

This also included a discussion of the impact that localisation and fostering of collaboration could have on catalysing the development of a much larger retrofit industry.

In the light of governmental inertia and the traditionally competitive instincts of the construction sector, collaboration actually offers a viable route to all the players delivering the best possible quality, and importantly, earning more money. Proper collaboration has the potential to deliver the sort of retrofit industry that homeowners, local authorities, and social housing entities really need.

Some links to Russell's work
https://parityprojects.com
https://retrofitworks.co.uk
https://cosyhomesoxfordshire.org

Retrofit Reimagined mash up, with Charlotte Bailey of Civic Square

Sara — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 15:50:13 +0100

In this episode, Sara speaks to Charlotte Bailey from Civic Square.Sara spoke to Charlotte about how we value approaches to problem solving in the built environment, going beyond technical responses into considering the importance of building trust and community, as well as the slow work of organising. All key facets of her role as Dream Matter Story Teller at Civic Square.

Throughout the episode we have included a collection of short interviews from participants and audience members at the festival.

Our vox pop lineup includes: Immy, from People Powered Retrofit; Toqueer, from Friends of the Earth Birmingham; Aba, from St Martins Church; David, from Canopy Housing; Cat, from Dark Matter Labs; James, from Rixon Architecture; Bobby, from ACAN; Sam, a local project manager; Sophie, from Carbon Coop; Sarah, from Nettle Fold, and; Scott from Anthropocene Architecture School.

To find out more about the event check the following links. If you need any more context, check our episode with Immy Kaur of the same organisation and Jack Minchella of Dark Matter Labs, published in the lead-up to the Retrofit Reimagined festival.

The speaker lineup from the Retrofit Reimagined festival

Video recordings from the days (YouTube):
1. Systemic Challenges and Opportunities
2. Existing and Emerging Practice

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
(We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs)
Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Speak to Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (Everything is User Experience)
**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

A contractor's right to reply, but without any contractors, just Dan, Duncan, Jeff, and Sara

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0100

This week we didn't have a guest, just Dan, Duncan, Jeff, and Sara. But we still managed to record two hours of chatter. We won't subject you to it all.

This episode started out by discussing the right of reply that contractors are probably due on Zero Ambitions (they come in for a lot of stick), and we also talked about the difficulties in maintaining standards from design through to delivery, the way culture needs to change, and a bunch of other stuff.

Dan refers to a bit coming after the end theme, it's been postponed for now. There was a lot more to the conversation, much of which we'll put out another episode. We ended up talking about the hot weather (boring by now, surely), and discussed whether we sometimes get a little too political, rather than just talking about sustainability and the built environment. We'll drop it as a bonus episode sometime soon.

Overheating: design and build for heatwaves and a warming world, with Nick Grant, Alan Clarke, and Kate de Selincourt

Alex, Dan, Duncan, and Jeff — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 05:00:00 +0100

With much of Europe in literal meltdown, we wanted to talk about another kind of overheating – natural, but very much carbon-assisted, overheating.

We took some time to pick the brains of three bona fide experts, passive house consultants Nick Grant, Alan Clarke, and sustainable building journalist Kate de Selincourt. All three have been frequent contributors to industry technical guidance from the AECB, the Passivhaus Trust, and even our very own Passive House Plus magazine.

We talked about strategies to prevent or limit overheating right now, a little about the physics of why we feel hot, and how to design new builds and retrofit to reduce the risk of overheating in a warming world.

Nick and Alan have had a hand in some of the UK's most significant passive house projects, covering all shapes, sizes, and typologies – from schools to apartments, private homes, and even climate-sensitive archive buildings.

Kate, meanwhile, is arguably the most forensic journalist covering the minutiae of low-energy building in the UK, with a long track record of seminal articles for Passive House Plus.

The Politics of Change and a Real Green New Deal (part 2), with Robin McAlpine of Common Weal

Duncan, Sara, Jeff, and Dan — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 03:00:00 +0100

**SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
(We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs)
Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Speak to Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (Everything is User Experience)
**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

The Politics of Change and a Real Green New Deal (part 1), with Robin McAlpine of Common Weal

Duncan, Sara, Jeff, and Dan — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 02:00:00 +0100

This was a much more political conversation than usual, but don't be put off. Robin McAlpine is an experienced political strategist and founder of the Scottish think tank, Common Weal.

We mainly wanted to speak with Robin about their Green New Deal, a fully-costed programme of action, explaining how life in Scotland will need to change in order to reverse environmental harm and social failure.

We covered a lot too, so it's a long one which we've split into two parts. (It's also a little profane at points, so be warned if you have kids about.)

We really enjoyed Robin's company and hope you do too.

**SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Join the AECB
Join ACAN
Advertise or subscribe with Passive House Plus (UK edition here)
Speak to Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications (Everything is User Experience)
**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We also discussed exporting traditional Scots wellness expertise to China, and a few thoughts on the various qualities of Buckfast, the tonic wine that is Devon's primary export to Scotland. That all felt a bit too far off topic to keep in the main body, so we've tacked it on after the closing theme tune. (FYI, it's the most sweary bit too.)

Links to other things that we mentioned
Common Weal website
Common Weal t-shirts
La Haine, "so far, so good" clip
Do watch the whole film though, La Haine

Retrofit Reimagined with Immy Kaur of Civic Square and Jack Minchella of Dark Matter Labs

Sara and Dan — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 16:46:02 +0100

This week we spoke to Immy Kaur of Civic Square and Jack Minchella of Dark Matter labs about the upcoming Retrofit Reimagined festival, who is taking part, why it's happening, and how you can get involved and attend.

For more details check the following links:
bit.ly/RetrofitReimagined22
https://civicsquare.cc/
https://www.architectscan.org/
https://darkmatterlabs.org/Team

Commercial sustainability, doing it right and making it pay, with Gary Wilburn (EP Projects', AECB)

Alex, Dan, Jeff, and Sara — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 06:52:00 +0100

We had a chat with architect and building physicist, Gary Wilburn. He's the MD of EP Projects (the architectural wing of Energy Pro Group), and Chair of the Board of Trustees at the AECB.

He's been a pioneer in sustainable construction, pushing innovation in sustainable architecture and design, incorporating building physics and whole-life value as an essential part of the process, across retrofit and new build projects at all sorts of size and scale.

EP Projects website
Please join the AECB, it's excellent value.
Retrofit Reimagined festival, 13-16 July, at various locations across Birmingham.

Dr Peter Rickaby (part 2) on Retrofit, Heat Pumps, EPCs, PAS 2035, LADs, Climate Change, and everything in-between

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0100

In this second of a two-part interview with Peter Rickaby, we discuss the challenges of how we upgrade the UK’s historic housing stock and the difficulties we face with our hard-to-treat properties. We talk about heat pumps and the additional energy we’ll need to electrify heating as well as low carbon heat networks and where it could and should be used in conjunction with reducing the energy demand for our homes. And procurement – are the contracts here that we need to deliver retrofit at scale and what do we need from our procurement managers to do so.

Dr Peter Rickaby (part 1) on Retrofit, Heat Pumps, EPCs, PAS 2035, LADs, Climate Change, and everything in-between

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0100

Last week Jeff, Dan, Sara and Duncan met up with Dr Peter Rickaby to talk about all things retrofit. The conversation centred on PAS 2035 and the work that is going on to review the process over the coming year. However, as usual, we got so involved in the various different themes around retrofit that we made enough for two podcasts so this is part one with part two coming out on Thursday.

EnerPhit in Action with John Gilbert Architects, Dr Ken Gibb, and Yogini Patel of The Passivhaus Trust

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 31 May 2022 07:00:00 +0100

Great discussion with Yogini of the Passivhaus Trust, Dr Ken Gibb at Glasgow University and Chris Morgan of John Gilbert Architects on the retrofit of the sandstone tenement block in the Southside of Glasgow at Niddrie Road to EnerPHit standards.

The CarbonLite Retrofit Standard (part 2) and a database for Low Energy Buildings, with Andy Simmonds of the AECB

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 26 May 2022 03:00:00 +0100

The AECB is a network of individuals, companies & organisations promoting sustainable building since 1989. With over 1800 members, their aim is to bring together tradespeople, architects, engineers, and builders interested in low carbon retrofit to train and promote best practices, bring about lasting and sustainable change within the construction Industry and push toward net-zero targets.

In this podcast, we speak to Andy Simmonds CEO of the AECB retrofit standard, CarbonLite, and the Low Energy Buildings Database (LEBD), PH Ribbon and embodied carbon and loads more.

The CarbonLite Retrofit Standard (part 1) and a database for Low Energy Buildings, with Andy Simmonds of the AECB

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 24 May 2022 05:00:00 +0100

The AECB is a network of individuals, companies & organisations promoting sustainable building since 1989. With over 1800 members their aim is to bring together tradespeople, architects, engineers, builders anyone interested in low carbon retrofit to train and promote best practices. With the aim of bringing about lasting and sustainable change within the construction Industry and pushing toward net-zero targets

Built Environment - Smarter Transformation (BE-ST), with Stephen Good and Douglas Morrison

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 17 May 2022 09:56:00 +0100

Decarbonising the built environment is the greatest engineering challenge the UK has ever faced. We are now in an unprecedented period of transformation that requires innovation at speed and scale. The recent rebranding of Construction Scotland Innovation Centre to Built Environment – Smarter Transformation or BE-ST marked a strategic change in how we address the issues within the built environment and climate change. In this episode, we speak to Stephen Good and Douglas Morrison about the plans the organisation have and the work they are doing around low carbon learning.

Reissue #1 The UK Energy Market with Professor Kevin Albertson (ep #3)

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 10 May 2022 05:59:11 +0100

This week we’ve gone back to an episode of the podcast that we recorded in the Autumn of 2021 about the UK Energy Market with Professor Kevin Albertson.

The episode was made just after the Ofgem price cap increase in October. We discussed the UK energy market and how it came about, and the opportunity for the Government to get involved, both in regulating and providing energy to try and mitigate fuel poverty.

Given the latest price increase and energy becoming unaffordable for many households – with average bills potentially reaching £3,000 this year and fuel poverty affecting up to 40% of households – we thought that we would revisit the chat with Kevin.

Collective Purchasing with Chris Clarke at Scape Group - The power of procurement frameworks to change the dynamic

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 03 May 2022 12:25:59 +0100

Conversation with Chris Clarke, who is the Performance and Improvement Director at Scape Group. Scape is one of the UK's leading public sector procurement authority within construction and services. Scape is a leading provider of services that accelerate project delivery, embed value for money and create a positive procurement experience.

BetaTalk meets Zero Ambitions: we need to do better with our heating, and for our heating engineers

Alex, Duncan, Sara, and Dan — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 08:09:08 +0100

We met with Nathan Gambling of the Beta Teach platform and BetaTalk podcast. A champion for better heating systems, better training and education, renewables, and clean technology.

We talked about the challenges and complexities associated with heating engineering, not just heat pumps, and the need to optimise our existing heating infrastructure in order to begin seriously reducing demand because we can't change everything at a stroke. We also discussed challenges and problems around training, finding good engineers, and their value, whether it's really appreciated or not.

BetaTeach is his platform for heating engineers.
BetaTalk is his own award-winning podcast that's well worth a listen.

ZAP's Good Friday late-night roundtable: should we be building new homes at all?

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 08:55:00 +0100

After our scheduled guest postponed their appearance we took the opportunity to discuss an issue that's been a little bit fractious in the Zero Ambitions chat: should be building new homes at all?

Heads up: it was an evening pod, some drink had been taken; apologies if the early reference to war in Ukraine sounds a bit glib, we aren't able to publish the pre-record chat was a little less centred on us; also Sara was on holiday, and Rachael dropped out at the last minute, so it's a bit of a boys-club episode.

There's a little mild profanity too.

Some links to things we mentioned
Passive House Plus magazine (soon to feature that article Jeff has been wrestling with)
Orson Welles getting drunk
Ronald Rovers: There is no ‘end of life' of a building…
Kwaijo Social Housing Twitter
Alex's French book: Construire ou rénover sa maison
Chicken in a can

Central heating problems: systemic issues in design, accessibility, and economics

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 07:00:00 +0100

Heating problems: systemic issues around design, accessibility, and economics
We talked about how poor system design inhibits accessibility (and optimisation), how the heating industry falls short in terms of diversity, and how difficult it is to find the right solutions, for all sorts of reasons.

Helping Retrofit Reach a Wider Audience, with author and influencer Laura de Barra

Sara Edmonds, Rachael Owens, Alex Blondin — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 14:11:50 +0100

Laura de Barra is an award winning author, illustrator, and property portfolio developer and has previously consulted on government schemes such as the Green Homes Grant around which she has some key observations.

What drew us to Laura was her efforts in trying to empower mainly renters to understand and maintain their homes by sharing tips, tricks and knowledge from how to rid your home of mould, to understanding how your drainage system works.

Her two books, Gaff Goddess and Decor Galore were a culmination of years of learning on the job of how to improve the conditions people live in. Showing people that it's possible without needing to spend huge money or be reliant on others to fix things for you.
Whilst the government flails around avoiding delivering policy that would help households to live in warmer, healthier and resilient homes, Laura has some tips that can help you now.

You can find out more here https://www.instagram.com/lauradebarra/
Her books are available here:
https://www.easons.com/gaff-goddess-laura-de-barra-9781848272620
https://www.easons.com/decor-galore-laura-de-barra-9781848272668

Social Justice in Retrofit, with Tara Gbolade and Marianne Heaslip

Rachael Owens and Sara Edmonds — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 07:34:18 +0000

Tara Gbolade is an architect, passivhouse designer and cofounder of Gbolade Design Studio, a design-led, community centred practice, focused on sustainable design. She is a member of the Architect’s Declare steering group, sits on a number of design panels and co-founded the Paradigm Network, an organisation that champions black and asian representation in the built environment: https://www.paradigmnetwork.co.uk

Marianne Heaslip is an architect and expert in retrofit, low carbon design, building performance evaluation and participative design. She is an Associate Principle at URBED, works in collaboration with Carbon Coop and plays a key role in People Powered Retrofit, an organisation that exists to tackle many of the barriers homeowners face in commissioning retrofit work on their homes: https://retrofit.coop

Our conversation started with a run-down of International Women’s day and the current state of the industry and went on to explore topics such as: how retrofit needs to be user-centred, solving complex problems by bringing broader voices to the table, and how we can learn from pioneers such as Wangari Maathai and Kate Raworth, who stepped outside and beyond their professions to have wide-ranging positive impacts.

Tara and Marianne signposted lots of fantastic resources:

Book: Culture is Bad for You: Orian Brook, Dave O'Brien and Mark Taylor: https://thesociologicalreview.org/reviews/culture-is-bad-for-you-by-brook-obrien-and-taylor/

Book: Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking: Matthew Syed

Community Organisation: Homebaked Community Land Trust: https://homebaked.org.uk/

Training Organisation: B4Box: https://b4box.co.uk

Plus a few more post-podcast references:

Community Organisation: Arts Emergency: https://www.arts-emergency.org

Book: Programmed Inequality: Mar Hicks: https://programmedinequality.com

And don’t forget to check out:

https://www.paradigmnetwork.co.uk

https://retrofit.coop

https://www.gboladedesignstudio.com

http://urbed.coop

https://carbon.coop

Training for a just transition, with Caitriona Jordan of BE-ST

Alex, Sara, and Dan — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 07:59:00 +0000

Caitriona Jordan from Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC) spoke with us about the importance of training in supporting a just transition and shared some of CSIC's plans for accelerating the built environment’s transition to zero carbon.

Caitriona is Head of retrofit programmes, one of four interlinked programmes across which CSIC delivers impact, and her passion is in Low Carbon programmes including the training and upskilling in Passivhaus, EnerPHit and Retrofit.

Keep your ears open for when Caitriona describes how the CSIC is enlivening the future of apprenticeships and how they are also planning to help homeowners better understand the impact a just transition will have on them.

Construction Scotland Innovation Centre is Scotland’s national innovation centre for the built environment and one of Scotland’s seven innovation centres supported by Scottish Government, Scottish Funding Council and Scotland’s Enterprise Agencies.

www.cs-ic.org/innovationcentre/future-skills/low-carbon-learning/

How We Actually Use Buildings, with Adrian Leaman and Bill Bordass (usablebuildings.co.uk)

Jeff, Rachael, Alex, and Dan — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 08:19:00 +0000

Episode #31 with Adrian Leaman & Bill Bordass . If you’ve started looking into building performance and post occupancy evaluation at all you’ll soon come across research and tools that Adrian Leaman and Bill Bordass have had a hand in.

Together they were involved in the creation of the BUS methodology, the Soft Landings framework, Probe, which later became Nabers, then Nabers UK and Display Energy Certificates – or DEC ratings.

They are experts in making buildings truly usable through feedback and strategy. The pair’s website UsableBuildings.co.uk is a treasure-trove of guidance, research and case studies aimed at encouraging those who make buildings, think about end users, understand their experiences, and take their feedback seriously.

Some links to the files we discussed

www.usablebuildings.co.uk
https://www.usablebuildings.co.uk/UsableBuildings/Unprotected/GeorgeKasabov1979.pdf
https://www.usablebuildings.co.uk/UsableBuildings/Unprotected/Logistical.pdf
https://www.usablebuildings.co.uk/UsableBuildings/Unprotected/WhoBenefits2Sep2013.pdf
https://responsible-retrofit.org/greenwheel/
https://www.usablebuildings.co.uk/UsableBuildings/Unprotected/FlyingBlind.pdf
https://www.usablebuildings.co.uk/UsableBuildings/Unprotected/Usability.pdf
https://www.usablebuildings.co.uk/UsableBuildings/Unprotected/HowIntelligent.pdf

Zero Ambitions is a podcast about sustainability, net-zero goals, and the built environment. We are focused on what can be done to meet the collective net-zero challenges that lie ahead, talk about good practice (not necessarily best), and obsess about retrofit.

Ireland's National Retrofitting Scheme, with Eamon Ryan (TD)

Sara, Jeff, Duncan and Alex — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 08:38:05 +0000

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/government-launches-the-national-retrofitting-scheme/
https://www.gov.ie/en/biography/c5008-eamon-ryan/
https://www.seai.ie/

Driving the EU to Net Zero, with Ciarán Cuffe MEP

Sara, Jeff — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 08:00:00 +0000

A great listen this week with a seasoned and experienced activist and politician. 20 years after an EU directive introduced energy performance certificates for buildings across Europe, Ciarán Cuffe explains why the directive is being recast to drive the push to net zero.

Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings Patrick Harvie - "No Pathway to tackling Climate Change without More Ambition"

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 05:15:58 +0000

"There is no path to meeting our climate targets that doesn't involve much more ambition [on buildings]. By the end of this decade, we need to see a million homes converted to zero-emission heating systems. We need to see a much bigger emphasis on energy efficiency.”

Patrick Harvie, the Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings at the Scottish Government, sets out his decarbonisation vision on this week's episode of Zero Ambitions podcast. Patrick explains the role headline policies from the Scottish Government such as the Heat in Buildings Strategy (HiBS) will play in radically decarbonising Scotland’s homes. Patrick also gives his thoughts on tenants’ rights and the role of the private rented sector, and the role that local authorities can play through local heat and energy efficiency strategies.

Demand reduction, heat networks and healing our homes

Sara, Jeff & Duncan — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 07:37:27 +0000

There's no question that we must decarbonise our housing stock. But we believe there must be a comprehensive approach to demanding the reduction in the first place, and not just a focus on low carbon heating sources. As part of this approach, retrofit can deliver so many other benefits besides more efficient buildings. Healthier places for communities to thrive? Why wouldn't we want to do that?
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmbeis/1038/report.html

What makes for a successful retrofit? Evaluating what really matters with Lisa Pasquale

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 01:00:00 +0000

Lisa is one of the most experienced building performance consultants working in the UK. She has extensive knowledge of in-use building operation and management, building physics, low-energy services, and fabric design for new build and retrofits domestic and non-domestic buildings.

She takes an evidence-based approach to building performance and is an expert in built environment research, technical risk management and post-occupancy evaluation.

We spoke to Lisa about PAS 2035, how it can be improved, and some of the projects she has been evaluating over the last few years.

Through our discussion with Lisa, it’s clear that if we’re to meet our climate change objectives and decarbonise our homes, we need to understand the lessons of the past so as not to repeat them in the future. Evaluation is critical, and as a wise man once said, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

Campaigning for Retrofit with ACAN and the NEF

Sara, Rachael, Dan, Jeff — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 07:20:27 +0000

Putting our time and energy where our mouths are! Want to know more about taking action on making the changes we need to see around decarbonising our homes? Tune in and hear more about an exciting collaboration between the NEF and ACAN
Here are some links referred to in the episode
https://greathomesupgrade.org/
https://www.householdsdeclare.org/
Join the campaign collaboration working group
https://chat.whatsapp.com/I63Wguu8lpMCYvDdUK3BRd

Putting People Front and Centre with Jon Daley of Magenta Living Housing Association

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 06:00:00 +0000

Reference is made some reports and articles in this episode, which we share here.

Each Home Counts Review: https://www.eachhomecounts.com/

Housing Quality Network article: "Four key ingredients for sustainability in housing" by Jon Dtraaley
https://hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion-things-can-only-get-greener-four-key-ingredients-for-sustainability-in-housing-5772

EnerPHit at Scale with James Traynor of ECD Architects

Jeff and Dan — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 05:30:00 +0000

An interview with James Traynor of ECD Architects about retrofit, EnerPHit, Portsmouth's Wilmcote House project (the largest scale retrofit of its type, in its day), and James's fabulous book about EnerPHit.

https://www.ribabooks.com/enerphit-a-step-by-step-guide-to-low-energy-retrofit_9781859468197

https://ecda.co.uk/projects/wilmcote-house-2/

Financing Retrofit with Rufus Grantham of Bankers without Boundaries (BwB)

Jeff and Dan — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 13:20:53 +0000

Bankers Without Boundaries (‘BwB’), an innovator in finance, is a not-for-profit powered by former investment bankers to assist high impact projects that benefit the environment and social good. BwB works with governments, institutions, cities, and foundations to mobilize capital advisory and research services. They apply financial concepts and structuring expertise to projects to align them with the investment needs of capital markets, considering risk reduction, the scaling and generation of financial returns, alongside broader positive co-benefits and impacts. Their focus is to garner public and private institutional support for projects, enabling public funding to sufficiently leverage private capital to generate requisite scalability. They are committed to catalyzing investment within sustainable development, they are passionate about facilitating necessary solutions and innovation by accelerating entrepreneurship. Reducing emissions in the built environment is a complex problem with multiple components. Many of these complexities arise from an underlying assumption, in nearly all jurisdictions, that solving the problem is the responsibility of individual property owners.

Putting Retrofit Publications into Action with Barbara Lantschner

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 08:00:00 +0000

This week we spoke to Barbara Lantschner of John Gilbert Architects. JGA have been dealing with retrofit for many years and specifically with developing monitoring processes that allow them to get to know the existing buildings that they are working with in order to come up with the most appropriate retrofit interventions and solutions. We discussed these processes and some of the publications released this year addressing with retrofit, particularly the LETI Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide.

Embodied Carbon and the COP26 House

Jeff and Dan — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 21:00:00 +0000

This week Rachael Owens, head of sustainability at BGY and coordinator at ACAN and Peter Smith of Beyond Zero Homes talk to us about all things embodied carbon and moving towards circular principles in construction. Rachael was involved in the campaign to regulate embodied carbon in the construction industry launched by ACAN earlier this year, without which the construction industry will not be able to decarbonise at pace. Peter was instrumental in creating the COP26 house which was designed to showcase how you can build and live sustainably by using timber and ecologically responsible cradle to cradle solutions, with a low whole-life carbon footprint.

Fuel Poverty and a Just Transition with Alex Warren of The Wise Group

Jeff and Dan — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 08:38:36 +0000

It's easy sometimes to forget the human element of fuel poverty, and whilst recent energy cost rises are an annoyance to the vast majority reading this post, they are nothing more than that. However, we need to understand the human cost to over three million households in the United Kingdom who can't afford to heat their home and the misery and despair that fuel poverty can bring. This week we hear from Alex Warren, at the Wise Group, on the great work they are doing in supporting people who are unemployed or in fuel poverty. Work that supports those who are vulnerable and helps them navigate a system that can often present a challenge to those who need help the most. However, we hear about the report that they have commissioned Light Off to Lights On detailing the suffering faced by too many households in Scotland and the West. It's difficult reading, but it is necessary as we often talk about design or the retrofit of buildings in the abstract of those humans we'll ask to live in them. Warm, healthy, comfortable homes are critical to how we develop a housing system that is fit for purpose within the context of a just transition over the coming decade. We can use cheap red top headlines such as national disgrace, but that won't help the 600,000 families in Scotland who live in fuel poverty in cold, damp, and unhealthy homes.

Smart Homes and the Internet of Things with Dane Ralston of IoPT

Sara Edmonds, Jeff Colley — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 07:32:08 +0000

Internet of things company IoPT have been providing remote monitoring equipment to social landlords now for several years. We hear the benefits that this type of monitoring can bring to both tenants and landlords and how it can help identify where help is needed, and savings can be made.

Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) with Sara Edmonds

Jeff and Dan — Fri, 26 Nov 2021 13:14:23 +0000

Conversation with Sara, Dan, Jeff and Alex on the work that ACAN are doing and how we can look to a grassroots movement in promoting the retrofitting of our homes in a sustainable way to tackle climate change.

The Value of Communicating Well, with Dan and Alex from Everything is User Experience

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 13:29:36 +0000

Discussion with Jeff, Alex and Dan from User Experience is Everything on CoP26 and how communication is critical to how we progress sustainability and radical change in the built environment.https://www.everythingisuserexperience.com/

West Dunbartonshire District Heating and the Queens Quay Project with Morten Duedahl

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 08:35:30 +0000

The episode features lessons learnt from district heating and the work that West Dunbartonshire have been doing on developing heat networks.

Climate Change and Democracy with Kevin Albertson

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 12:06:19 +0000

Professor of Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University Kevin Albertson makes the point that we can't put off the change that is required now for future generations and that we need to change our socio-economic systems in a way that we use less energy and the energy we do use is done in a sustainable and equitable for everyone in society.

Low Carbon Heat Networks and Clean Air with Dave Pearson

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 12:01:33 +0000

Dave Pearson from Star Renewables talks about district heating during CoP26

Financing Retrofit at Scale, Green Neighbourhoods as a Service - Rufus Grantham at Bankers Without Boundaries

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 21:59:42 +0000

Bankers Without Boundaries (‘BwB’), an innovator in finance, is a not-for-profit powered by former investment bankers to assist high impact projects that benefit the environment and social good. BwB works with governments, institutions, cities and foundations to provide advisory and research services to mobilize capital. They apply financial concepts and structuring expertise to projects to align them with the investment needs of capital markets, considering risk reduction, the scaling and generation of financial returns, alongside broader positive co-benefits and impacts.Their focus is to garner public and private institutional support for projects, enabling public funding to sufficiently leverage private capital to generate requisite scalability. We are committed to catalyzing investment within sustainable development and are passionate about facilitating necessary solutions and innovation by accelerating entrepreneurship.Reducing emissions in the built environment is an extremely complex problem with multiple components. Many of these complexities arise from an underlying assumption, in nearly all jurisdictions, that solving the problem is the responsibility of individual property owners.

Climate Change and the Decade of Disruption with Kevin Albertson Professor of Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 06:30:30 +0000

Build Once for the Future - President of the RIAS Christina Gaiger

Jeff and Dan — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 06:13:59 +0000

Christina Gaiger is the current President of The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) and is committed to the creative reuse of buildings, alongside the construction of a supportive network for the profession, to give traction to the value of good design.Following graduation, Christina has worked on a wide variety of projects, including universities, education facilities, museum design and domestic architecture, for design-led practices Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Paris and Tsao & McKown Architects in New York.Christina returned to Edinburgh and joined Helen Lucas Architects Ltd at the end of 2014, being particularly interested in the practice’s attention to detail and work in architectural conservation.

Redefining Productivity with Kevin Albertson Professor of Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University

Jeff and Dan — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 06:48:03 +0000

This week Professor of Economics at Manchester Metropolitan University is giving us a concept or idea on economics the environment and climate change each day.

The Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) with Dr Jan Rosenow

Jeff and Dan — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 21:18:24 +0000

Dr Jan Rosenow joins us on the first day of CoP26 to talk about the decarbonisation of our buildings and how we transition to zero carbon heating. The conversation includes the electrification of heat and how we ensure a just transition.As the director of European programmes, Dr. Jan Rosenow leads RAP’s initiatives in Europe on power market design and Efficiency First.

He is responsible for all aspects of leadership, management, and financial viability of RAP’s work in Europe.Dr. Rosenow serves on the Executive Committee of the International Energy Agency’s demand-side management program and sits on the board of the European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

He has also advised the International Energy Agency, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), government departments in a number of countries, and the UK’s Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, as well as serving as an expert witness on several occasions to the British Parliament. He was the lead author of the International Energy Agency’s global assessment of market-based instruments for energy efficiency.Dr. Rosenow also has a strong track record in energy research. He is an honorary research associate at Oxford University’s renowned Environmental Change Institute.

He has authored more than 70 publications in the form of peer-reviewed papers, technical reports, and conference papers. He has also served as an expert witness to the House of Commons.In 2020, Dr. Rosenow was elected to be a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in light of his “longstanding dedication to moving the UK towards a more sustainable and resilient energy future.”Prior to his engagement with RAP, he worked closely with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy through his policy work for the global consultancy Ricardo. Dr. Rosenow earned several post-graduate qualifications, including a master’s degree in environmental policy and regulation from the London School of Economics and a doctorate from Oxford University.

CoP26 C& The Race to Zero with Bex Porter the Built Environment Lead in the High Level Champions Team

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 19:29:35 +0100

This week we are joined by Bex Porter who is the Built Environment Lead for the High-Level Champions TeamThe UN High-Level Climate Champions are spearheading the race to a cleaner, safer, healthier and more resilient world. Through our campaigns, Race to Resilience and Race to Zero, we are elevating ambition and mobilizing credible climate action among cities, regions, businesses and investors.A GLOBAL CAMPAIGN TO BUILD CLIMATE RESILIENCEThe Race to Resilience is the UN-backed global campaign to catalyse a step-change in global ambition for climate resilience, putting people and nature first in pursuit of a resilient world where we don’t just survive climate shocks and stresses but thrive in spite of them.Led by the High-Level Climate Champions for Climate Action – Nigel Topping and Gonzalo Muñoz – the Race to Resilience aims:By 2030, to catalyse action by non-state actors that builds the resilience of 4 billion people from vulnerable groups and communities to climate risks.Through a partnership of initiatives, focus on helping the most vulnerable, frontline communities to build resilience and adapt to the physical impacts of climate change, such as extreme heat, drought, flooding and sea-level rise, in three area types:Urban: Cities, industrial communities and informal settlements become healthy, safe and thriving spaces that support resilient livelihoods and allow for green recovery post COVID-19.Rural: Smallholder farmers, rural entrepreneurs, and industries across food and agricultural supply chains are adaptive and are equipped to thrive in the face of climate change whilst protecting nature.Coastal: Safeguard coastal and riverine cities, communities and businesses through increased investment in adaptation and resilience and protection of natural ecosystems that support those livelihoods and economies.

Danish District Heating with Morten Jordt Duedahl at the Danish Board of District Heating

Jeff and Dan — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 11:28:26 +0100

Morten is the Business Development Manager at DBDH (Danish Board of District Heating) in charge of all activities in Western Europe.The DBDH is a Danish member organization with members from the entire Danish district heating sector. Thier mission is to “Promote District Energy for a Sustainable City Transformation”. Morten works with governments, cities and other relevant stakeholders to strengthen the development of district energy across Europe including the UK and Scotland..Inspired by the long and successful development and implementation of district heating in Denmark which now provides heat to two million Danish homes, Morten’s job is to provide value and insights that can further develop both the understanding of what district heating is and the value it can bring to the European society, communities and end-users. Well planned and well-structured district heating will play an important part in the future heat profile of any European city with a long-term green profile.Morten's career began in the district heating industry in Eastern Europe and Russia more than 20 years ago with knowledge building and knowledge transfer. This was followed by 13 years as business development director in a large inward investment organization.

Passivhaus - Setting the Standard with Michael Jones at City of York Council

Jeff and Dan — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 12:44:17 +0100

Conversation with Michael Jones, the Head of Housing Delivery and Asset Management at York City Council.Michael is the strategic lead for all asset elements of housing at the authority. He is passionate about zero-carbon housing delivery and the energy efficiency of retrofit.Part of a team tasked with leading initiatives that improve the health and wellbeing of residents, he is involved in the design, accessibility and adaptability of housing.Both Michael and York have a clear vision for the service where residents voices are heard and listened to. The objectives are to drive efficiency and performance of repairs, maintenance and adaptations of council services.The authority has been building strong partnerships across the city to make long-lasting positive change with housing as the driver of that change, mitigating fuel poverty and addressing climate change, and building strong, stable, healthy communities.

The Anthropocene Architecture School with Scott McAulay

Jeff and Dan — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 15:12:25 +0100

This week I caught up with Scott McAulay, from the Anthropocene Architecture School.Scott is an architect who has been writing about climate change and the built environment, and the need for radical change and to reshape the architectural education model.I discussed Scott's journey and what has caused him to rebel and how the Anthropocene architecture school has developed and grown over the past couple of years into a voice advocating radical change but also of opportunity.He is unapologetic in pushing for a change in the education of architects to bring the climate emergency to the forefront of design requirements and sees Sustainability and Retrofit as areas that are underrepresented within the architecture curriculum.It was a pleasure speaking to Scot, he is informed, passionate and clear in what he is calling for. Radical change now.

The UK Energy Market with Professor Kevin Albertson

Jeff and Dan — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 15:46:32 +0100

Discussion with Professor Kevin Albertson on the UK Energy Market and the causes of the current energy issues regards increased costs and supply, as well as some of the policy solutions that might be available to us.Prof. Kevin Albertson is an eclectic economist with a background in statistics and economics. He is a member of the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre, is author/co-author of over 40 refereed academic articles and book chapters, and is co-author/editor of eight books, including the Haynes Guide ‘How to Run the Country’ and ‘Decent Work: Opportunities and Challenges.Kevin’s work ranges from business and social forecasting and the evaluation of government policy to the impact of globalised liberal markets on the political-economic prospects of the UK; the ways, means and implications of privatisation and marketisation in the public sector; and the development of social, and responsible, innovation. He is currently working in the areas of employment and society in a low-to-zero (economic) growth economy, and the wellbeing aspects of relational – as opposed to transactional – socio-economic interactions.• Albertson, Corcoran and Phillips (eds.) (2020) “Marketisation and Privatisation in Criminal Justice” is out now and available from Policy Press.https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/marketisation-and-privatisation-in-criminal-justice • de Saille, Medvecky, van Oudheusden, Albertson, Amanatidou, Birabi and Pansera (2020) “Responsibility Beyond Growth A Case for Responsible Stagnation” is out now and available from Policy Press.https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/responsibility-beyond-growth • To read “1979 and all that”, a conservative critique of the neo-liberal policies established in the 1980s please go to https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cje/bez037/5550923

The Retrofit Challenge and PAS 2035 with Dr Peter Rickaby

Jeff and Dan — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 03:15:06 +0100

Peter Rickaby qualified as an architect at Cambridge University and holds a doctorate in energy studies from the Open University. He worked in leading architectural practices in New Zealand and London before a thirty-five-year career as an energy and sustainability consultant in buildings and housing. He has published numerous technical guides to energy efficiency and was Managing Editor of the Institute of Sustainability's acclaimed suite of Low Carbon Domestic Retrofit Guides. Peter has been a Board Director of the Centre of Refurbishment Excellence (CoRE) and a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Energy Foundation. He contributed extensively to the Each Home Counts review, for which he was also a member of the Implementation Board, and he chairs the BSI Retrofit Standards Task Group. Peter was the Technical Author of the BSI's two UK retrofit standards: PAS 2035 Retrofitting dwellings for improved energy efficiency: Specification and guidance; and PAS 2038 Retrofitting non-domestic buildings for improved energy efficiency: Specification. Now semi-retired, Peter helps to run the UK Centre for Moisture in Buildings (UKCMB) and coordinates the Building Envelope Research Network (BERN@ UCL), both at University College London. Peter is also Technical Director of The Retrofit Academy.

CoP 26 - Climate Change and the Built Environment - United Nations Centre of Excellence with Scott Foster and Jenna Cramer

Jeff and Dan — Fri, 17 Sep 2021 08:30:41 +0100

Interview with Scott Foster, who is the Director of Sustainable Energy at the United Nations Economic Council for Europe (UNECE), and Jenna Cramer who is Executive Director at the Green Building Alliance in Pittsburgh and part of the UN Centre of Excellence programme.