Episoder
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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
Nicola Cronin on LinkedInStephen O'Shea on LinkedInCairn Homes' Passive House positioning paperCairn on LinkedInCairn Homes' 2023 sustainability report**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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 - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Mhairi Grant on LinkedInA link to Scotland's Passivhaus Consultation: Building Regulations: Determining the principles for a Scottish equivalent to the Passivhaus standard: Stage 1 consultationThe Paper Igloo websitePaper Igloo on InstagramThe Passive House Plus feature on Mhairi's own home in Stirlingshire
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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 - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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Manglende episoder?
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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.
Leyla Boulton on LinkedInFive 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)
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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 - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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 ([email protected])Construction Waste Portal websiteSCAPE's approach to sustainability SCAPE - Building for Public Good: A Charter for Change - a policy/lobbying piece produced for the new UK governmentThat Danish development with the recycled brick slips in Architect's JournalWe Build Eco in the pages of Passive House PlusChris's last appearance on Zero AmbitionsInnovate UK's Circular Economy Innovation Network
**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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 - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Cat Magill on LinkedIn Living Places websiteThe West Midlands Combined Authority's outcome funding report: Creating a market for place-based outcomesResearch about conversations with your neighbours: Do you listen to your neighbour? The role of block leaders in community-led energy retrofitsThe 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 deadlineAccelerating 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 UKLast year's episode with RufusDan's presentation about the Energiesprong Comfort Plan retrofit research on YouTube
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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
Caroline on LinkedInKORE Retrofit's website KORE Insulation's website**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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 LinkedInLisa'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**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Ellora on LinkedInThe Her Retrofit Space survey and sign-up web pageJudith 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 websiteThe Her Own Space Facebook group
Notes from the show
**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Joseph Little on LinkedInBE-ST Fest Summit 2024 - The UK's biggest festival for a zero-carbon built environment, Wednesday 6th November 2024The Built to Last case studies hosted on the Dublin City Council websiteJoseph's papers and articles on the TU Dublin Arrow repositoryThis 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 websitePartial fill cavity wall: have we reached the limits of the technology? By Joseph LittleBreaking the Mould 1 by Joseph LittleBreaking the Mould 2 by Joseph LittleBreaking the Mould 3 by Joseph Little Breaking the Mould 4 by Joseph LittleBreaking the Mould 5 by Joseph LittleThermal bypass risks: A technical review (September 2022), by Mark Siddall
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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?
Dark Matter Labs' published work on RetrofitDML on 'Community Powered Retrofit'Retrofit Reimagined Festival 2022 videos of sessionsRetrofit Reimagined Festival 2023 websiteRetrofit Reimagined Festival 2023 videos of sessionsReport on Feasibility for a Regional Retrofit Impact Fund, with a focus on Outcomes based financing with West Midlands Combined Authority and PartnersCommon Wealth report The Case for Community Energy DemocracyReport on the embodied carbon of retrofit materials versus operational carbonA report on the concept of Embodied biodiversity from Expedition EngineeringThe reference about the 40% figure (fig 1.7) and the maritime trade in fossil fuels
Updated notes from the show
Dan Hill on LinkedInThe Dark Matter Labs websiteThe 'People-First Retrofit' panel about the Energiesprong Comfort Plan research we did, held at Futurebuild 2024That story about the Tory Minister who thinks swimming in sewage is good actuallyThe Catalogue of Good Practices a hybrid green finance catalogue for the reconstruction of UkraineThe National Retrofit Hub websiteThe Civic Square websiteThe HEAL (Home Energy action Lab) Linktree page
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Iva Merheim Eyre on LinkedInThe Smarter Finance 4 EU websiteThe Catalogue of Good Practices a hybrid green finance catalogue for the reconstruction of UkraineLet's build green and elevate A call to action for municipalities to get in touch with SMARTER4EU
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Retrofit - Who do you trust? With Dr. Peter Rickaby (May 2023)Dr Peter Rickaby (part 1) on Retrofit, Heat Pumps, EPCs, PAS 2035, LADs, Climate Change, and everything in-between (June 2022)Dr Peter Rickaby (part 2) on Retrofit, Heat Pumps, EPCs, PAS 2035, LADs, Climate Change, and everything in-between (June 2022)The Retrofit Challenge and PAS 2035 with Dr Peter Rickaby (September 2021)
Past appearances**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Andrew Sissons on LinkedInNesta's websiteThe Twitter thread: Why have heat pumps become a bit of a contentious topic in the UK?
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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 LinkedInThe European Straw Building Association (ESBA) website The European Straw Building Association (ESBA) on LinkedInThe Association of Straw Bale Building UK (SBUK) websiteThe SBUK Members Directory The SBUK on LinkedInThat 80s Loadsamoney character on TVA map of straw buildings in the UK (database)A straw construction technical guide from The School of Natural BuildingStraw BIM**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Ciarán Cuffe on LinkedInCiarán's own websiteA summary of the EPBDThe 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
Notes from the show**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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
Kate Crawford on LinkedInKLH Sustainability's websiteThe research Jeff mentions about low pressure showers using more waterReal performance and the HEMReal performance and the SAPKate's little (and excellent) graphic novel on her experience of aid work
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
**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.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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
Chloe Donovan on LinkedInNatural Building Systems websiteNatural Building Systems on LinkedIn
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
**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.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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 LinkedInUtopi's own website
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
**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.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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.
Lloyd Alter on LinkedInKelly Alvarez Doran on LinkedInWill Arnold on LinkedInThe UNEP page on the Declaration de ChaillotThe Institution of Structural Engineers web pageThe Buildings and Climate Global Forum web page
Notes from the show
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
**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.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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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
Harry Browne on LinkedInSéamus Guidera on LinkedInThe RKD website
Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)
**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.**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
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