Zero Ambitions Podcast

We are joined by Ian Pritchett of Greencore Homes to talk about his science-based approach to green building and the work that has led him from developing green building materials becoming the co-founder of a vertically-integrated developer and house builder. There's a lot of history and legacy to cover because Ian has been in the green building game for decades and it's this that has informed the...

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 an...

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 sh...

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 ha...

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...

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—strat...

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...

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 wo...

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 learne...

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...

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 Gove...

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 secto...

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 Pre...

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'...

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...

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 Cata...

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...

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 bun...

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 gett...

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...

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 th...

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 al...

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 succe...

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 environmen...

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'...