Zero Ambitions Podcast

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 showTom Cox on LinkedInSally Sattary on LinkedInDecent Energy's websiteDecent Energy on LinkedInSaul 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 sortsSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 projectShe’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 ideasNotes from the showJudith on LinkedInJudith on InstagramJudith on FacebookJudith on TwitterJudith on LinktreeJudith's Eco Renovation Home websiteBeginner'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 sortsSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 showRichard O'Hegarty on LinkedInOliver Kinnane on LinkedInA 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 sortsSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 showNathan Gambling on LinkedInBetaTalk - The Renewable Energy and Low Carbon Heating PodcastNathan'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 GapBetaTalk 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 sortsSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 showThe UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard websiteThe UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard on LinkedInJess Hrivnak on LinkedInJane Anderson on LinkedIn Julie Godefroy on LinkedInA Passive House Plus article about UKNZCBSA story about the greenest Sainsbury's ever**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 sortsSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 showPaul Bagust on LinkedInSteven Lees on LinkedIn Robert Toomey on LinkedInThe old Passive House Plus article about the Preston retrofit catastrophe that Jeff mentionsThe 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 sortsSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck 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? 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 showThe Healthy Homes Hub websiteJenny on LinkedIn Healthy Homes Hub on LinkedInOperational excellence in social housing - a roundtable readout Those ventilation papers that Jeff mentionedVentilation 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 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**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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:Marketing and community engagement manager Technical manager Innovation programme managerAs 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 showThe Loco Home Retrofit websiteChris on LinkedIn Loco Home Retrofit on LinkedInAll three job ads, againChris's interview with BE-ST after winning the Gamechanger award at the Accelerate to Zero Awards 2023Designing an ‘optimal’ domestic retrofit programme by Aaron Gillich et al (2017) – The paper Chris couldn't remember the name forLoco Home Retrofit's 2023/24 impact report detailing their innovation efforts to dateResearch 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 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**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 showThe Loop Your Spare website Jay Stuart on LinkedIn Loop Your Spare on LinkedInEmail Loop Your Spare 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 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**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 showThe VundaHaus website The KIN website Max Bloomfield on LinkedIn; email Max hereAlex Whitcroft on LinkedIn; email Alex hereThe 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 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**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**