Zero Ambitions Podcast

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. 

"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.

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

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. 

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 episodehttps://greathomesupgrade.org/ https://www.householdsdeclare.org/Join the campaign collaboration working grouphttps://chat.whatsapp.com/I63Wguu8lpMCYvDdUK3BRd

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 Dtraaleyhttps://hqnetwork.co.uk/news/opinion-things-can-only-get-greener-four-key-ingredients-for-sustainability-in-housing-5772

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_9781859468197https://ecda.co.uk/projects/wilmcote-house-2/

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.

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. 

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.