Zero Ambitions Podcast

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.

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.

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.

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/

The episode features lessons learnt from district heating and the work that West Dunbartonshire have been doing on developing heat networks.

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.

Dave Pearson from Star Renewables talks about district heating during CoP26

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.

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.

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.