Zero Ambitions Podcast

Today we're talking about standards. In short, it's about how standards are written and why retrofit shouldn’t just be about products or carbon. It's never short with us though, is it?We're sure that all of our listeners will have complained about PAS2035/2030 at some point, admiring its ambition while lamenting its restrictions. We've all certainly wondered how they come to be like that too.So, we thought we'd have a go at humanising the UK's most prominent retrofit specification and guidance, by introducing our listeners to its author, Sarah Price. We meander our way around PAS, CarbonLite, Passive House Plus, the great Preston retrofit catastrophe, and even get onto the cases for, and against, spray foam insulation.Notes from the showSarah on LinkedInWikipedia's page on PASBSI's page on PAS 2035/2030The great Preston retrofit catastrophe in Passive House Plus magazineThe CarbonLite building standard (don't judge it on the web page)**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 pageJeff, 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 (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We invited Tania Jennings back. Most folk in the retrofit or social housing space will probably be aware of Tania from LinkedIn and the myriad jobs she has. If you don’t know her yet, check her LinkedIn.Anyway, she wrote a thing for Architect’s Journal about fuel poverty, Covid, and inevitably retrofit and it was excellent. It sparked a conversation about why we’re barely making a dent in resolving the massive pile of retrofit problems in front of us, one that seemed ripe for the podcast, so we brought Jeff and Alex into it too.Broadly, we need better roadmaps and collaboration to enable the change we want to see. We know that the solutions are, it's just that we're not able to deploy them if we carry on going about things the way we currently are. Notes from the showTania's article: Poor housing and Covid deaths: it’s the same damn mapWikipedia's page on MalthusianismThe Association of Local Energy Officers (you don't need to have that specific job title to join their ranks)Check the National Retrofit Hub**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 pageJeff, 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 (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

If you fancy, you can settle in for a long one this week, in which Jeff and Dan speak with award-winning Canadian architect and passive house designer Cedric Burgers.We cover all sorts because he has led a pretty interesting life and he has a lot to say about sustainable building design, particularly his love for passive house as a philosophy, the drivers of change in favour of sustainable design, and the experiences and people that have influenced him.It's long but there's a lot in there and we could have gone on. Notes from the showCedric on LinkedInThe Burgers Architecture websiteBurgers Architecture on Instagram**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.Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week we're talking about natural fibre insulation and the potential of biogenic building products with IndiNature manufacturer (and co-founder) Sam Baumber. It feels like a timely follow-up to last week's episode about quantifying embodied carbon, particularly in relation to the role biogenic products have in providing a mid-to-long-term carbon buffer. But we get into the other aspects of interest, addressing fire safety, health, thermal performance, and economic benefits.It wasn't intended to sound like an advertorial but, listening back it does a little. This is because it's a product that we're enthusiastic about. We hope that you are too.Notes from the showSam on LinkedInThe IndiNature websiteJeff's whole life carbon presentation from the AECB Conference 2022**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.Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

If you’re looking to understand how to approach carbon accounting in the built environment, we’ve got you. Brought in to tackle some big questions around accounting for carbon we were joined by sustainable building expert John Butler. Jeff’s been talking about getting John on for ages, for reasons he explains in the episode, and when we caught sight of an article he’s co-authored for the next issue of Passive House Plus we realised that we had the perfect excuse.John provides us with a lot of experience and context for understanding the subject. It’s a nerdy episode too, in a good way, so it may bear a few listens because we cover a lot in an hour. We start with a discussion of the process of creating the underlying EPD data for straw and go from there, through making net calculations, accounting for carbon stored in buildings, institutional guidance, concrete and carbonation. Notes from the showJohn on LinkedIn John's Sustainable Build Consultancy websiteThe RICS Whole Life Carbon methodologyThe LETI Climate Emergency Design GuideLast call for Retrofit ReimaginedIf you're near Glasgow on 11 November, go! **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.Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Jeff received a press release that piqued his interest, so we invited the man behind the call to action, Joseph Kilroy, (Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB)). Joseph joins us to talk about their ideas for increasing the pace of change required to meet the ubiquitous net zero 2050 targets. They're calling for government to incentivise better building practices by using the tax system to create an economic environment that supports the spirit of climate legislation rather than undermining it. Specifically, we talk about the impact that charging the full rate of VAT for demolition in Ireland would have if a reduced rate for repair and refurbishment was maintained, and the idea of introducing a levy for demolition as a similar catalyst. But these same ideas could probably be applied much the same anywhere. Notes from the showJoseph Kilroy on LinkedinCIOB calls for reuse and refurbishment over demolition in Ireland and NIThe CIOB websiteRetrofit ReimaginedIf you're nearby Glasgow on 11 November, go! **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.Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week we're joined by Mike Fell, energy researcher at UCL, amongst many other things. We've been following Mike's work for a while, (mainly because the pump:chic work is really interesting to us) and when we clocked he's co-authored this paper about realist approaches in energy research we saw an opportunity to bring him onto the podcast.Realist approaches ask not just ‘what works?’, but ‘for whom does it work, under what circumstances, and why?', all good subjects for enquiry in any project. It's much less academic than it might sound. We think it's a really valuable way of approaching research so we wanted to talk with Mike about how he's been using the approach and give us a chance to promote it all to our listeners. We also want folk to check out all the other interesting things he's up to as well. Check the links below.Notes from the showRealist approaches in energy research, by Mike Fell, Katy Roelich, and Lucie Middlemiss (this link should be fine but if anyone has any problems do let us know)The Baking Forecast Twitter accountShouldIBake.comThe power of getting real(ist), a blog about the paper, for if you want to dip in quicklyThe pump:chic website Mike's pump:chic glamour photography Instagram accountNathan Gambling's LinkedIn post that we mentionMike's blog about Airbnb: Peer-to-peer energy: what can we learn from more than a decade of AirbnbMike's blog about energy access: How fair is flexibility?Mike's website for his art projects, like the Mechanical Choir that we mentionedRetrofit ReimaginedIf you're nearby Glasgow on 11 November, go! **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.Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This week Jeff introduced us to a new friend he met while working on a EU funded green finance project, Alexandra Hedesiu, Head of ESG & EU Advisory Services at EnerSave Capital. The EU Life-funded project is called Smarter Finance for EU, and its aim is to develop the market for credible green home certifications and associated green mortgage, loan and development finance products, with €8.5bn worth of projects already built or planned under a previous phase of the Smarter initiative.As well as getting into the drivers of how large sustainability projects get financed, Alex was able to highlight how the demands of finance are changing the construction industry for the better and how sustainability is being recognised as a risk factor by money men. It's pretty clear that finance is going to demand more accountability from the construction industry, in terms of sustainability strategy and reporting, and that some developers are already feeling the pain of stranded assets. This is all before we touched on carbon pricing.It seems clear that all businesses that work within the built environment should think about how they're going to step up in their own accounting and reporting, because pretty soon every entity in the supply chain will be having questions asked of it. Notes from the showAlex on LinkedInEnerSave Capital's websiteRetrofit ReimaginedIf you're nearby, go! More Retrofit Reimagined 2023 is happening in Machynlleth (Centre for Alternative Technology, 21-22 October), and Glasgow (11 November).**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.Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agencyFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

In the midst of a weirdly warm October for this part of the work, we're talking about thermal comfort in building design with Huda Elsherif and Andy Simmonds about a project they've been collaborating on in Tanzania.While the lessons we can learn from it might not be immediately obvious, there are plenty of them there to be had as our climate grows warmer. In terms of building design it's already clear that we should be thinking ahead, planning for today's needs and building with one eye on future adaptation.Air conditioning is an incredibly convenient solution in the global north, but it's very fragile, and a reliance on it does not lead to an adequate supply of resilient building stock if we're designing for a climate with higher temperatures. The overuse of air condition has appalling implications when we consider its inefficient use of energy, implicit challenges in generating enough energy to meet demand (already a problem in California), and big problems down the line when buildings designed for air conditioning can't use it.We also get to touch on cultural difference in building design and the impact that can have, wherever we are, the inadequacy of the assumptions made in standardised guidelines (i.e. the deficiencies in SAP or DEAP), and a few mosquito facts. Notes from the showHuda's employer calfordsedanHuda Elsherif on LinkedInAndy on LinkedInAndy's own practice SimmondsMillsAndy's own case study about the project in TanzaniaRetrofit ReimaginedIf you're nearby, go! More Retrofit Reimagined 2023 is happening in Machynlleth (Centre for Alternative Technology, 21-22 October), and Glasgow (11 November).**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.Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agencyFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Lloyd Alter introduced us to Passive House Accelerator earlier this year and it turns out that we're doing some quite similar work, promoting high-performance building, sharing innovation, and elevating thought leadership.Instead of starting a blood feud, we decided to invite Zack Semke onto the podcast to talk about what they're up to and see what we can learn from them. As it turns out, they're doing some really interesting stuff and Zack had already interviewed Jeff ages ago. Seems like we should look into collaborating.We had a chat about their stateside perspective on high-performance building, how to make sense of the place of passive house globally, and the schism between PHI vs PHIUS standards(European vs US). It went into a bunch of other things too. All fairly familiar subject matter, substantially less Brexit than usual but more naked culture war nonsense. Whatever we think about the nuance of the standards, it's clear that US adoption of passive house has massive potential to push things forward.Notes from the showPassive House Accelerator Passive House Accelerator LiveZack Semke on LinkedInWikipedia's page about the two passive house standardsThe Phius websiteThe ASHRAE websitePassive House Accelerator's OCEC tool (beta)Zack's interview with Jeff Retrofit ReimaginedIf you're nearby, go! More Retrofit Reimagined 2023 is happening in Bristol (6 October), Machynlleth (Centre for Alternative Technology, 21-22 October), and Glasgow (11 November).**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.Zero Ambitions Partners email address - zap@eiux.agencyFollow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageSubscribe 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 patronising way)Email Alex and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User Experience**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**