Zero Ambitions Podcast

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's promised. We're not just picking on VCs, we're using them as a means of highlighting a bunch of systemic economic issues—chief among them is how unrealistic goals for growth (in its myriad forms) almost always leads to failed impact. Perversely, it's a bug in the impact investment space that's a feature of the broader investment system.We also get into concepts of degrowth and economic biodiversity.Good Homes Alliance eventLaunch event of our a best practice guide to ‘Water Efficiency and Reuse in Housing’ on Thursday 10 July.Notes from the showRichard Muscat on LinkedinThe Untangled websiteRichard's recent LinkedIn post that we mentionThe Project Drawdown websiteHuman flourishing doesn't require perpetual growth; it requires sufficiency, by Jason HickelSmarter Finance 4 EU — the project Jeff's been working on and promoting because green home certification is about not just energy use, or IAQ, etc, but how residents live their lives once they leave the front door i.e. nature + cycling + public transport + climate resilience etc. all matter**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 Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 measures. As before, basic fabric standards are required in order to make the proposition financially viable.As you might imagine, Jeff was keen to dig into the technical and performance side, so Nigel explains what’s going on in the standard and what they know about how well it’s functioning and Emma fills us in on how it's shaping up to evolve into a building standard in its own right. We're particularly keen because—although we might be sceptical, which we discuss—the action that Octopus is initiating will raise standards and will shape expectations that will influence the whole residential construction sector, and could go some way to catalysing the bridging of the skills gap.*She, too, works at Octopus Energy—she is not an actual octopus.Notes from the showNigel Banks on LinkedinEmma Fletcher on LinkedinThe Octopus Zero Bills proposition in their own words The Octopus Tenant Power propositionNigel Banks' addressing the embodied carbon question on LinkedIn Link to The Octopus Energy Tech Summit (23rd June)The Fabric Fifth ZAP episode from last year**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 Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

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 Catastrophe and all the work that National Energy Action has been doing to fix the grotesque damage that was wrought on a community in the 2010s. It's a project that's consumed at least four years and—in truth—will require many more to make good.It's not a hopeless story though. The work NEA has carried out is full of lessons for anyone who works in retrofit to learn. They've taken a worst case scenario—one so bad it's hard to imagine how you could make it any worse—and developed a remediation programme that mitigates the worst of the situation while laying out a best-practice template for how one should approach place-based retrofit programmes.They're also hosting a NEA webinar about the programme on 10 June: sign up here.Notes from the showThe Passive House Plus article: "Disastrous Preston retrofit scheme remains unresolved"Filipe on LinkedInJoanna on LinkedInThe NEA website The NEA's summary report on the project (and video): Warm and Safe Homes in FishwickMore photos of the disaster in "When retrofit goes wrong – lessons from Preston", a presentation by Kate de Selincourt, the writer who brought this story to Jeff's attentionCathy Come Home on IMDBA Taste of Honey on IMDBRiff-Raff on IMDB **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**

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 to have Toby back and meet his colleague Valentina.We got into the subject of moisture in some depth, discussed the key terms (vapour diffusion, hygroscopicity, and capillary action), why this all matters, what’s important to understand and how it’s easily misunderstood and easily miscommunicated.We also play the audio from the video.Notes from the showBuildings Don't Breathe, the video that led to the conversationToby on LinkedInValentina on LinkedInThe UKCMB website and the tools and guidance they host thereThe recent Historic England paper: Air and Vapour Control Layers (AVCLs) in buildings of traditional construction. A literature review to understand appropriate useThe BSI white paper about 4 Cs (context, coherence, capacity, and caution) framework for the development of moisture standards in the UKThe paper Toby wrote with Sarah Price on moisture in Enerphit: Moisture and EnerPHit - Good Practice Guide (December 2023)Toby's appearance on the House Planning Help podcast talking about all things WUFIThe Greengauge consultancy website (Toby's consultancy, with others, too)**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**

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**