Zero Ambitions Podcast

This week we're joined by Iva Merheim Eyre from SMARTER4EU to talk about her recently published report the Catalogue of Good Practices, a document that details a variety of place-based hybrid finance models that have been used to rebuild and renovate homes in locations as wide-ranging as the postwar Balkan states to London's own Westminster.This is all part of a concerted effort to use finance to drive better building standards across the world, not just the EU, and there's a lot we can all learn.Notes from the showIva Merheim Eyre on LinkedInThe Smarter Finance 4 EU websiteThe Catalogue of Good Practices a hybrid green finance catalogue for the reconstruction of UkraineLet's build green and elevate A call to action for municipalities to get in touch with SMARTER4EU**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 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 (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Jeff and Dan are joined by Dr. Peter Rickaby again. We were due a catch up so we recorded the conversation because he's always interesting. Peter should need little introduction, so we'll just say he's our favourite retrofit expert (sorry everyone else) and our most frequent guest on the show. He's only returned to the pod, not to the UK. In principle he's migrated to South Africa and is supposed to be retiring, but that's not exactly worked out so far. He has made it to Johannesburg though. Bu, if you haven't encountered him before Peter is one of the heads behind PAS 2035 and Ireland's BER system, amongst many other achievements. Go back and check the earlier episodes too.We had planned to talk about his experiences with the energy situation in South Africa and what we might learn from it but, as ever, we meandered all over the shop covering all sorts: retrofit, natural building materials, heat pumps, fabric first, fabric fifth, novel recycling, embodied carbon etc.Past appearancesRetrofit - Who do you trust? With Dr. Peter Rickaby (May 2023)Dr Peter Rickaby (part 1) on Retrofit, Heat Pumps, EPCs, PAS 2035, LADs, Climate Change, and everything in-between (June 2022)Dr Peter Rickaby (part 2) on Retrofit, Heat Pumps, EPCs, PAS 2035, LADs, Climate Change, and everything in-between (June 2022)The Retrofit Challenge and PAS 2035 with Dr Peter Rickaby (September 2021)**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**

This week we're joined by Nesta's Deputy Mission Director, Andrew Sissons, to discuss his take on why the UK has such a weird relationship with heat pumps.It was inspired by an excellent Twitter thread on the subject that gained quite a bit of attention the other week. We talk through it all so you might as well listen, or just take a look at the thread, either way it should be interesting.Notes from the showAndrew Sissons on LinkedInNesta's websiteThe Twitter thread: Why have heat pumps become a bit of a contentious topic in the UK? **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**

The other week we had a chance to have a conversation with Cypren Edmunds, President of the European Straw Building Association about building with straw, experiences in retrofit, and the meandering path that led him to the green building trade.For us, it was a really interesting chat because we got to talk about how he got into greed building via sport, the music industry, and playing an active role in his community. The wasn't a built environment professional embarking on a curious diversion in a construction career, it's someone who did something else first and found their way into the building trade later in life, led by interest and making the most of the breadth of their experience. And we got to talk about music for a while, but we cut most of that out because we thought most of our listeners wouldn't be too into it.Notes from the showCypren Edmunds on LinkedInThe European Straw Building Association (ESBA) website The European Straw Building Association (ESBA) on LinkedInThe Association of Straw Bale Building UK (SBUK) websiteThe SBUK Members Directory The SBUK on LinkedInThat 80s Loadsamoney character on TVA map of straw buildings in the UK (database)A straw construction technical guide from The School of Natural BuildingStraw BIM**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**

The Recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is now enshrined in EU law, which has big implications for the built environment everywhere. Even the South East of England.To mark the occasion and get the lowdown on what this all means, we invited friend of the show Ciarán Cuffe back on to talk about it. For those who might not remember, he's the Irish Green Party MEP and Rapporteur to the EU who has been deeply involved in driving it through. And, as a qualified planner and architect he's a politician who really understands his brief.Notes from the showCiarán Cuffe on LinkedInCiarán's own websiteA summary of the EPBDThe Green Party and EFA's promo on the new law Ciarán's current slideshow on the law (on LinkedIn)  His appearance on Zero Ambitions Podcast 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 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**

Kate Crawford is a building nerd who is obsessed with measuring performance. She's currently, Technical Director at KLH Sustainability, a multidisciplinary consultancy working in the built environment. Kate has a very interesting background in terms of her experience and she's now working on a very fascinating project in which she's researching and developing a "Smart Meter Enabled Thermal Energy Rating (SMETER)" system that uses a new approach to measuring building performance and a different kind of metric for assessing it. The result has been something that they call "the snug factor", which is the heat-transfer coefficient of the building (Kate explains it all in the episode). The way they generate their heat-transfer coefficient has led to incredibly accurate estimations for energy use in a home. Notes from the showKate Crawford on LinkedInKLH Sustainability's websiteThe research Jeff mentions about low pressure showers using more waterReal performance and the HEMReal performance and the SAPKate's little (and excellent) graphic novel on her experience of aid work**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**

This week we're talking about modular construction and Natural Building Systems with MD Chloe Donovan.Chloe is a really interesting character with a fascinating product that she's bringing to market. Unusually, she's a farmer who got into building and then found herself as an entrepreneur in the febrile world of modular building and MMC.We talk about all sorts, from the challenges of propagating a biogenic supply chain to the ever-contentious subject of calculating embodied carbon, and a little about what's going on in MMC.Notes from the showChloe Donovan on LinkedInNatural Building Systems websiteNatural Building Systems on LinkedIn**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 our 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**

Up next we're speaking with Falk Bleyl, CTO at Utopi, about their sensor-based data platform technology. He describes it as an ESG platform which is true but it massively underplays the true value of what their product offers. Heads up, normally, we'll at least try to couch the conversation within a broader context but in this episode, we've barely bothered. We were content just to talk about the product, how it's deployed, and its impact precisely because the value it offers addresses things we talk about nearly every week.So we could be accused of having created an advertorial, but we don't care because it's not.  In the most reductive sense, Utopi offers a glorified post-occupancy evaluation (POE) platform. They install sensors, monitor them, manage and interpret the data, and advise their clients on how to respond to what they learn.It is a service that is as relevant to the most red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist landlord as it is an aspirant socialist housing provider.Utopi uses sophisticated monitoring and maintenance strategies to prove a direct cause-and-effect on the value of the building assets. This is massively important for a world where the public sector is instructed to copy the private sector and indulge political desires for market-based decision-making, whether it's more efficient in reality or not. Utopi's platform proves that efficiency pays, POE pays, and (tangentially) retrofit pays. Notes from the showFalk Bleyl on LinkedInUtopi's own website**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**

Lloyd has been in Paris. He came back very enthused and excited by his experience there and wanted to communicate why to our listeners.“In the face of the climate emergency, a swift transition of the buildings sector is a direct requirement to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement”.Approximately, 1,400 people from 70 countries gathered in Paris for the Buildings and Climate Global Forum and the Declaration de Chaillot was the resultLloyd Alter, Will Arnold, and Kelly Alvarez Doran were there. The question is, what does this declaration mean? Will it actually have a real impact on the way we build, or is it just another bit of paper that will be quickly forgotten? This feels like a very positive sign because it’s pulling together the usually loose strands of how we appreciate the built environment and what needs to be done to make it work better for everyone in it, as well as the environment around us.Notes from the showLloyd Alter on LinkedInKelly Alvarez Doran on LinkedInWill Arnold on LinkedInThe UNEP page on the Declaration de ChaillotThe Institution of Structural Engineers web pageThe Buildings and Climate Global Forum 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**

This week we got into an area of retrofit that feels neglected: commercial space. It's a subject we definitely touch upon but never really get into , so in order to remedy that we're getting stuck in.First up is a conversation with architects Harry Browne and Séamus Guidera of RKD Dublin who came recommended to us by friend of the show Richard O'Hegarty.In a sector less driven by traditional sustainability issues, and more driven by hardcore commercial issues, it seemed right to start by speaking with folk who know their stuff. Harry and Séamus have been grappling with the big commercial questions around place of the office in the future and the renewal of these built environment assets, offering commercial clients the sort of strategic that hasn't been necessary in this sector for decades. Nowadays, asset owners are thinking about impact, in terms of how the building asset's use influences and interacts with its surroundings, how they can make offices more attractive places to be, not just providing serviceable desks. This evolving approach encourages engagement with tenants to plan for the future, incorporating changing use alongside changing climate, and how to make the renewal and retrofit process more efficient in terms of resource use and minimising waste.There's loads to get into. Too much. but this is a start.Notes from the showHarry Browne on LinkedInSéamus Guidera on LinkedInThe RKD website**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**