Zero Ambitions Podcast

Back in the summer Jeff and Dan were joined by Don't Waste Buildings to talk about a retrofit research report that they'd recently published and we've been sitting on it for ages—sorry all. It's a full house and links to profiles are below.The report is an international study in building reuse across the world, how retrofit is incentivised in other countries, and how Britain's backwards tax system is holding back real progress.It's a piece of discourse that starts from an evidence base of economic arguments and how incentives can drive value in a way that could potentially supersede the endless politicking that tends to hold us back. Notes from the showDon't Waste Buildings on LinkedInThe official Don't Waste Buildings websiteDWB's landmark report: ‘The Reuse Dividend’The Reuse Policy Playbook: A Retrofit-First Guide for Local Authorities, their new reportLeanne Tritton on LinkedInWill Hurst on LinkedInRichard Nelson on LinkedInMatt Bullivant on LinkedIn**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, 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**   

After another long break we're back! Jeff organised this conversation with Renovate Europe, a campaign that's been working on retrofit challenges across Europe for fifteen years (even the Brits were involved at one point).Representing Renovate Europe we have Adrian Joyce (the campaign's director) and returning guest Marion Jammet (director of policy and advocacy at IGBC).Renovate Europe is a campaign that was set up to address the retrofit at an EU level, steering the legislative framework that member states operate within into something meaningfully ambitious and coherent. It's a lot of strategy and consensus building among its 54 partners from the construction sector (the position that IGBC is repping) and the states themselves.The organisation has been driving an effort to stitch together a pan-European strategy by listening and learning about the cacophony of political priorities among partner states, what actually happens on the ground in terms of action, and bringing in the industry voices on whom we will have to rely to make things happen. However, the impetus for the conversation was to mark an annual event they're holding, this time in Dublin. It's sold out now but there is a waiting list and anyone interested is able to attend online (registration link below).Given they have a fifteen year track record there was a lot to cover and we weren't able to cover everything that was on our long list, but we did manage to get into the following: why they chose the word "Renovate" and not 'retrofit', skills and the need to interest kids in the subject, renovation passports, why branding matters, the spectre of private equity, and a host of other subjects.Notes from the showRenovate Europe Campaign websiteRenovate Europe Day 2026 event websiteRenovate Europe on LinkedInMarion Jammet on LinkedInAdrian Joyce on LinkedInThe IGBC website IGBC on LinkedInRegistration form for online attendance (there are no tickets left)Subscribe to the Renovate Europe newsletter **SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, 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**   

We are joined by Ian Pritchett of Greencore Homes to talk about his science-based approach to green building and the work that has led him from developing green building materials becoming the co-founder of a vertically-integrated developer and house builder.There's a lot of history and legacy to cover because Ian has been in the green building game for decades and it's this that has informed the approach being taken right now.Greencore is also challenging the Passive House Institute about the accuracy of its PHPP (passive house planning package) modelling software because their homes outperform the model's predictions because of their use of phase-change materials.Be warned, this is nerd business—Jeff gets to interrogate the build up specification—but it doesn't get too technical to be able to follow the thread.Notes from the showThe Greencore Homes website Ian Pritchett on LinkedIn A PH+ article about Neil May**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, 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**   

We take a look at the state of the green building sector through the lens of itss biggest dedicated show in the UK, Futurebuild. It on 12–14 May this year and you can sign up here.Helping us to peek behind the curtain is the event's director, Martin Hurn, a man who is, ultimately, responsible for it all.It seemed with a conversation because this year Futurebuild was acquired by a new owner and repackaged to become a super event. The green building great big networking event has merged with UK Construction Week and the Stone and Surfaces Show. In light of this we get into the history of Futurebuild that sheds a little light on how the impact of changes that it’s going through right now are a little more like a return to its roots.The episode has a bit of a long wind up because we’ve included a chunk of preamble in which Jeff explains his background to Martin which wasn’t intended for the episode but it ended up revealing similarities, and differences, in their backgrounds that felt worth including. Both Martin and Jeff have been in this working within the business of the built environment for about the same amount of time (early 00s), and both coming from publishing backgrounds. They’ve seen the heydays, boom times, and catastrophes created by the Celtic Tiger and the UK’s solar subsidisation and feed-in tariffs. Consequently, the pair of them are able to offer a some illuminating and interesting perspectives on where they see the sector at this strange point in time.We also let Martin plug the show.And, at the end we do get around to asking ‘how sustainable are events?’Notes from the showRegister with Futurebuild 2026 for your event passThe Futurebuild website Martin Hurn on LinkedIn **SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, 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**   

What is social value? It's a messy, ill-defined beast that's increasingly a core component of public procurement, and it's something that we worked on recently so it's been front of our minds.We invited Michael McLaughlin (LHC Procurement Group) onto the show to talk through what he thinks about social value, and what he thinks it could be if the sector was able to organise itself better. No shade intended and we're not suggesting that it's easy to fix things, but we have looked into it. While there's a lot of great work being done there are an unconscionable number of opportunities being wasted, and not for want of trying.Notes from the showMichael McLaughlin on LinkedInThe LHC Procurement Group website LHC on LinkedIn **SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, 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**