Zero Ambitions Podcast

In this episode, we are joined by Attzaz Rashid (Barratt London) and Joel Callow (Beyond Carbon) to talk about Barratt London's move into Passive House.

It was a chance to get into what attracted Barratt to developing this Lo-E homes proposition and how they came to feel confident about committing to deliver certified Passive House apartments, the team effort that's been employed to make it work, and the way this change has brought about a renewed enthusiasm for the job in some of the project's participants.

It's a really interesting exploration of how the rigour and challenges of Passive House has affected Barratt's approach to high-density building, and how the Passive House approach has come to be recognised as advantageous to Barratt, in all sorts of ways. 

Finally, the critique of M&E design that's made late on in the episode is not a Barratt critique—as Az makes abundantly clear—this is one founded in Joel’s experience of inheriting issues that require Beyond Carbon’s expertise for their resolution.

Notes from the show

• Attzaz Rashid on LinkedIn
• Joel Callow on LinkedIn 
• The Barratt London website
• The Beyond Carbon website
• District heating and passive house - are they compatible? from the pages of Passive House Plus
• Barratt launches record passive house scheme also from the pages of Passive House Plus

**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 sorts
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB 
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Is there a collaboration problem in retrofit within the social housing sector? That was the premise for this conversation with Rafe Bertram, an architect and retrofit expert—appearing in a personal capacity—who was very surprised when I posed the question because he's found collaboration to be a strength in the sector, at least in London.

In the end it led to a conversation about what he's learned from the experiences he's had working on retrofits in the social housing sector, in his community, and even doing big flashy Apple stores.

The most interesting bit though is the strategy he's using to reduce the cost of retrofit, with his theory of reactive planning. It's an approach that takes a systematic integrated asset management approach and adds strategic opportunism into the mix in a way that enables him to piggyback essential works, like roof replacement, and use them as a catalyst for getting into a building to do the sustainability stuff that's usually a lower priority.

Notes from the show

• Rafe Bertram on Linkedin
• Retrofit Kentish Town 
• The Good Homes Alliance website
• Rafe's finance report for the Good Homes Alliance — “The Green Shift – The existing financial incentives for higher environmental performance of new homes” (October 2023) 

More links to articles about green building, favourable finance, and better valuations:

• Homebuyers pay a ‘green premium’ of up to £40,000 for the most energy efficient properties (September 2021)—Lloyds Banking Group
• Halifax includes EPC ratings in maximum lending calculations
• Halifax to use EPC rating in affordability calculations
• Octopus reducing interest rates for finance capital: 4 criteria = 1.25% discount, 6+ criteria = 2.00% discount

**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 sorts
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB 
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

This episode is all about case study in circularity and a group of people turning waste into useful materials for the built environment. Daniel Dinizo and Charmaine Cu-Unjieng of NaturLoop are bringing a new bio-based product to market that transforms waste coconut husk into a material that's something between MDF and a particle board.

For us, this presented a chance to talk about how sustainable materials are developed, the challenges of bringing them to market and how responsible businesses can approach supply chain development (the big challenge now).

As professionals who work with LCAs, EPDs, and carbon calcs all the time it was refreshing to get into a product that will have an impact that can be accounted for in human terms, as well as the usual economic and environmental terms.

They're also fundraising right now, so here's the pitch from Charmaine.

NaturLoop at the Final Stage of Pre-Seed Funding
"NaturLoop, the Swiss–Philippine climate-tech startup behind Cocoboard, is at the final stage of its pre-seed round. Cocoboard is the first industry-ready fibreboard made entirely from coconut husk waste and natural adhesives—a truly biocircular material. Featured at Interzum Cologne 2025, Cocoboard embodies the shift in construction and furniture toward biocircularity—no longer a trend but the future of materials. Europe’s sustainable furniture market is set to more than double to $42.6 bn by 2032, with consumers paying around 10% more for sustainable products. NaturLoop is closing its round soon, inviting strategic investors to co-build a climate-positive business that reduces deforestation and uplifts poor coconut farmers—making the industry more future-proof."

Notes from the show

• Charmaine Cu-Unjieng on Linkedin
• Daniel Dinizo on Linkedin 
• NaturLoop on Linkedin 
• The NaturLoop website
• A short film about Cocoboard®
• An investor CTA from Charmaine
• An example of Cocoboard in use as a speaker box for a Schwab System

**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 sorts
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB 
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

In this episode we are exploring the relationship between financial institutions and the built environment in relation to sustainability, building performance and mitigating climate change with Ian Bhullar and Ronnell Reffell from UK Finance, the UK financial sector's membership organisation.

The episode itself was prompted by a report that UK Finance published in relation to the incoming UK Government's own Warm Homes Plan: Greening Homes, Creating Growth: Unlocking demand for green home finance. Its recommendations will be familiar to anyone who has been working in the green building sector but it's notable because these arguments and demands are being presented by the banks and lenders.

For us this presented an opportunity to find out what the finance sector is actually thinking about how to address the demands of the built environment in relation to climate change and the financial risk that comes with it.

Most importantly, they're serious about the matter—this is not ESG-style fluff, they know they need to draw in expertise from built environment professional and they want to know what people like you think.

Notes from the show

• Ian Bhullar on Linkedin
• Ronnell Reffell on Linkedin 
• The UK Finance website 
• The report itself—Greening Homes, Creating Growth: Unlocking demand for green home finance

**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 sorts
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB 
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

We're joined by our new friends from Building Atlas, Nick Taylor and Olga Khroustaleva, who join us for a conversation about commercial retrofit—the non-residential kind. 

They’ve got a data driven business Building Atlas that helps commercial asset owners to plan pragmatic retrofit pathways for commercial real estate.

This isn’t just important because of how much energy the non-residential sector consumes, it’s also because 70% of non-residential building assets are on course to become stranded assets because of their EPC rating and MEES regulation.

They are simplifying a complex problem into something that’s comprehensible—aggregating experience (and data) to give broad brush stroke direction that's useful. 

They’ve also published a paper about retrofit strategy for commercial buildings: The Beauty in Boring Buildings: The Business Case for Retrofit Beyond Flagship Assets.

Notes from the show

• Nick Taylor on LinkedIn 
• Olga Khroustaleva on LinkedIn 
• The Building Atlas website 
• Their recent paper — The Beauty in Boring Buildings: The Business Case for Retrofit Beyond Flagship Assets
• UK Government MEES guidance — Non-domestic private rented property: minimum energy efficiency standard - landlord guidance

  
  

**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 sorts
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB 
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**