Why is making UK homes more efficient so difficult? Leyla Boulton (Green Conservation; Financial Times)

Zero Ambitions Podcast

Content provided by Dan Hyde and Jeff and Dan. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Dan Hyde and Jeff and Dan or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.

10M ago 1:06:44

MP3•Episode home

Why is making UK homes more efficient so difficult? So asked journalist Leyla Boulton earlier this year in the pages of the Financial Times.

Seeing a retrofit article in the FT piqued our interest, even more so once we realised Leyla is a senior editor with an esteemed background in political and environmental reporting. She was reporting on Kyoto where no one cared.

Since beginning her retrofit journey Leyla has become a campaigner and it's this that you'll hear as we discuss the mainstreaming retrofit for the able-to-pay market, an endeavour borne of her experiences delving into the retrofit sector motivated by efforts to make her own home more energy efficient.

Typically we talk about the barriers to take up, a desperately unhelpful planning bureaucracy, poorly designed institutional support, hamstrung local authorities and councils, and the need to do better in designing a system that works.

Do check Leyla's article if you can. In spite of the broad air of dismay at how difficult things are, she describes meeting lots of helpful and enthusiastic people who were hamstrung in their efforts.

Notes from the show

Leyla Boulton on LinkedIn
Five Lessons from a Neighbourhood Campaign (FT, December 2023) - a free-to-read article in the FT on Leyla's campaign (the others are paywalled)
Why is making UK homes more efficient so difficult? (FT, April 2024)
The More in Common research at E3G webinar and slides (July 2024)
Planning reform for retrofit of listed and conservation area homes - the public-facing report on our Green Conservation campaign's meeting of councils to share best practice on planning reform for retrofit (June 18 2024)
Leyla and Anne-Marie Huby's Green Conservation campaign website
The Transform-ER project video on the plan to design a system that enables the retrofit sector to scale and upgrade one million homes a year by 2030 (Transform-ER stands for 'Transform. Engage. Retrofit.')
Chris Procter's Climate Emergency Conservation Area Toolkit (direct DL link here)

**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, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [email protected]; Everything is User Experience
Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
Join ACAN
Join the AECB
Join the IGBC
Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women

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

181 episodes