Zero Ambitions Podcast
Zero Ambitions is a consultancy and weekly podcast about sustainability and the built environment.
We find interesting and experienced guests who know what they're talking about, usually to discuss how we navigate the complexity of decarbonisation and sustainability in the built environment and its many related sectors.
The success of the podcast has seen it grow into a consultancy, Zero Ambitions Partners. The consultancy works with blue chip clients, public sector institutions, and niche-market innovators that operate in the built environment, advising about the development and delivery of sustainability strategy and how it should be communicated.
Hosted by Jeff Colley (Passive House Plus), Dan Hyde (Everything is User Experience) and Alex Blondin (Everything is User Experience).
- Update frequency
- every 9 days
- Average duration
- 63 minutes
- Episodes
- 188
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
Why we need to tell better stories about the built environment, with Liz Male (LMC)
Our guest, Liz Male has been on our radar for a while. She is a figure who has been working in the construction sector since the 1990s, an ally to the sustainability sector, a great communicator, and…
Don't Waste Buildings, which means retrofitting them and building them better. With Leanne Tritton (Ing Media), Will Hurst (Architect's Journal), and Richard Nelson (Abyss Global)
Apologies for the delay, the lost podcast has been returned and is ready for release.
'Don't Waste Buildings' should be a straightforward proposition. It seems obvious. Especially so in the face of th…
Performance guarantees, measuring what works, and EPC reform, with Steven Heath (Knauf Insulation)
This week we're speaking with Steven Heath, technical director at Knauf Insulation (UK and Ireland) and a really interesting and experienced person in the sector.
So while we had him, we ran through a…
Sustainability, sufficiency, and sequestration – the language we use and what it means, with Lloyd Alter
A long-overdue episode with friend of the show, Lloyd Alter, about a blog he wrote and his book "The Story of Upfront Carbon".
We get into the language of sustainability, carbon, and lots of the word…
Developers can build sustainably and at scale, if they want to. With Nicola Cronin and Stephen O'Shea (Cairn Homes Plc)
A wise woman once said: "sustainability is the doing, ESG is the talking about it".
Today an Irish house-building giant has made a major move on Passive House — publishing a positioning paper and anno…
How can we embed sustainable design into the construction process? With Mhairi Grant (Paper Igloo)
Jeff invited Mhairi Grant, co founder of award-winning architectural practice Paper Igloo, to join us to talk about the challenges of ensuring that one's ideas for sustainable design actually make th…
Why is making UK homes more efficient so difficult? Leyla Boulton (Green Conservation; Financial Times)
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, e…
What can we do about waste in construction? Diversion from landfill isn't enough and there's money to be made. With Chris Clarke (SCAPE)
In the UK every day the construction industry produces enough waste to fill a football stadium.
Rightly, former guest, Chris Clarke (SCAPE) has got a bee in his bonnet about construction waste and is…
Net zero neighbourhoods and financing change, with Cat Magill (Living Places)
Something-like twelve months on from inception we thought we'd catch up with what's happening at Living Places, the multi-disciplinary, impact-focused consultancy co-founded by this week's guest Cat …
Running a successful retrofit one-stop-shop isn't easy but it can be done, with Caroline Ashe Brady (KORE Retrofit)
This week's guest is Caroline Ashe Brady of KORE Retrofit in Ireland, one of the objectively successful one-stop-shop retrofit providers to have emerged over the past few years.
Caroline is a business…
The challenging life of a retrofit coordinator: problems with process, products, and performance, with returning champion Lisa Pasquale
Returning champion Lisa Ann Pasquale rejoins us on Zero Ambitions to talk about dogs and retrofit. Mainly retrofit though.
Informed by Lisa's experiences as a retrofit coordinator, technical lead at R…
What should we do to get more women into retrofit? Well, we should get behind 'Her Retrofit Space', with Ellora Coupe (Her Own Space and now Her Retrofit Space)
Returning champion Ellora Coupe joins us to talk about the recent report that Her Own Space has published about the place of women in the retrofit sector, which is heartening, insightful, and damning…
Building better performance: raising construction standards on site and in education, with Joseph Little (TUD)
This week we're going by Joseph Little, Head of Construction & Building Performance in the School of Architecture, Building and Environment at TU Dublin. He joined us to talk about the journey he's b…
Retrofit as a movement for social change (there's more to it all than fabric and finance), with Dan Hill (Dark Matter Labs)
This week we're thinking about retrofit differently with Dan Hill from Dark Matter Labs (DML). Or rather, we're talking about retrofit's potential to become a movement for social change.
In reality, r…
Place-based hybrid finance to rebuild Ukraine and catalyse better building standards everywhere, with Iva Merheim Eyre (SMARTER4EU)
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…
Peter Rickaby returns to ZAP: a lot of words about energy, retrofit, and natural building materials, all the way from South Africa
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…
The UK has a weird relationship with heat pumps: under appreciated influencers, wild pricing, and bad vibes. With Andrew Sissons (Nesta)
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.
Building with straw on a continental scale and experiencing retrofit as a resident. With Cypren Edmunds (European Straw Building Association)
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 …
The energy performance of buildings matters, to me and EU and everyone we know, with Ciarán Cuffe (MEP)
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 a…
A new way to measure performance, negative energy use, and learning from disaster zones, with Kate Crawford (KLH Sustainability)
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 environmen…