Sustainability Solved Sustainability Solved
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Each month, we meet with inspirational people at the forefront of the sustainable movement, making innovative changes within their organisation to tackle the climate crisis. Each podcast will provide insights, knowledge, and tips for becoming a more sustainable business across various industries and sectors. Whether you’re looking to start or accelerate your organisation’s sustainability journey, Sustainability Solved will help you each step of the way.
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Sustainable Standstill: Why major housebuilders aren’t going green
Season 5, Episode 184: Sustainable Standstill: Why major housebuilders aren’t going green This episode we interview Ian Pritchett, the co-founder of Greencore Homes in Oxfordshire. They build airtight, energy-efficient, timber frame houses, from their factory in Bicester. Ian shines a spotlight on the challenges of the ‘business-as-usual’ housebuilding planning system and champions the need for a new national planning policy that is fit for the future.
The problem
· Charlie asked Ian what the planning system is doing to respond to climate change challenges and pressures around development.
· Ian is frustrated at the planning system. Trying to do something different and better is a challenge. It gets closer scrutiny and there is more bureaucracy.
· National Government and housebuilders are focused on volume, not sustainability. They are more interested in avoiding a housing crisis, than a climate crisis.
Environmental impact
· Ian reports that every time a new house is built it generates over one hundred tons of carbon emissions (CO2), plus the use of the house will emit carbon. The total carbon budget for Oxfordshire’s five local authorities is 26.3m tonnes of CO2 by 2050. With their plan to build 100,000 new homes in the next 10 years, they will use between 80-100% of that budget on new housing alone.
· Sustainability regulations are dumbed down to keep volumes up. It is a choice between the quantity or the quality of housing. Ian explains that we can have both.
· Charlie asks Ian if we can build our way out of a housing crisis and why does volume win Government votes.
· Ian explains that we are living longer, there are smaller households and spare housing is not where employment is concentrated, hence why the Southeast is the focus of housebuilding.
A planning system fit for our future
· Ian wants a new national planning policy that is fit for the future and focuses on more important areas such as energy, carbon, wildlife, biodiversity, and community.
· Greencore’s mission is to move the house building industry from an unsustainable to sustainable model answering questions such as can you lock up more carbon than you emit? Can you generate more energy than you use? Can you improve wildlife and biodiversity? · Ian talks about how Greencore works to the One Planet Living framework. It is building places where people want to live and can live sustainably, can live happily and healthily.
· Charlie and Ian discuss the issue of landowner wealth and a need to involve the local community to ensure they benefit.
Are greener houses more expensive? · Will talks about how Cardiff University proved that an environmentally friendly home could be more affordable than a normal home.
· Ian reports that there are some higher costs when building sustainably at a smaller scale. However, these costs will come down when building at volume.
· Charlie offers an example of one of his affordable housing projects and how lower running costs could be included in rent and mortgage agreements.
· Ian talks about the idea of houses built to encourage zero energy bills and the problems with this not being valued by residents.
The problem with parking space
· Ian is concerned about housing schemes being dominated by parking and car ownership. He sees a future where we make more use of shared sustainable transport and offer examples of where this is happening. Decisions also need to be made around green space vs car parking space.
· Charlie and Will discuss the pros and cons of electric car sharing in housing projects.
How to innovate faster
· Ian talks about how economics will drive innovation in this space faster. One way is to reduce stamp duty on low-carbon homes which would drive demand, supply, and legislation.
· Will and Charlie discuss getting a better mortgage for a low-carbon home, and Charlie uses the... -
Sustainability in 2024: Reflections and Projections
In our latest episode, we sit down with hosts Will Richardson, CEO and Founder of Green Element Group, and Charlie Luxton, an architectural designer focusing on sustainability buildings. Will and Charlie kick off the new year by reflecting on their sustainability journeys, and discuss key trends in sustainability for the year 2024! The conversation touches on sustainable architecture, political shifts and media challenges impacting sustainability, technological advancements, diverse perspectives on environmental activism, and much more!
Starting 2024 with Sustainability:
Will and Charlie anticipate significant sustainability topics for the year, emphasising the urgency of addressing climate change and biodiversity loss. Will advocates for proactive climate action rather than waiting for legislative mandates.
Charlie’s Sustainability Journey:
Charlie shares his early environmental interest, stemming from childhood experiences in Australia. His sustainability journey began with a realisation about the environmental impact of logging in the rainforest. Discussing his transition from TV hosting to sustainability, architecture, and history, Charlie highlights his recent project “The Great British Restoration Challenge” focused on converting non-houses into homes.
Sustainable Architecture:
The conversation centres on integrating sustainability into architectural projects as a foundational aspect. Charlie emphasises the importance of taking risks in sustainable practices, often testing innovative ideas on personal projects before implementing them for clients. Both Will and Charlie discuss the significance of embodied carbon modelling in architectural projects. Charlie expresses his excitement in AI’s role in optimising buildings, focusing on structure, servicing, thermal design, and orientation.
Embracing All Aspects of Sustainability
Both Will and Charlie share some diverse sustainability initiatives they have witnessed over the years, highlighting the importance of storytelling in showcasing complex sustainability scenarios. Will discusses an audit of an Eon site with diverse perspectives of environmental activism, while Charlie recalls an industrial symbiosis network in Denmark involving a coal-fired station, plasterboard production, and a fish farm.
Political Shifts and Media Challenges
The hosts provide insights into political shifts, particularly in the US, and discuss potential impacts on sustainability. Charlie expresses concerns about the media prioritising clickable headlines over fact-checking, shaping public opinion on sustainability.
Green Element Group is an environmental management consultancy offering a range of bespoke sustainability services, products, and resources to accelerate the just transition to a stable climate. The Group consists of Green Element Limited, Compare Your Footprint Limited, and a href="https://greenelementpodcast.captivate.fm/listen" rel="noopener noreferrer"... -
Who’s Counting the Carbon? An Alliance for Climate Action
In this episode, Andrew Griffiths, co-founder of the Carbon Accounting Alliance, sheds light on the Alliance’s mission to tackle sustainability challenges through collaboration. Backed by over 100 organisations and businesses, including Green Element and Compare Your Footprint, Andrew explains the Alliance's focus on promoting best practices and robust standards.
Interested businesses can easily join the Carbon Accounting Alliance by filling out a quick form. The process is open and accessible, aiming to create a supportive community without any current costs involved.
Highlights:
Carbon Accounting 101:
· Andrew simplifies carbon accounting, likening it to financial accounting – but with carbon instead of money! He explains the process of measuring carbon, the significance of carbon factors, and provides insights into achieving net-zero.
· Andrew discusses the Alliance’s primary objectives including policy alignment, standards, technical coherence, and communications to drive positive change.
· As of last month, the Carbon Accounting Alliance had measured a staggering 587,000,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and reported 6,000,000 tonnes of reductions.
Challenges and Solutions for Carbon Accounting:
Andrew delves into data collection as a barrier for organisations looking to manage their carbon footprint. He discusses governmental policy recommendations and initiatives like Project Perseus for seamless and automated data gathering.The UK government has shown genuine interest in the Alliance’s proposals, signalling a potential bridge between business-led action and policy change.The Carbon Accounting Alliance plans to streamline data collection, analysis, and assurance using technologies like open banking but for carbon data.
Collaboration is Key:
Andrew drives home the importance of collaboration in the industry and creating a safe space for professionals to connect, collaborate, and share experiences openly.For the Carbon Accounting Alliance, success in the next 12 months relies on collaboration, influencing policy makers, and engaging with standards like ISO and net-zero guidelines to drive change.
This episode of Sustainability Solved is sponsored by Business Declares, a not-for-profit business network who inspire, encourage, and accelerate action within businesses to address the climate, ecological, and social emergency.
They are an active network of 100+ businesses who back our commitments to reach net-zero, restore and protect nature, and advocate for regulatory change.
Join Business Declares as a member to get help accelerating your action on net-zero targets and on nature targets for your business from the network. Find out more here: Business Declares -
Raising the bar: making beer more sustainable
This month on the Sustainability Solved Podcast, our hosts Will Richardson and Charlie Luxton delve into the world of sustainable brewing. Joining them from Berlin is Roland Pahl-Dobrick, the Beer Market Manager from Pall Filtration, to shed light on the intricacies and challenges of sustainability in brewing.
Brewing Process and Impact:
- Unlike wine filtration, beer filtration faces unique challenges due to its scale, volume, and sensitivity as a product.
- The conversation highlights the staggering waste generated by filtration processes in the brewing industry, estimated to reach tens of millions of tonnes.
- Traditional beer filtration using Diatomaceous Earth (DE), a fossilised algae, produces substantial waste, rendering it unfit for recycling or reuse, particularly problematic for large breweries.
Sustainability Challenges and Progress in Brewing:
- Roland discusses the industry’s movement away from DE filtration toward membrane-based filtration, which significantly curbs waste production by over 90%, leading to substantial water savings and reductions in carbon footprint.
- Advancements in brewing technology have notably slashed water usage by up to 80% from previous decades.
Future of Sustainable Brewing:
- Brewing companies are increasingly adopting robust sustainability programmes aimed at minimising waste, enhancing operational efficiency, and prioritising environmentally friendly production processes.
- Consumer preferences, particular amongst the younger demographic, are driving companies to embrace eco-friendly technologies, aligning with evolving market demands.
- Roland explains how attention is also being directed toward addressing the environmental impact of packaging, including efforts to lightweight materials, explore reusable packaging options, and consider more sustainable transportation methods.
This episode of Sustainability Solved is sponsored by Business Declares, a not-for-profit business network who inspire, encourage, and accelerate action within businesses to address the climate, ecological, and social emergency.
They are an active network of 100+ businesses who back our commitments to reach net-zero, restore and protect nature, and advocate for regulatory change.
Join Business Declares as a member to get help accelerating your action on net-zero targets and on nature targets for your business from the network. Find out more here: Business Declares -
Breaking Down COP28
Title: Breaking Down COP28: The Critical Climate Conference
Welcome to a special episode of the Sustainability Solved Podcast!
In this episode, we introduce a brand-new co-host, Charlie Luxton, an architectural designer and TV presenter well-known for his passion for the built environmental and sustainability, as seen on Homes By The Sea and Building The Dream.
With COP28 just around the corner, we’ve invited guests with strong opinions to discuss one of the most significant events in the sustainability calendar. Our first guest is Georgia Elliot-Smith, environmental activist and the founder and managing director of sustainability consultancy Element Four. Joining us is Emma Littlewood, Strategy Director at Green Element Group, and creator of the comprehensive carbon footprinting platform, Compare Your Footprint.
Tune in as we dive deep into the inner workings of COP28, explore the impact of industry and capitalism, and discuss the prospects of revitalising this pivotal event for a sustainable future.
This episode of Sustainability Solved is sponsored by Business Declares, a not-for-profit business network who inspire, encourage, and accelerate action within businesses to address the climate, ecological, and social emergency.
They are an active network of 100+ businesses who back our commitments to reach net-zero, restore and protect nature, and advocate for regulatory change.
Join Business Declares as a member to get help on accelerating your action on net-zero targets and on nature targets for your business from the network. Find out more here: Business Declares
Highlights:
COP28 Explained
Our guests delve into what COP is, its evolution, how the agenda is developed, and key sustainability milestones like the Rio Summit in 1992, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement in 2015. Georgia shares her experience as an observer at COP, telling all about the ‘green zone’ for businesses and public, and the ‘blue zone’ – the heart of negotiations.
Oil and Gas at COP28:
Emma exposes the staggering subsidies offered to the oil and gas industry and their involvement in COP28. Concerns are raised about this year’s COP28 host, the UAE, and their connections to the oil and gas industry. Georgia reveals that the UK have given £20 billion more to fossil fuels than renewables post Paris Agreement.
Reviving COP:
We discuss how the merging of industry and governments is problematic in climate discussions, with our guests pushing for strict rules to limit corporate influence at COP. The guest’s desire for COP28 to fail to pave the way for a more effective future is... -
Green up or knock down: how to make housing more sustainable
Two of the most pressing concerns of our generation are housing and the climate crisis. In the UK in particular, the housing stock is in desperate need of modernisation and improved insulation. But this problem isn’t limited to the UK; we need affordable housing that is better for the environment and more affordable to run. But how do we get there?
Today we are joined by two guests who are taking very different approaches to sustainable housing. Carl Gish is from Aro Homes, a US startup looking to replace existing dilapidated housing stock with new energy-efficient homes built off-site to Passivhaus standards. Marion Baeli is an architect, author, and board director of UK Passivhaus Trust. She has written about residential retrofits, and as a partner of Studio PDP, she worked on Princedale Road, the first Victorian residential retrofit in the UK to be certified in the Passivhaus Standard.
Highlights:
Retrofitting existing homes vs. creating new sustainable homes
· Marion explains how retrofitting existing homes addresses inefficiency, reduces energy demand, and supports the transition away from fossil fuels.
· Carl highlights the benefits of building new sustainable homes, including eliminating constraints associated with retrofitting.
· Carl emphasises the importance of constructing environmentally sound homes, given that around 23% of global carbon emissions come from single-family homes.
The net-zero challenge: balancing energy and emissions
· Achieving net-zero status for homes involves reducing embodied carbon, improving energy efficiency, and harnessing renewable energy sources.
· Both guests discuss the need for a unified approach to net-zero construction.
Cost considerations: retrofit vs. new construction
· Carl highlights how new constriction can offer efficiency advantages and cost savings.
· Marion discusses how step-by-step retrofitting is an option to spread costs over time and align with budgets.
· Marion emphasises the need for government policies and financial incentives to drive retrofitting initiatives on a larger scale.
Behavioural barriers and new technology
· Both guests highlight the importance of addressing behaviour as a barrier to retrofitting and the need to motivate homeowners to undergo disruptive home improvements.
· Carl introduces the concept of hydraloop technology, which recycles water in homes to reduce water wastage.
Resources: Passivhaus Standard Aro Homes Studio PDP Princedale Road; first Victorian residential retrofit in the UK Climate Change Committee Hydraloop Technology
Customer Reviews
Excellent hosts and subject matter
Very relevant and important topics. More please.
How we should all be thinking
Great Podcast guys. I really enjoyed listening to you both. Your reminded me of one of my fav podcasts - Acquired. Well done and keep up the great work! Bren.
Interesting insights
Good to hear about cool companies in different spaces, inspiring!