Tag: energy

The power of one

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For all of the talk of relational approaches to increasing the take-up of energy or environmental measures, I was struck when hearing a friend’s recent account of home renovations about the limits to that approach.

Talking about my PhD can often lead to reflections from people about their own homes and experiences. One friend talked about how their plumber had done some research and come to the conclusion that heat pumps didn’t work unless the home is really well insulated. On that basis my friends ended up going ahead and getting their ailing boiler replaced with a new one, with lots of attendant disruption to have a more efficient system put in. They also had a builder who didn’t understand building physics and hadn’t raised any concerns when my friends wanted some air bricks covered up as part of works to replaster and repaint walls.

Had my friends got a plumber who had investigated and come to a different view, which is quite possible given the increasing number of use cases that are coming online of heat pumps performing well in inefficient buildings, they might have been persuaded to have a heat pump. Similarly, had they got a builder who had a better understanding of building physics, when there was a discussion about covering over air vents the builder should have raised the ventilation point. The builder might have explained the premise of the ventilation strategy the home was built with and suggested some alternative options if they did still decide to cover them over. They could also have suggested mitigations in rooms where previous owners had already covered over or removed air vents. Instead my friends randomly found out about the ventilation approach because the algorithm served up some information.

That reliance on others who are seeming experts and placing trust in their views is very in keeping with a relational approach. This holds that we make decisions on the basis of how the home will be for those we care about but also that trades-people can have a big impact on the choices people make. However these examples from my friends also seems to suggest it really depends who you get and there’s an element of luck in that currently. In the absence of requirements or an environment where information about how homes work is a foundational part of being a trades-person, for a relational approach to energy to work for good performance outcomes a higher basic level of knowledge is needed.

It was another reminder of how far away we are from that baseline situation now and how normal it is that builders don’t consistently have, or need to have, a holistic level of knowledge. There were lots of ways in which the builder seemed to have done a good job but those were in aspects that were more visible to my friends than the potential impact of closing up the ventilation would be, at least in the short term. If it is incumbent upon non-experts to be in a position to challenge experts that seems to be a situation which is unlikely to drive good behaviours, isn’t realistic or fair on those who are getting the work done and leads to a situation that looks much like the one we have now.

This suggests the relational approach can be important in helping people make decisions and there’s something valuable in focusing on that as a route to reach people. However, without improving the underpinning levels of knowledge it feels like there’s a real risk that approach will end up perpetuating the idea the building trade can’t be trusted and does poor work – this time more explicitly in relation to energy or environmental measures. In a sector which has issues around the quality of work done through government and energy obligation funded schemes, widening the range of tenures mistakes get made in doesn’t feel ideal. Finding a way to have improvements in generating demand – for instance through the relational approach – going hand in hand with work to improve the quality of the supply chain feels like a way to try and sustainably address issues in the round.

Futures building

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For whatever reason, when I went to Futurebuild last week I found myself reflecting on the differences between this visit and my first one in 2007 – to EcoBuild as it was then known. Of course memory is notoriously fallible, so my sense of what was different and what felt the same is perhaps also a reflection of my current perceptions projecting onto the past. I was only there for one day, I had a mix of wandering around, going to talks, and talking to a few people so what follows is therefore a very unscientific impression of the things I saw and heard, an attempt to think about what’s changed and what remains the same.

Thinking about the differences between me then and now, I remembered how, the first time I went, I was there for all 3 days – running around like a child in a candy store, if by candy we mean heat interface units and insulation materials. The event was something I had been looking forward to for weeks, checking and re-checking the event listings to luxuriate in the anticipation. By early on the second day I had a good sense of where the freebies were and I would strategically do a walk-by here to get a snack, there to pick up a canvas bag and I half-remember getting a good stash of bottles of maple syrup.

I didn’t have a very clear agenda or priorities, I was just really interested in learning and open to finding out more about everything. Part of that was where I was in my role and career, trying to develop the sustainability agenda at the organisation I was working in – I had identified the gap and been given a little bit of space to develop proposals but without any kind of direction. I love that type opportunity but it felt like I wasn’t sure what it would look like or how I’d be able to contribute. It all felt quite new, hard to place much of the information in the broader context given I was learning as I went. I do remember that feeling of being very relieved to be away from the office and have some autonomy in my days though, and a sense of sadness as I wandered around as the exhibition closed down around me.

By contrast, last week I was able to make space to go for most but not all of one day. I had a brief look at what was on across the days and didn’t feel like any of the sessions were obviously super linked to my PhD – which made me a bit sad but also served as a reminder that hopefully my research will be useful for people. I ended up going on the day I did because it fitted in with other things that were going on work-wise and because an out of town friend of mine was due to be on a panel that day so I would be able to catch up with him. I still felt open to the variety of the event, much like the me who first went, but probably not like all the previous versions of me that had been, or hadn’t even been able to make time to go – which made me feel very happy and fortunate to be in the position I’m in now.

I caught up with someone I know well and we managed to find our way together into a proper, messy and beautiful conversation, which felt even more rare and magical given the contrast with the shiny sales stands surrounding us. I had some conversations with others I know, some people I met at the event and some quick waves to others I didn’t get a chance to say hi to properly. I wasn’t exactly sad to be away from my (home) office but I didn’t feel relieved either. With lots of interesting things that I’m working on, it felt good to enjoy the event within the wider context I’m working in.

It also felt different in that this time I saw mention of places and projects I’ve been involved with in different ways over time, which made it feel like more of a space that I’m part of than I felt the first time around. I really enjoyed attending a workshop where one of my brilliant PhD supervisors gave another engaging and inspiring talk about the lessons we can and should learn from the move from town gas to natural gas. I didn’t feel like a total outsider this time around, I could see things I had helped design and shape, and I have more ideas about ways in which I can be helpful.

What felt different this time was that it felt like there was more of a human angle to the sessions. Less technology-centric with more of a recognition of the need for individuals working in this area and the people in buildings that are on the receiving end of retrofits to be considered and consulted. Relatedly, there were also more discussion about the impacts when those things aren’t happening, particularly in terms of residents, and how that affects delivery. There was more non-technical content than I remember from the first time around – both in terms of the subject matter of the talks and also in some of the different organisations that had stands. Of course that could be a case of confirmation bias, given the focus of my PhD but I didn’t feel like I was surrounded by technology stands this time.

There were still plenty of grumbles about government and what they can or should be doing differently or better, but there was also a sense from some that there is a lot happening. That government has provided (some?) people and organisations with a great opportunity through the range of activities they have set in motion and it’s now incumbent upon people to try and make it work. That sense of positivity and trying to make the most of the current context felt refreshing – in any context it can be hard for people to recognise the good times as it is happening. For a sector that can still seem scarred by the Green Deal which ended in 2015, that ability to focus on the here and now felt really wonderful.

One of the biggest shifts I noticed was around a focus on monitoring performance, with lots of services available. Giving people more access to data about actual performance to enable people to have more visibility of what’s actually happening in practice. This offers more scope to try and drive better quality installations and address the performance gap.

Turning then to what felt the same, for all of the differences in myself and the sector, there was much which felt worryingly the same. The big ticket thing for me was people talking about wanting to get to scale. That underlying drumbeat of desire which is beautiful, necessary and also reflective of how far away it still is. Talking about delivery of ‘large-scale schemes’ that in practice are small-scale, given how far away they are from the scale that’s actually needed. Of promising pilots which really could be the next big thing, that unlock the change that’s needed but right now no-one knows and so it’s a case of trying and seeing.

It did still seem like there is a focus on government to provide the funding and framework in which activity can happen at scale. It still feels like there’s an underlying assumption that this is a necessary precondition. While there is a recognition of the need to explore different funding models, and move away from the subsidy junkie approach, walking around I saw a lot of companies that didn’t have very clearly defined propositions, or ones that were clearly additive rather than extractive. The propositions had broadened and changed beyond technologies or installers but still, I left with an impression that some of the companies plying their trade there weren’t necessarily designed for or enabling a more transformative approach.

Despite the conversations about scale and funding, it still seemed like much of the focus was on the social housing sector. Given the relative sizes of the other sectors, with social housing the smallest , the fact I couldn’t find any sessions the day I went which were focused on other tenures, and only a couple on other days didn’t feel very reassuring. There was lots of talk about the cost and how expensive it is and how there’s a need to draw in funding from a variety of different sources, yet there weren’t many sessions which engaged with this. It also meant that discussions around how people think about their homes and what they want from them didn’t feel very centred in many of the discussions. That fundamental driver of my PhD felt like it got a little bit of space but I definitely didn’t see sessions I could easily imagine my research fitting into this year.

What struck me the most was how limited the reckoning with the findings of the recent National Audit Office report felt. For an industry long beset by concerns about the performance gap, a report which was so stark in the findings, and which reinforced views and concerns in the sector, it was odd not have more of an explicit focus on improving quality. There was some implicit recognition of it in the increased number of organisations offering monitoring services and in some of the projects being developed. Implicitly there too in sessions encouraging a sharing of learning, and it was great to see those sessions with people from across the UK. That felt really valuable but wasn’t a space installers and manufacturers were in. That could be unfair though, a trade event might not be the place people feel comfortable having those discussions. Without that explicit focus on improving the actual quality of works at a systems level, it is hard to see how we can get anywhere near the scale we are all still trying to unlock.

That left me feeling like it is easier to feel and see the changes in me. From just starting out, trying to inch myself into an area I wanted to be working in, to feeling now like I have some perspectives that can be helpful. I can bring insights that are grounded in practical delivery and informed by my own research and learning. Feeling how different the day to day and the context is now compared to when I first went.

As someone who wants to be helpful, I’ve found it difficult writing this piece when thinking in terms of where the sector is at more generally. I’m interested in what it is I’m creating when I invent or remember that past and compare it to now. I’ve been reflecting for a while on a sentence I read by Bill McKibben – when he was asked how people can make a difference as individuals, his reply was people should ‘be less of an individual’. He was talking about how people should think about themselves in the context of systems as systems change can leverage more impact than individual actions alone.

Thinking about where to place an emphasis and in recognising my role as part of a system, and wanting to effect change, I thought about just focusing on the many good things I took away from the event. I have definitely felt happy seeing reflections from people who were there, either at the time or afterwards talking about a sense of hope. Recognising that there is a wider range of voices and perspectives. That I’m not alone, or even a totally marginal voice, in thinking about the need to engage with what people want and feel and to think more holistically about homes and improvements to them. That people are focused on what can be done and trying to work things out in a purposive way, rather than session and discussions filled with people talking about how impossible and hard it all is.

It feels too easy to criticise and point out what’s wrong rather than focusing on the positives. Recognising that it’s easy to be a critic and thinking back to this quote from Theodore Roosevelt where he said ‘the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly’. That while it’s easier to criticise others than to build things yourself, it is much more rewarding to be the one who is building things.

Yet that niggling sense of worry I have keeps coming in, that while there is a greater diversity of views there is much that feels unchanged. That part of myself which feels worried we’re still trying to build on foundations that feel unstable. Reading and hearing comments about the National Audit Office report and wider longstanding issues with performance and quality being passed off as a few bad apples or not really engaged with enough or sufficiently substantively to have confidence the many examples of good practice are becoming entrenched as industry norms. Too little engagement with what people actually think and feel about their homes and a limited focus on tenures beyond social housing – hearing more voices calling for approaches that align with what my research is exploring but still struggling to see a context in which the aims of my research are accepted and embedded.

That in a time of political instability, with both the political and physical climates deteriorating, there is still a large reliance across much of the sector on government interventions as the element that is going to unlock change and action. Yet even amidst the instability and the latest UK political psycho-drama affecting progress, Ed Miliband and DESNZ are putting in a pretty solid shift to try and address the challenges of the moment in a sustainable, transformative way. Much in the detail that could be better in what they are doing but the sense of ambition feels evident. There’s a real risk that if we don’t find a way to shore up the foundations we won’t be able to make the most of the current opportunities.

So perhaps it’s unsurprising I don’t feel I can pick a side in the positive or critical perspective on the event and where the sector is at. That uncertain, nuanced view could be a fair reflection of how things are, and what story the conference was offering. Partially and imperfectly – in the arenas and stands, in private conversations and workshop sessions – people were telling stories of patchy, slow progress. Difficult reckonings, signs of hope, tentative progress and patterns of behaviour being recognised and grappled with, alongside the same mistakes over and over and over, of things still unresolved and unexplored. I left the event feeling energised by that sense of being part of a sector still willing to dare greatly, yet uncertain if or how those unresolved tensions beneath it are really being addressed widely enough.

Choosing to dance

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I’m at the point in the research where I’m actually drafting the questions to ask people, and it’s exciting yet it also feels a little sad. It’s a reminder that actually doing things you want to do and care about risks messing things up and dealing with messy reality but it is good to push through that for the same reasons. It has felt like a dance between ideas and reality, the literature and exploring peoples’ lived experience as well as between myself as a researcher and the people I’m asking questions of.

It feels a bit sad because to choose is to pick some things and to leave others behind. Areas that I’m really interested in, that I think would be useful, where it seems like there’s a gap – they are getting cut. Sometimes it’s because they feel too far removed from the subject, that it doesn’t feel like it would help to provide responses that add up to a cohesive set of information. This also means that if I’m asking questions I don’t think I can clearly use the answers from, I’m not being respectful of people’s time by getting them to fill in survey responses I can live without. Some questions have similarly had to be culled because I think, even though they are closely related to the area, I’ve got too many questions overall to realistically expect people to complete a survey that long. Especially because, for the kind of number of people I need to complete the surveys, I’m relying on more than just my partner and a couple of friends completing it.

In that narrowing down, from the general broad-brush ideas to the very specific questions it means a lovely idea – which can be all of the myriad of good things I can imagine – becomes a distinct thing. That narrowing down means I have to let go of all kinds of possibilities, some of which I can envisage now and some of which might only become apparent later on down the line.

One of the things I love and find very bracing about Oliver Burkeman is his repeatedly coming back to the idea of the finitude of human life and how we’re always choosing what to put our time and energy into, even if it doesn’t feel like we’re choosing. That we can’t do all of the things, even as we might want to. And that even if we think we’re getting around this by just not deciding, that’s still kind of a decision, just not a proactive one. So it’s better to try and put as much of your time as possible into things that you actively care about rather than just putting things off or getting your faff on.

So it is that, as can often be the case, aspects which makes it feel sad are also what makes it feel exciting. Doing this work gives a strong sense that the work is moving into a different phase and becoming more real. Trying to translate the general concepts I want to explore and picking the words, weighing and testing them – is this too leading? How would I use the responses to that? Trying to come up with answers for survey responses that respect the plurality of views and contexts that people can have about their experiences of home and how they make decisions about things. Imagining the discussions that I would have with people, the kinds of responses that they might give, the worlds and experiences – many of them beautiful but, given home can for too many be a space of violence and insecurity, also experiences that can be difficult and upsetting for them to reflect upon. Thinking about the kinds of follow-up questions and how to frame things to try and give people the space to talk about things without putting words in to their mouth.

In thinking of the structure of the interview, that too feels like a dance – something created between myself and the person being interviewed. Thinking through the logistics and trying to imagine how it might feel to move from one area or question to another. Are there too many questions – and the other person will feel like they are getting rushed and crushed around? That I am stepping on their toes, rushing to talk over them or hurrying them along to try and get all of the questions covered. Is that going to create a stressful situation for both of us – as though we’ve got the dancing equivalent of sweaty hands or stepping on each others toes? Watching the clock and calculating the number of questions still go to rather than being fully engaged in what the person is saying. Considering what kind of time people need to give considered responses, while still being able to get through enough questions that I get a sense of the lay of the land for them. Helping them move through the discussion and also allowing myself to be changed by what they have to say. Reflections that someone might offer up resonate differently when thinking about them in the context of what others share.

The dance still isn’t done, the questions need to be reviewed and updated. Then I want to pilot them to see how they translate in practice. It could be I put my left leg out and then have to pull it right back in again, or it turns out I’ve got two left feet or some similarly mangled metaphor. Nonetheless, that feeling of exploring and continuing to turn ideas into action is the kind of dance I want to be doing all of my days…

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

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Everyone thinks everything is worse than it is – a sense that things are getting ever more extreme and polarised. Social media throws our sense of, and crucially MPs, sense of, what people think about issues off. Social media focuses on the extremes, especially now that X has become a site which actively provides a platform for extremist right-wing views. As such, it is reassuring to read examples which show views which are both less extreme and more progressive than it can too often seem.

The Climate Barometer report ‘Signal in the Noise 2025/26‘ showed that the difference between what MPs thought the public believed and what they actually thought is significant. MP’s continue to underestimate how much support there is for renewables amongst the public, including in their own constituencies. Even with the news in the state that it’s in, people still overwhelmingly think climate change is a crucial issue and one that needs to be addressed. They also think it shouldn’t be forgotten in amongst all of the other things going on at the moment.

The disconnect between the perception and reality of public opinion is really important because MP’s will be thinking about how their constituents will react to actions they take. If the image MP’s have in their head is wrong, this can throw them off doing what they might think is the right thing to do. It might persuade them to stay quiet and not push on something, rather than feel like they can put their head above the parapet, let alone that they might be supported by their constituents.

This disconnect can be taken to extremes by some politicians who seem to be very online, and react accordingly. Yet the report is more evidence of the fact that lots of social media increasingly serves to platform the more extreme views, creating a sense that those views are more representative than they are. Climate Barometer looked at discussion about net zero on X and found ‘conversation is dominated by right-leaning skeptics, who make up 86% of all users discussing the term’. This active network of voices against net zero, and other social issues, contrasts with more disparate, less active and co-ordinated voices that are in favour of trying to address environmental issues such as net zero.

This matters even more because of pluralistic ignorance – a phenomenon where people privately disagree with a norm or view but assume others don’t, so they don’t say anything. This helps perpetuate the norm because no-one speaks out, so there’s social conformity to the norm which further reinforces it. If people are given the impression extreme views are the norm, that people are less pro-environmental than they are say, then it has real-world impacts. This can make us feel more weird and isolated from those around us. It also means we’re less likely to raise the subject and put across our views, thereby discovering we’ve got more in common than we had realised. We are also less likely to vote for parties that support those policies because we assume others won’t either so our vote would be ‘wasted’ or take action in some other way.

Creating spaces to have conversations about issues can be a way to try and surface views and get a sense of where people are in practice. It’s why I make a point of talking about how I travel by train, occasionally boat and even more occasionally, by a train on a boat, rather than flying when I go overseas now. For a long time before I started travelling that way I felt bad about flying but I was surrounded by people who were continuing to fly – including those who also worked on environmental issues. The social norm of flying, perhaps with a helping of feeling bad and a shrug of ‘oh well, nothing to be done’ was just so common that it allowed me to convince myself it was ok to fly. If someone had been talking about how fun it is to travel without flying and had helped me to think about travel differently, which is a key part of getting into the zone of it, I would probably have switched to train travel sooner.

As climate and environmental issues become more noticeable, there’s a lot more to discuss about how impacts are arising and what can be done. Even if you don’t use every opportunity that arises, using just a fraction of them to raise in conversation with others would still lead to a lot more discussion on the subject. The chances are they might have more in common with you than you imagine, and if they don’t, at least you know for sure.

It’s like Piccadilly Circus in there

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Policy makers can be reluctant to put in place policies that are seen to impinge upon the privacy of people in their own homes, yet commercial entities are less worried about this. From adverts in kitchens on fridges to people having massive logos on their clothing, accessories and in their homes, it’s another way of letting the outside in, making homes more public spaces.

Instinctively the idea of adverts on fridges feels quite shocking and a departure but reading Saunders & Williams 1988 piece ‘The constitution of home’ was a reminder that it’s perhaps more of a variation on a theme. They were talking then about advertising coming into the home through the TV and radio, and how this connected the home and outside world. They had slightly mixed views about the extent to which the home is or isn’t a private space but it was helpful to be able to see these adverts in a longer-term context.

TV and radio advertising has helped pave the way for the adverts on fridges, but with TV and radio, the ads are quite one-way. The people and organisations placing the ads would be able to get viewer or listener numbers and they might be able track if there was an uplift in activity as a result. They would have much less information available than is there now through tracking on phones and internet devices. This creates much more of a feedback loop between the adverts, organisations and audience. It’s also providing much more data which can be tracked and logged and used, with the attendant concerns about the possibility of personal or big data being used in ways we would find unethical.

Some of the sense of difference might just be the shock of the new, happening in a situation where there are growing concerns about the impact of data and devices. A sense that there’s increased surveillance but it’s not clear that we are safer or benefiting from it in other ways. That devices are making things seemingly more convenient – so smart fridges can tell us something is getting close to its best before date, but at a cost we hadn’t considered, let alone really reckoned with. The hollowing out of high streets, a loss of big and small businesses that can’t compete with massive online, offshore companies, more job insecurity and lower pay for more people. The social impacts of becoming more removed from others – those that we disagree with and now feel more removed from so it’s easier to be angry with and about them. Removed too from those we care about or might care about. Of course, no one smart fridge or other device does that but the cumulative impact of convenient things is something people are concerned about, for instance in the increasing hollowing out of high streets or declining concentration spans.

There is something different about the extent to which it’s a choice to engage. With TV and the radio you can choose to switch them on or not. If the adverts come on you can switch off or leave the room, and it’s you engaging when you want to but otherwise they aren’t around. With the adverts on the fridge, the fridges weren’t sold with that function to start with, so it isn’t as though people made the choice and were able to consider the trade-offs. People chose an expensive fridge and then subsequently that functionality was introduced, which feels very different indeed. There was eventually some functionality introduced that allows the adverts to be switched off but it isn’t clear they can be entirely removed.

In many respects then, smart devices with advertising are part of the longer history of the outside coming inside, or there being a much more permeable link between the home and the wider world. What remains then, is a sense of how the lack of choice looms larger in that context, but it also shows how homes, and expectations about homes, can push back on shifts. The company that introduced them thought they would be able to get away with it, yet people felt able to complain and have their views heard in a way that might be harder to achieve in a more communal space.

Why try harder?

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I was yesterday day’s old when I discovered there’s no qualification to become a Retrofit Evaluator. Niche insight but it opened up a bit of a Pandora’s Box because under the British standard for retrofit – PAS 2035 – any evaluation of a retrofit should be completed by a suitably qualified Retrofit Evaluator. If there’s no qualification that can be done to get qualified, I think we can agree it’s hard to see how that is possible. In practice, what this means is the Retrofit Co-ordinator, another role under PAS 2035, and one that does have a qualification available does the evaluation.

In some respects perhaps not so surprising – monitoring and evaluation is an area most would agree is important in any context, yet it’s the area that is more likely to fall away than most. Whether because it’s for a project that is over-stretched, under resourced or behind schedule, evaluation is rarely seen as a core focus. Or the next project is getting scoped up and approved before there’s time to complete a proper evaluation of previous projects that might feed in to the development of the next project. So the fact there isn’t a qualification for this role is less of a concern than it might be for the actual installer roles.

Yet this role without a route to being meaningfully undertaken feels like such a symptom or metaphor for longstanding issues within the retrofit sector. The ongoing performance gap issue is one that has been long recognised but, as the recent 2025 National Audit Report (NAO) on energy efficiency installations showed, hasn’t been fully dealt with. Poor quality works, homes left worse off than they were before the works were undertaken because of mould and damp, affecting the health of the occupants and the fabric of the building itself. The NAO report itself found that 98% of homes that had external wall insulation installed under the Energy Company Obligation and Great British Insulation Scheme have got significant issues requiring remediation.

These issues arise in large amount because of a lack of attention, or ability, to deliver good quality works and ensure the details are right. Good processes, with monitoring and evaluation built in, can really help address or prevent issues. They can draw attention to areas where the work isn’t quite right and allow them to be improved or redone whilst the works are ongoing. Post-completion, they can identify issues with the works before they become much more serious. The intention is also that the Retrofit Evaluator can share lessons learned and areas for improvement with the installer to help them upskill people for subsequent projects.

More widely, in a context where approaches, products and technology are being developed, monitoring and evaluating their performance is crucial. Understanding how they work in practice, if they are easy to work with or need some workarounds to try and integrate them. Finding out how occupants respond, if they are easy for them to use or not. As more heat pumps have been installed in a great variety of homes, including ones that aren’t so well insulated, it’s become clear performance is better in a wider range of use cases than had previously been considered. That makes a massive difference in terms of the level of insulation needed for a home, with knock-on implications in terms of disruption and cost for the home-owner, and resourcing requirements for the supply chain. Without the monitoring and evaluation it’s harder to be confident in a particular approach and the status quo assumptions and actions are more likely to be considered.

What then is the workaround for the lack of a Retrofit Evaluator? As things stand, the Retrofit Co-ordinator now has to fulfil this role. They get to mark their own homework. If the basic level of feedback identifies any issues, they then have to escalate the evaluation to a more in-depth level. This would be undertaken by another Retrofit Co-ordinator. However, this requires them to do that escalation process. The worry is that in practice there might not be incentives to do so, or the quality assurance and monitoring of their work to pick up the cases when they don’t.

If there wasn’t a consistent drum-beat of stories and reports raising concerns about the quality of retrofit work undertaken, it might feel like that was an unfair assumption. Against that background, it feels like another reflection of a sector that recognises the need to change and improve – hence the development of the role in theory Yet it remains a sector that continues to struggle to address fundamental aspects around quality and reliability of the work it’s doing. Undermining trust, the health and well-being of people and their homes, and the ability of their work to get close to delivering the environmental and financial benefits people are paying for.

The hard sell

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I was at Elemental London earlier this week. A trade show and conference about the built environment. Plenty of flanges and pumps and gadget goodness to try and make sense of.

At one of the sessions I did go to, someone giving a presentation said that it’s hard to sell heating systems because people only want to talk about them if something goes wrong. A gentle, knowing laugh went around the space.

It feels like there’s plenty of truth in that. Heating systems aren’t the most exciting thing to talk about, there’s lots of technical details which don’t mean much to most people. The language and technical details can be off-putting to most.

So why try and sell a heating system? Why not talk about the things that do interest people instead? Warmth and comfort and relaxation. As Fouquet discusses, people think about energy services – not exactly marketing ready language but that phrasing more readily engages with what people are actually looking for. The outputs and opportunities that flow from the energy, rather than actively being interested in the energy source itself.

We can either keep being frustrated with people or we can go to where they are and really engage with what interests them. There was some sense of an attempt to do that in sessions around the conference, with discussions around co-creation and protecting what’s important to people. More of that is needed to turn fledgling ideas and approaches into things that can more consistently appeal to people.

Moons and moons and moons

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Talking about other planets often becomes another way of talking about Earth, making it easier to engage with ourselves, our habits and the impacts they have. Reading ‘Orbital’ by Samantha Harvey, the poetic, beautiful book about a day in the life on the International Space Station, much of what made it so wonderful to read was being taken to somewhere else I’d never be able to, and seeing Earth afresh. It felt revelatory being shown the beauty and improbable aloneness of our Earth in the universe.

Taking a different planet seemingly as it’s focus ‘Moon’, Duncan Jones’ 2009 film, offers another way for us to see ourselves and Earth. So much of the story is about the focus of Sam Rockwell’s character Sam Bell on looking after himself as he finishes up his three year posting on the Moon, ahead of returning to Earth, his wife and family. Sam is all alone on the Moon apart from an AI helper and ‘buddy’ as he mines for helium-3. His contact with Earth is limited to intermittent recorded messages as the live communications link between the Moon and Earth is down. At the start of the film we see Sam trying to keep himself together physically and mentally. We see how much he wants to get back to Earth, to his home and family, how close it all seems and yet how far given what seems to be a declining state of health. As the film unfolds, we watch his health deteriorate.

Seeing him as he gets physically injured, and as his mental health is affected, it felt like I was seeing the madness of our pursuit for energy playing out on one person. Getting sick and going mad as an allegory of our collective madness. How this manifests in him – his health suffering, physically and mentally scarred, bruised, burned and eventually left for dead. Disconnected from those he loves, watching them from afar, intermittently, as they grow and change without him there.

Heidegger talks about how technology can alienate us from ourselves and our true sense of being. That we are all beings in this world, with relationships to each other that are fundamental as inherently social creatures. As we see in ‘Moon, Sam is able to make sense of the work he’s doing because of what it means for the possibilities for his family, and how much he values getting messages from them. Heidegger is worried that technology can lead us to see nature and other people simply as raw materials – whether in ‘Moon’ that’s the person who is doing the mining, or the materials they are mining for. Technology then, in Heidegger’s view, takes us away from our sense of self, our way of being in the world which he sees as crucial to our humanity. Although there’s much to criticise Heidegger for – professionally and personally – ‘Moon’ gives a cinematic view of what that disconnect can look like.

The distant company Sam is working for, distant both physically and emotionally, seem to be operating from this Heideggerian perspective. They give Sam meaningless platitudinal reassurance but don’t do anything to fix equipment or look after him in ways which would actually be useful for him. Sam continues to work even whilst he is unwell, out of a sense of obligation and to avoid giving any reason for his return to Earth to be delayed. He has some interests outside of his work there, making a model replica of his hometown and exercising. In the main his life and meaning has become so built around the work, and the work ending so he can return home, that he needs to keep working so he, his location and his purpose there can hold together.

Sam’s work extracting helium-3 makes visible how energy extraction can look in practice, something we can usually avoid. Seeing the mining unfolding on the Moon, a place that seems such a pristine environment, feels more shocking, throwing into further relief what we are doing on Earth. Compared to earth, where it’s estimated there is only about 100kg globally of helium-3, the amount on the Moon is relatively more abundant. Different samples have found up to 10 parts per billion(ppb) of helium-3 on the Moon, with the average about 4 ppb. These are still very low levels of the material but lots of organisations have nonetheless investigated mining there. Currently helium-3 is used in a few ways, including in cryogenics and quantum computing but it’s also considered a potential future source of energy, as the film proposes it is used. The film shows the Moon’s surface getting utterly churned up as Sam tries to find some crumbs of helium-3 to send back to Earth.

In the literature around energy transitions, one of the key discussions is whether we have seen or are seeing, energy transitions or whether it’s more a case of energy additions. The argument for energy transitions is about progress away from older energy sources and bringing online new ones. Primarily this is a discussion about a transition away from filthy fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy – renewable sources such as solar, wind or hydroelectric, as well as ones that are cleaner by some metrics ones such as nuclear. Proponents of this view would point to how some sources such as coal, have fallen away or gone completely in many countries.

Fressoz’s book ‘More and more and more’ argues that what we’ve had, and are going through, are energy additions. That whilst new technologies are coming online, we’re still using old technologies too, and this increase in the availability of energy is leading to an overall rise in consumption. The data can certainly support this view. Data from ‘Our World in Data’ shows that more traditional biomass is burnt globally now than 100s of years ago. We’re still using coal and gas. This year has seen the highest ever level of coal usage globally. As Fouquet and Pearson’s 1998 article shows, the more energy that becomes available, and the more affordable it becomes, the more likely we are to spend disposable income on energy. This encourages people to develop new or cheaper energy sources and services, making it more affordable, and normal, for people to use more energy. Then we go around the loop again and find ourselves thinking that scrabbling around the surface of the Moon for crumbs makes sense.

Shove talks about the adoption of practices and how comfort becomes something that people seek. This feedback loop between availability, use and rising expectations or changing norms can then feed off itself. We can justify the mess we make of places on Earth or, in a potential future, the Moon or other planets – apparently Jupiter has the most helium-3 of all the planets but is even more inaccessible than the Moon – because of all the uses we make of energy. The entrenched position of the habits and expectations becomes enough to explain or justify the impacts. It can also become easier to accept the impacts than address the behaviours.

I found watching ‘Moon’ to be an unsettling story in many ways, yet it was also like watching a story I’ve seen many times before. The film provided a near-future reflection of scenes that continue to be played out across the world in pursuit of resources. Although ‘Moon’ is science fiction, it reflects existing extractive patterns here on Earth, affecting those working in the industry and the Earth itself. ‘Orbital’ gives us reasons to care, inviting us to see anew how precious this planet is, while ‘Moon’ shows us the consequences of that lack of care. Together, they offer different ways of seeing ourselves, giving emotional reasons to care, and to want to reassess our actions.

Back to the future

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Visiting archives is a way to physically connect with the past, so I am keen to do so as a way to explore the stories that shape how we understand homes, communities, and change over time. As soon as I stepped into the Southwark Archives I realised that of course this is what an archives should smell like. That slightly dry, dusty but richly inviting smell. Absolutely ideal.

From that on-point smell, my visit to an archives only got better. As a first-time visitor to an archives, and going in an exploratory way to get a sense of the lay of the land, I didn’t have much of a sense of what I’d find, how it would all work.

The amazing archivist that I’d e-mailed before I arrived had, on the basis of a very broad set of parameters, collected together some information for me and it was all laid out ready when I arrived. I just delved right in, looking to see what piqued my interest, or felt like it related to my PhD.

The generosity of this work, people working to preserve parts of the past and help others make sense of it just blew me away. Watching one of the archivists respectfully and patiently respond to a million questions from a couple of people who had booked a visit. Finding and helping, making resources available and helping people who are coming to the archives with all kinds of interests and questions. The act of archiving, as they acknowledged themselves when talking about the changing norms in society, is obviously an act of choosing what is important, what should be kept, that says something about the time, place and people – even if those views reflect a worldview that most of us would now no longer agree with.

It was so incredible to actually physically hold documents going back over 100 years. Although virtual things are great and give us access to so much information easily, that sense of literally holding parts of history in my hands had me feeling quite emotional at times. The more so because most of what I looked at was the stuff of everyday life – brochures, flyers, news stories and reports. Often it’s the so-called ‘extraordinary’ moments that get recorded – moments in which most people are observers rather than participants, such as sporting events, the details of rich peoples lives. It was really lovely to see a richer reflection and recognition of people’s lives beyond that small slice of it.

Even though I felt like I was in hunter gathering mode, rather than really processing what I was seeing, there were still some themes which came through:

  • the care people put into looking after each other – the different schemes and plans to look after each other, to try and find ways to help people live healthier, better lives
  • an increasingly common mismatch between the amount of funding needed to look after, let alone improve social housing and what has been made available
  • restrictions on how people can live in homes they don’t own, regulations from an 1897 publication, much of which would still feel familiar today
  • different manifestations of the tensions between people and other creatures. Lots of news stories about rats, ants, mice, cockroaches and other insects and animals that are trying to make themselves at home

There were also some fascinating gems, including:

  • a sense of the changing expectations of homes coming through in a drawing from a 1928 publication. This proudly showed a lovely home that had a properly plumbed in bath in the kitchen. This would now be considered unacceptable but was then considered quite an upgrade
  • photo’s and stories from people giving glimpses into the different ways people navigate the world and place their home within it – from the landmarks around the place a registered blind person uses to orientate himself, to transient spaces briefly becoming homes for homeless people
  • Montagu H. Cox, the Clerk of the Council, wrote in January 1928 about ‘the housing problem’ in a way which felt both humble and yet purposeful – ‘These are striking figures (numbers of homes built), but it must not be supposed that the housing problem is already solved. Slums have not yet been wholly swept away, nor have houses yet been provided for all who need them. Moreover, the housing standards of to-day will not necessarily be those of to-morrow, and some areas not at present classed as slums are certain in course of time to come within this category. Nevertheless, much has been accomplished, the lines of future progress are more clearly discernible, and the time has been brought appreciably nearer when it may be possible to say that the solution of one of the most difficult and serious social problems of the age is at last within sight’. Much in there which would still hold true – from housing standards changing to homes and areas changing in character. That sense of a solution, written in a beautifully printed and bound book, looking positively to the future felt tonally very different to much of the public discourse we see and hear now about what’s possible.

My favourite find though was in the seemingly unlikely place of a 1939 brochure by the Borough of Bermondsey Electricity Committee. You’d be forgiven for thinking this might be an offering as dry and dusty as the air in archives but you would be wrong – richness indeed in that brochure, as in the archival air. Here’s a small sample from ‘The magic of electricity’:

‘Once upon a time, a little girl named Alice discovered a Wonderland where philosophic caterpillars smoked hookahs, and lobsters danced quadrilles, while the Mock Turtle sobbed without ceasing – a queer quarrelsome Wonderland of muddled magic. There was a lovely garden in this Wonderland, but Alice could not find the way into it until the middle of the story, when a golden key unlocked the door the led to the bright flower-beds and cool fountains.

Housewives who use the old-fashioned methods of lighting, heating, cooking and cleaning are just in Alice’s shoes. They are surrounded by a quarrelsome Wonderland of smoky fires, inadequate lighting, dirt that needs continual clearing away, and unending labour over the simplest tasks. They have not discovered the key that gives access to the lovely garden of Leisure – the golden key that is clearly marked “Electricity”.

With this little book, the Electricity Committee presents every modern Alice who lives in Bermondsey with the key.’

Key’s indeed to be found, in that brochure and the rest of the archives. An absolute privilege to be able to explore them, my first visit but hopefully not my last to that kind of ‘quarrelsome Wonderland’.

Seeing is believing?

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With all of the discussion about clean energy transitions, it can feel very abstract for most people. Massive power plants, huge wind turbines.

Talk about the energy transition seems like it would feel more tangible and real to people if they are actually part of it. Every day you’d be likely to see your panels, or those of your neighbours. The talk of a transition would feel like something you were a part of. It would feel true and real and you’d be able to see how your life was better as a result.

Public acceptance of solar across the board seems to be high. The recent ‘Britain talks climate and nature’ report by Climate Outreach found only 11% of people don’t like seeing solar on roofs. That’s a huge level of public acceptance of a measure which can make quite a difference to the aesthetics of a home or street. People are also much more likely to get solar if their neighbours have got it, creating a potentially virtuous circle in terms of acceptance and take-up.

Solar installs are much quicker than lots of other measures, and less disruptive too. In terms of integrating solar into day to day life, there aren’t really any adjustments needed once it has been installed. Unlike with heat pumps which require space to be found for them and then they are using that space on an ongoing basis.

Immediately people get a benefit in terms of the energy being generated but there’s no lifestyle changes needed to be able to use it. There are lifestyle changes you might be incentivised to make as a result of having them – switching some activities to during the day, like using the dishwasher or washing machine – but if you don’t you are the one who might lose out.

With other energy efficiency or low carbon measures, there might be adjustments which are needed to make sure it works properly. There are also potential risks from an energy and climate perspective of the rebound effect. For those who have been under-heating their home that can actively be a good thing in terms of moving to a level of comfort which is better for health and wellbeing.

Directly providing measures which improve homes could also go some way to addressing the phenomenon Chen et al, (2025) identified, where the messaging on affordability doesn’t resonate with those on low incomes. This is something that people within the environmental sector can focus on around the benefits of some measures or the approach to decarbonisation more generally. So it’s humbling but helpful to get some insights into why that message can actually alienate many of the people it’s specifically trying to help. That messaging makes people feel nervous thinking about the costs because they don’t feel they can afford it. This is exacerbated by the fact they don’t think they will benefit from any transition so the costs are for them but not the benefits.

Being able to tangibly show people it’s for them can change that. With some things, like insulation, the measures themselves just aren’t visible to people unless they’ve been badly installed and then it becomes apparent through the mould, damp and other structural issues. Otherwise the impacts of the insulation can easily become invisible. People tend to take the savings from the energy efficiency and use it to fund an increased level of comfort – which can be the intention in fuel poverty schemes – or the savings get lost as prices rise anyway. So people feel frustrated because they were expecting a reduction in costs and instead see an increase.

In the medium term increasing the deployment of solar will also make it easier to shift costs from electricity to gas because people are less reliant on gas. Making that change is something that needs to happen to support the electrification of energy. Given most people are currently reliant on gas for their heating and hot water, there is an understandable concern about the impact of that shift on people’s health and incomes. Reducing the cost to people of electricity through the provision of free solar can then create the space to fairly and progressively make changes to costs.

Finding a way to give people a more tangible sense of ownership of the move to a decarbonised future feels utterly fundamental to getting people on board. Solar could be one way to do that, to allow people to see themselves as part of, and benefiting from that change.