Tag: environment

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.

Lists of lists

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Recently the reading I’ve been doing is about the meaning of home or, really, the meanings of home. Cumulatively it can feel a bit like the scene in ‘Being John Malkovich’ where John is in a restaurant surrounded by people who are all variations of him, all talking but the only word they say is Malkovich. The word ‘home’ starts to blur as it gets repeated over and over and over and. It feels like the words fold into each other, until the meaning starts to go or it all becomes quite Malkovich, Malkovich. That could just be because I’m marinating myself in the subject but it’s also made me reflect on what turns those lists and frameworks into things that are useful and used.

Reading Jeanne Moore’s (2000) piece ‘Placing home in context’, I think she’s great at setting out a variety of ways in which the meaning of home has shifted over time, and how it can vary across countries. How different disciplines have engaged with the idea of home and how meanings of and feelings about home have been represented. It’s a bit of a speedy romp through the subject so it’s more about breadth than depth.

She does draw together lots of lists and frameworks that have been developed to try and capture the meaning of home. Seeing so many of them together in one short article makes her reflection that lists ‘imply all meanings are equally experienced, and do not encourage a focus on the relationships between items’ more apt. A sense there are so many different ways of describing what comes through as quite a consistent set of messages. Lots of overlap and commonality between them, with Putnam & Newton (1990) finding that privacy; security; family; intimacy; comfort, and control consistently appear in research about the meaning of home. Other lists have the same words or similar meanings, which perhaps isn’t so surprising, at least for those lists and frameworks that are talking about a suggested ideal of home.

I went to the Museum of Home for their event ‘More Than a Place: Centre for Studies of Home Annual Lecture 2026’ which was a talk and Q&A with Katie McCrory exploring what she describes as the eight universal emotions that come together to create ‘a feeling of home’. This work is based upon the Life at Home report by IKEA, and in the book she identifies ‘comfort, control, security, accomplishment, belonging, nurture, enjoyment and aspiration’ as the eight emotions. Plenty of venn diagram overlap there with other lists and frameworks too.

Within an academic context I can see that lists and frameworks provide scaffolding for thought and a way to organise and reflect findings. A drawing together of what’s been learned and found, a chance to reflect on how those findings relate to the wider literature – findings suggested x which differs from the previous literature in y scenarios. Trying to represent and honour what’s been found in a way that some other literature might not quite feel it does, even that which can appear to be similar. So if people talk about security rather than privacy, it would make sense that security is the word that’s used, even though the sentiments might be analogous to another piece of research where people talked in the language of privacy. The weight of different words can vary from person to person and so when analysing the research, in the absence of anything within the wording which explicitly suggests one or other of those choices, different researchers might lean towards one rather than the other. Over time, the development of the frameworks and lists helps build up an understanding of an area and that can develop into recommendations and more directional proposals.

From a policy and practitioner perspective, I’m conscious that lots of reading I’ve done which suggests a framework has been developed, has seemed hard to translate into practice. Thinking about frameworks I’ve used in a policy or delivery context, they would be ones that have some actions or processes attached to them. There would have been underpinning research which led to the development of the list of criteria. No doubt there could be the same questions about why some options or wording were selected rather than others but when it’s accompanied by input which allows the framework to be used, rightly or wrongly, that can feel less of a pressing concern. Or at least, if the framework itself feels useful, if it seems totally bonkers then that’s obviously something else altogether.

Having a sense of who I want the work to help and what they might need, then helps shift some of that Malkovich, Malkovich energy. Given I’m intending to develop a framework as part of the outputs of my research it’s useful to have in mind more of a sense of where I want to be aiming towards. It helps explain why lots of the ones I’ve seen haven’t felt very satisfactory, that I find myself asking ‘and then what?’ about them. Being able to take a step back from the lists and lists, and indeed the lists of lists, to see the aspects that are common across those and why and where there might be gaps. Holding in mind that it is about being able to translate those lists and frameworks into action and activity that’s useful, rather than feeling like what I’m trying to do is come up with one list to rule them all. How to do that is another question, for another day, but having a sharper idea of what I’m aiming towards is very clarifying.

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.

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.

Separated by a common language

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In making the shift from policy and delivery to academia, I definitely wanted, want, to try and share the learning as I go. Keep the connections up with those I worked with in what now feels like a whole other lifetime. Make sure the work that I’m doing is useful and can help to increase the considered and urgently needed action. Share the fascinating research that lots of colleagues in the sector would be interested in, find useful and are probably unaware of. Helping to find ways to avoid the groups from talking about the same things in different ways and often not to or with each other.

I’ve asked around around for ideas on how I can share the learning as I go – glazed expressions on all sides when I say this.

Policy and delivery people don’t seem to have any frame of reference for this concept. Which I can’t be surprised by. I’m unable to think of many examples from my own experience in policy and delivery to draw upon. A previous organisation I was at explored doing an Area of Research Interest in the subject I was working on but the decision was taken not to proceed. Given we had found it hard to identify something suitable that both needed to be done and could justify time, yet could wait at least 6 months until it was done, it was hard to argue with that. Academic work can feel too abstract, too wrapped up in complicated, impenetrable language for many people in policy or delivery roles to engage with

On the academia side of things, when I asked one of the Professor’s at my Uni about external activities, networks and dissemination he said it was the first time he had been asked that by any student. That said, there is some work going on trying to bridge the gap and I’m keen to get in amongst it where it is possible and seems to make sense to do so.

There’s still plenty of disconnects though. So much great research I’ve seen, which I’m obviously not going to name, is seemingly aimed at policy makers. Referencing policy implications either directly in the title of the piece or within the framing of the article. Yet it’s really hard to see what the recommendations are, beyond the classic more research is needed. Setting aside the fact that lots of articles include or present content in ways which don’t seem aimed at policy makers, I’m only scratching the surface of the work that’s been done and yet there are very few pieces I’ve read which make it clear what they think the policy implications are of the work. Of course there are lots of reasons why that might be the case, from a reluctance of academics to be seen to be political or proscriptive, to not feeling comfortable asserting something unless it’s clearly evidenced. Yet policy makers have to take action and make decisions, even when they are dealing with imperfect information.

I’ve not yet found a clear template for how I can share as I go, how I can help to bridge the gap. So it’s a question of exploring and seeing, trying and connecting up with others. Looking at where and how I can start to make that intention true. What existing things are a good fit and where I can helpfully add to those or where I can make my own. Let’s see…

Don’t hate the player, hate the game

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Part of being able to make a good argument is holding on to the core of something that is true and being able to represent it in language that means something to the other person. Being prepared to go to where they are, to try and reach them and bring them with you. It’s not about you and your ego and what you need to say – you can get anything done if you don’t mind who takes the credit. The end justifies the means.

Conceptualising things in terms of the cost and value is a way of making things analogous, or at least finding some way to consider very different things. A way to meet and discuss things with people who might not share the same emotional attachment. To be able to make choices.

What if the means make it harder to get the ends though?

In trying to make the case for environmental action, we’ve spoken in the language of economics. The hard crunchy things that people care about, or at least can use to reach decisions. The factors that respond to the boxes and templates on the various applications, briefings, funding requests that are the ways of getting things done in lots of organisations, lots of parts of society.

Nature has a value of this. Without bees we’d be c.£120bn worse off per year. Energy inefficient rental homes cost the NHS at least £145m a year.

Framing things this way also helps to create a veneer of normality for trade-offs which would otherwise seem monstrous or unacceptable. It also helps to reinforce the frames and parameters – a tacit agreement that this is the ‘right way’ to look at things, to make choices, weigh up options. A shared language for things, or more perhaps, a seemingly shared language but really it belies some big differences in priorities, values, how to weigh things up.

This distancing from the emotional then maybe creates some stress – knowing that there’s a disconnect, putting your faith in something you don’t entirely trust, not feeling like you’ve got much control or agency. Feeling a bit shabby and tawdry, like you’re selling out, or being dishonest because the framing feels stifling, hiding the things that matter.

More importantly though, this framing hasn’t catalysed sufficient action.

Environmentalists, and indeed people working on other issues such as civil liberties or health for instance, have done the things we’re supposed to do. Spending precious time coming up with assessment methodologies to put a ‘value’ on a tree or landscape, or work out how much someone’s bad housing has ‘cost’ the NHS. Then watching as the things we care about get traded off against other things – often things which will make what we care about worse such as new roads or runways.

In lots of ways that’s fine. As I wrote in ‘Picking your poison’ – making decisions is about making trade-offs, accepting that you can’t necessarily have it all and therefore you have to choose. Losing an argument isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes your ideas or proposals aren’t right, could be better, have areas of weakness which need to be reviewed and reassessed. It can create a space to build better connections with other subjects, organisations or coalitions of the willing.

Sometimes though, losing the argument, and then keeping on losing, just makes it more urgent to win sometimes. From climate and biodiversity perspectives, the longer it takes to ‘win’ the argument, the more worrying things become in terms of impacts. Therefore the more action needs to be taken to try and respond, which is then less appealing to more people. So we go round that loop again and again.

In a different time and in relation to a different context, Gramsci said ‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’ There are currently plenty of ‘morbid symptoms’ in the UK and internationally – on migration, health, civil liberties and, well the list is a very long one. The sense ‘That’s your bloody GDP not ours’ seems to still be true for many. It feels like the lack of space for care is part of what has created these symptoms. That people are protesting about the effects and looking around for politicians, proposals and stories that offer something different.

Feeling optimistic at this point can by turns feel naïve and necessary. Yet I love the quote from Rebecca Solnit’s ‘Hope in the dark’, where she takes the idea of hope as something passive and turns it into something more active. She says ‘“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.’

It feels like the current situation creates the space and need to shift from the stories we’ve been telling about the financial value of things, and gives more urgency to telling different stories. Ones which resonate better with people – both those who hear the stories and also, for many who are telling them. Most of us can’t do something directly about the stories politicians tell, even those we would expect to be doing better. Trying to find ways in our days and actions to tell better stories ourselves and to try and make the case to care is something we can and must do though.