Jeff and Dan
197 episodes listed below
Built environment talk with the gloss removed.
Zero Ambitions Podcast treats the built environment as a messy system, not a slogan. It moves from thermal imaging and Passive House delivery to social value, procurement, post-occupancy evaluation, and the awkward economics underneath retrofit.
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Zero Ambitions Podcast is a built environment show for people who already suspect sustainability gets vague exactly when it needs to get useful. It is brisk, skeptical, and technically literate. Retrofit sits close to the center, but the conversations do not treat retrofit as a single clean problem. They follow it into procurement, finance, social housing, public-sector targets, resident outcomes, asset management, energy modelling, and the uncomfortable question of who pays for proof that work has actually improved anything. The show is especially alert to measurement. Thermal surveys with Lucy Lyons become a way to talk about triage, validation, and the limits of what exterior data can prove. Conversations with Tom Robins and Leigh Fairbrother turn post-occupancy evaluation into a commercial and moral problem: everyone sees the value, but nobody seems eager to fund it. Social value gets similar treatment with Michael McLaughlin. The show looks past big-number scoring exercises and asks whether local needs, health, jobs, and long-term outcomes are being served or merely counted. It also makes room for new-build and materials stories, from high-density Passive House delivery in Central London to coconut-husk board development with NaturLoop. The appeal is not polish. It is the friction. Zero Ambitions Podcast lets sector language, official metrics, and construction culture rub against lived reality until the weak spots show. For listeners working around buildings, housing, carbon, or policy, that makes it more useful than another tidy sustainability interview.
Made for: For built environment, housing, retrofit, sustainability, procurement, and policy people who can handle technical detail and prefer blunt clarity over generic optimism.
What sets it apart: It connects building physics to delivery politics: the model, the contract, the resident, the budget, and the awkward evidence all stay in the same conversation.
Zero Ambitions is a consultancy and weekly podcast about sustainability and the built environment. We find interesting and experienced guests who know what they're talking about, usually to discuss how we navigate the complexity of decarbonisation and sustainability in the built environment and its many related sectors. The success of the podcast has seen it grow into a consultancy, Zero Ambitions Partners. The consultancy works with blue chip clients, public sector institutions, and niche-market innovators that operate in the built environment, advising about the development and delivery of sustainability strategy and how it should be communicated. Hosted by Jeff Colley...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Zero Ambitions makes the economics of retrofit legible by testing technical claims against cost, measurement, procurement and lived building performance.
Zero Ambitions keeps returning to a practical question: how can better buildings be financed, measured and delivered without losing sight of the people inside them? Interviews connect retrofit strategy with asset management, procurement and household energy costs.
Performance guarantees meet heat-loss drones, and you get the awkward questions before the glossy retrofit pitch.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A plainspoken case for keeping social value tied to real outcomes, not procurement jargon.
Zero Ambitions treats social value as something useful but messy, not a slogan that can be pinned down once and for all. Michael McLaughlin of LHC Procurement Group gives the discussion a steady hand, moving through procurement, public sector contracts, retrofit, and the way the…
A careful look at how thermal surveys can turn retrofit guesswork into evidence, with a restraint that keeps the method honest.
Zero Ambitions treats retrofit triage as a practical argument about evidence. Drone thermal surveys can help social housing teams decide where to intervene, how to use resources, and whether completed work actually held.
Retrofit looks technical until costs, standards, and lived comfort start pulling the same building in different directions.
Retrofit is treated as a practical case for building physics, cost, and value, and that frame holds up well. Anna Moore's background adds useful friction: she comes from management consultancies, is academic, is from Canada, and has worked in mining and energy.
A practical retrofit conversation that explains the process in plain language for homeowners and the wider sector.
Zero Ambitions treats Judith Leary-Joyce's retrofit story as a practical guide to domestic retrofit, and that is where it lands cleanest. The focus stays on the day-to-day work of finding a path through the process, getting comfortable with the language, and knowing when to ask…
A technical retrofit discussion that treats measurement as the real test.
Zero Ambitions takes a fairly narrow building science dispute and lets it open out into a bigger worry: whether insulation, heat pumps, and policy promises can be trusted when the results are still hard to pin down.
Social value gets pulled back down to earth.
Lucy Lyons of Kestrix joins Zero Ambitions to talk about infrared surveying as a way to triage retrofit work.
This episode discusses the impact of the Home Energy Model (HEM) and future home standards on building performance modelling and the UK construction sector, with insights from experts Baz Iyer and Stephen Lloyd.
Anna Moore joins Zero Ambitions for a blunt run through retrofit, integrated asset management, and the tension between building physics and cost.
This episode explores the value of post-occupancy evaluation in the built environment, focusing on how Switchee uses sensors and data analysis to improve living conditions in social housing.
Interview with Azaz Rashid and Joel Callow about Barrett London's shift to building high-density passive house homes at scale.
An interview with Rafe Bertram about retrofit in the built environment, covering his experience with various retrofit projects and the importance of collaboration.
Interview with Natureloop founders about turning coconut husk waste into a sustainable board for furniture and construction.
Dan Hyde and Geoff Colley discuss a UK Finance report on green home finance and the built environment's role in climate change mitigation.
This episode discusses the importance of non-residential retrofit for decarbonisation, featuring a tech startup that uses data and AI to plan optimal retrofitting routes for commercial buildings.
Interview with Rose Chard about the Warm Home Prescription project, energy systems, and equitable decarbonisation.
An interview discussing how venture capital and climate tech funding systems create unrealistic growth goals that compromise impact.
This episode discusses a failed retrofit project in Preston and how to properly retrofit homes to avoid similar problems.
Zero Ambitions looks at the consumer side of domestic retrofit through Judith Leary-Joyce’s own experience.
Jeff and Jay discuss a new platform called Loop Your Spare that aims to reduce construction waste by enabling reuse of materials.
This episode features an interview with Liz Male, a PR communications expert, discussing the importance of telling better stories about sustainability and the built environment in the construction industry.
Zero Ambitions brings Stephen Heath, Technical Director of Knauf Insulation in the UK and Ireland, into a conversation that was meant to be about closing the performance gap.
This episode explores how Cairn Homes, a major Irish housing developer, is committing to building to the Passive House standard at scale, focusing on social and affordable housing and the impact of ESG reporting on construction practices.
This episode discusses the massive waste problem in the UK construction industry, exploring why current landfill diversion approaches are insufficient and how embracing circular economy principles could reduce costs and create financial opportunities.
Interview with Caroline Ash Brady about making a profitable one-stop shop for home energy retrofits in Ireland.
This episode discusses challenges in good retrofit practice, focusing on windows, ventilation, product quality, and certification issues in the built environment.
Laura Coupe discusses her survey on women in the retrofit industry and the launch of a pro version of her women-only space for retrofit professionals.
Interview with Falk Blail about Utopia, a sensor-based ESG platform for building monitoring and retrofit.
This episode features a discussion with Lloyd Alter, Kelly Alvarez Doran, and Will Arnold about their enthusiasm for the Déclaration de Chaillot from the Buildings and Climate Global Forum, focusing on embodied carbon, value chains, and sustainability in the built environment.