Sustainability in 2024: Reflections and Projections

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Hi, and welcome to Sustainability Solved, the sustainable business I'm Will Richardson, the founder and CEO of the Green Element Group, incorporating Green Element, Compare Your Footprint, and of course Sustainability Solved. We've been empowering organizations to manage their environmental impacts for a just and sustainable world since 2004.

And I'm Charlie Luxton. I'm an architectural designer and I focus on sustainable buildings.

This is our first podcast of 2024. Happy New Year, Charlie.

Happy New Year, Will.

I hope you had a good Christmas.

Yeah, it was good actually. It was very nice. It was very nice indeed.

What did you get up to?

Family, and actually I managed to go skiing, which was good. And there was snow, which is good considering the way snow in the Alps is changing. And I haven't skied for years and I really enjoyed it. And I took my kids and tried to teach them with mixed success. An 18-year-old girl is not easy to teach to ski. A 16-year-old boy is quite easy to teach to snowboard. That's what I sort of learned.

And are they up and running? Are they able to go down?

They got it in the end.

Awesome.

And you, what did you do?

I had the in-laws over. I had my other half's sister and brother-in-law and kids for 3 weeks and parents-in-law.

3 weeks?

For 3 weeks at home.

Excellent. Back to work.

No, if I'm honest, it was brilliant and I loved it because, A, it was just busy and it just got you out of work because I just wasn't able to think about work because I had kids running around and everything, doing everything. And then we went up to the Cairngorms for the snow as well. So we got a bit of skiing in as well.

Very nice.

Which was nice.

Excellent.

So this is our first podcast of '24. We thought we'd start the year by talking about some of the big things that are coming up for sustainability in the next 12 months and also do a proper, slightly overdue welcome to you, Charlie.

Yeah, no, it's kind of funny. We sort of slipped straight into doing a few very interesting conversations sort of under the radar and, you know, it's nice to sort of have a chat And actually talk to you also a bit more about your journey into sustainability and why you are where you are now.

I know I'm actually enjoying it because we've known each other for so long and we talk at family events and we're not related, but you're married to my cousin and I think you and I are the only sustainable— no, I can't say sustainable people, but people who work in sustainability in the family.

That's probably more fair. I'm not sure there are any sustainable people, if I'm totally honest, anywhere. You know, it's just sort of— I'm not sure that's totally—

I would say that everyone is a sustainable person because the pure definition of sustainability is you're not overexceeding. And if you are overexceeding, then you'll die. So if you're alive, you should be sustainable. So let's ask you a bit about your involvement in sustainability. So most people know you from hosting TV shows about housing. It's not only housing, is it?

No, it's wider architecture in the past, and I've done sustainability stuff, and I'm doing a sort of bit of history stuff, and yeah, all kinds of things really over the years. I mean, I've been doing TV over 20 years, so, you know, in that time you cover quite a lot of stuff.

It's not all about sustainability within TV, is it? But it did— has it transitioned into it, or was it always at the beginning and it's just in and out?

So my journey into sustainability is one that starts probably when I was about 17, 18, and I was quite interested in alternative issues. Well, actually, I think if it goes right back, I grew up in Australia until I was 9. And I remember this big thing kicking off about logging the virgin rainforests of northern New South Wales when I was a kid. And it kicked off a bit and there was a lot of people talking about it because we used to go out to the bush as kids and I really loved it. It was the most magical place in the world to wake up. in the bush in Australia, and the dawn chorus is just stunning. And I sort of got a real connection, I think, to nature. And there was this big argument. The loggers were like, you can't stop us logging the last of these rainforests because it's our job. And I remember someone saying, yeah, but you'll log them for the next 5 years, then you won't have a job and there won't be any rainforest left. And I remember as a kid going, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. This is really stupid. And I only really thought about this a few years ago when someone I was talking to someone else about where it came from, my interest. Fast forward till about 18, and I was quite into the alternative scene and what have you, and went traveling in India. And I remember standing on a railway station and getting a dal and a chai. So like a little bit of curry and a cup of tea. And the tea came in a sun-baked mud cup, and the dal came in a pressed piece of banana leaf with a little wooden thing. And everyone ate their dal and drank their tea. You had to drink the tea quite quickly because the cup would start dissolving if you hung around too long. But it was only mud, it was fine. And then I looked around at what to do with this waste material, and everyone just threw it on the railway track, and a cow sort of wandered by and ate the leaf, and the mud, you know, the cactus went back into the mud. And I remember just looking at it going, oh my God, you can do more with less. And it was like in a kind of an epiphany moment of— I mean, I've never liked waste, and, and, and just this idea of doing more with less and less. And then went into architecture and got really involved in sustainable architecture. And then it kind of spun forward into, you know, that's what I was really interested in my degree. And then went and worked in Ethiopia in ecotourism for 8, 9 months in a bird sanctuary trying to protect a last bit of rainforest or montane rainforest in the upper reaches of the Rift Valley. And sort of came back and then went to do a master's and stumbled into television.

Hmm.

Which was kind of weird. You know, I didn't want to be on TV. I was making films with a friend. as a production designer. And there was a notice on the notice board at Royal College of Art where I was doing my master's, and it said, we're looking for a TV presenter. And I was like, I don't want to be on TV, but I want to see what a production company looks like.

Right.

So I went down for the screen test thinking, great, I'll see what a production company looks like. Went away, forgot all about it, and then got a phone call saying, right, you got the series. And I'm like, oh no, I've got to finish my master's and do this series. And before I knew it, so this is like the 8th of January, Year 2000, I was there in a Paul Smith suit outside the Jim Stirling Institute of Engineering in Leicester University, and they just gave me a piece of paper and said, right, go on then, what are you going to say? Uh, right, there's no trick, there's no training, there's just— well, it's a bit of a script, but what are you going to say? And I just started talking, and that, and that was, that was it. And interestingly, like, in those early days, did manage to get some sustainability into TV. But what I've done over 20 years is every time I try and talk about building a project I try and talk about the sustainability as an underlayer to it, you know, as like that's a given. And I think that's really important, certainly around architecture, is that we talk about— it's like the thing needs to stand up, right?

Yeah.

The thing needs to keep out the rain. The thing should keep you— well, should keep you warm. The thing should be sustainable. And I think that that's the way we— you know, that's the way I've tried to bring it into my television stuff, is that it's a given. And trying to furnish people with the the words and the language and the mental pictures of how that can be done. Yeah, but it's a given. So let's not just say this is a sustainable building. It's like it's a building, and therefore it should be sustainable. And that's been a you know that's been a really interesting journey. And then so that's in television within within my private practice. You know I've started my business eighteen years ago, and we were we've been very focused on on low energy architecture, and that has really. Moved from interestingly being sort of, you know, I remember going to sort of talks on sustainability or giving talks on sustainability and it would be in a sort of, sort of small shed somewhere, you know, and recently you're going to give talks on sustainability and they're in huge, huge, you know, central London, Excel centres and people are, yeah, and people are, you know, it used to be a lonely industry, as you well know, you know, you wander around, there weren't many of you and now it's really taking off and it's exciting and And I think that's what gives me sort of confidence, or at least optimism. I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm confident we're going to have a world the same as I was born into, but it gives me real optimism that the pace of change is rapid. And if we decide to tackle it, truly decide to tackle it, I think there's amazing things we can achieve. It's just that time pressure.

Yeah.

You know, with the speed of climate change, with the speed of biodiversity loss, You know, it's it's really tight. It's going to be really tight.

And you're what are you working on at the moment? You're you've just finished a show, haven't you?

Yes.

So I've just finished a show called The Great British Renovate the Great British Restoration Challenge. I think it's called that. The thing is, this is what happens with TV is you work on something for years and you have a working title. Yeah. And so I was in my mind it's called Historic Homes. And so for years it's been like going filming up to Historic Homes, Historic Homes, da da da da da da. And then like before it goes out, they. change it and you're like, oh, okay, I've totally got it. Great British Restoration Challenge, it's called. And it's really nice, actually. It's about people converting structures that weren't built to be houses into houses.

Oh, wow.

And this series is a brilliant one. A guy called— he's my new hero, a guy called Eddie Butterworth, and he restores shepherd huts. And he does it like— he restored this shepherd hut. It had been on this local estate where this guy's father had been the head woodman. He'd managed to get it off the estate. because he used to play with it with his sister. The wood that they used to repair it had grown on the estate. Eddie uses a wood-fired steam engine to cut all his wood that's powered from the wood from the local estate. He does all his own forging. He makes everything and restores everything and reclaims everything. He's an— it's a, it's a beautiful little story.

Oh, brilliant. I look forward to watching it.

And I think what's really encouraging about, about this is when you meet people A lot of them are really pushing sustainability well beyond what building regs is requiring, because they understand that actually a really low energy home is a better home. It's more comfortable, it's cheaper to run, and it's going to be a better investment in the long term and healthier. And so it's sort of— and I suppose that's the thing that's always been slightly head scratching is the fact that the government's so far behind in legislation or has been so far behind in legislation compared to what people want to do if if they're building their own homes, not what developers want to do if they're building a home for someone else and there's absolutely no incentivization for them to make the house low energy.

But culturally, we've almost— we went backwards to go— I remember going to see, um, visit Laura. She lived in—

This is your, your wife?

Yeah, yeah, partner. She was living with these people in quite a stately home in Salisbury, renting a room off them. And they had these very old posters in one of their downstairs rooms, and they were from the early 1900s, i.e., 1905 era. And it was, turn off your lights, don't waste energy, don't burn too much oil. They were all environmental posters, and I took pictures of them, and then I ended up searching for them online. And I wrote a big blog article at the time. This was about 10, 15 years ago. And it was really popular, but it just dawned on me that we were talking about this then. There wasn't climate change then, but people recognized, why are you wasting so much? You're wasting energy, you're wasting food, you're wasting all these resources. And I just find it fascinating that now we're almost wanting to be driven by legislation. I just find it's bizarre that culturally we've kind of been driven by excess for so long and now we're almost reinventing the wheel.

Yeah. And the question that comes to mind is why? And I think it is this thing of waste. That's where it's driven from for me, is I can't stand the idea of waste. Both my parents were brought up in the Second World War, and I think there's that mindset of not wasting still lived on in them and has gone on to some of us. And I think there never has been enough, but there's been an illusion of enough, probably grown out of the '80s and '60s consumption sort of boom, but it was never there. It was an illusion. There's never been enough for everyone to have everything they want because the impact on the planet is too high. And that's what I really love about sustainability, is doing less with more. It just, you know, it's like, it's like using leftovers from a meal to make another really brilliant meal. You're like, oh, that's cool. That was really great. I really enjoyed that. And part of that, that don't use those materials, is because there wasn't enough electricity generation system for everyone to just do what they wanted at the time, I imagine in 1905. And then everyone perceived that there was and there never has been. And I think that that's the transition, isn't it, is to understand that there's enough. I mean, it's such a trite phrase, but there's enough for what we need and not for what we want. And I think that works really well. But, you know, you know, in terms of sort of optimism about where things are going and what we're doing, so the TV is one side. And then in our practice, the things that are working at the moment are really exciting where we're looking at a large Rewilding visitor experience to try and connect people to. So it's kind of the the idea is that that this you would come to a place and it would teach you the importance of nature and biodiversity from a window box to a regenerative landscape, a regenerative farming landscape, and tell you the stories and the the ways in which other ways of approaching growing and our relationship to nature can benefit both us and the environment. So and that that's a really exciting project. We're looking at a at a large academic city for this location, talking to lots of the key stakeholders around that. And there's a really big sort of growing interest in that. We're working on a deeply sustainable sort of office building for an ethical investment firm. They're an amazing organization actually called Evenload Investment. And they, they are employee-owned completely. They're a B Corp and they give a lot of money to local charities. And, you know, they're an amazing organization in that and they and they've been an ethical investment firm for their entire lifespan. And so we're building their new offices in, in a set of farm buildings. But what's really interesting is that they only really work in the office about 3 days a week.

Right.

And so how do you make a sustainable building that is empty 60% of the time? It's very, very difficult. So what we've actually started working with them is creating a wider community engagement sort of process so that other people can use the building when they're not there. So education, local community, and they're really embracing that. And so that building, you know, we're doing a lot of embodied carbon modeling, a lot of energy modeling in that, and down to things like— so the internal partitioning where we're sourcing toughened glass units that have come out of old buildings that would go in a skip, right? and be melted down. And we're like piecing those together to make all the internal partitioning. We're reclaiming all of the external cladding and drying that and planing that and using that as the internal cladding because it's end of its lifespan on the outside. So, you know, and we're reusing these, the whole frame, and we're reusing the concrete slab to do that. So it should be approaching carbon neutrality in construction and operation.

Brilliant. Brilliant. And are you— do you find that you are being asked that more, I don't know, recently than over, you know, since 18 years you said you've been working?

Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah. It's what was very interesting about sustainability 18 years ago is you'd start off and you'd come up with all these great ideas, and some of them were brilliant and some of them were, you know, have sort of gone, gone by the wayside and weren't proven to be so brilliant. But, but, and, and then the budget would come in and nearly all of it would get cut out. And actually, about 15 years ago, we moved out of London to the countryside, and we got this little thatched cottage that we got. And, um, and it was like, right, I'm gonna do everything on this, and I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna learn about the pros and cons. So wood fiber insulation. So I mean, it's not— not some of it wasn't novel. Some of it was wood pellet boilers, lots of insulation, radon protection. Wood fiber, lime plaster internally, all these kind of things, rainwater harvesting, everything, tried everything to really go, how does it work? What is the lifecycle kind of of it? How much maintenance is there? Because that is important. And, you know, having done that, it's funny, you do a project like that. And suddenly, at that time, you were an expert, and not just an expert sort of within 20 miles, Nationally, you know, you'd done work that a lot of— very few people had really done. And that seems to have been the thing that's gone on is that we then do another project. It's like, right, let's really do this. So we've done a load of carbon modeling on a community housing project in the village. We did that about 5 years ago. So embodied carbon, how much carbon it takes to make the things that make the building, as well as the thermal modeling to understand the energy that it takes to run the building once it's built. So that's been the big focus is, is what's the energy consumption of the building when it's built. So the in-use energy and not so much on the embodied energy. What is the energy it takes to make it? And having done this carbon modeling, I've been up to sort of conferences in London and talked to people. It's like, oh my God, we're one of the few people outside of the very largest practices in central London to even do this stuff. And then, you know, which is extraordinary.

But do you think that's because you're willing to take a risk?

Yeah.

Because I felt when we did up our house, I kept on coming up with different things for the builder and the architect. And even though the architect said he was, you know, he was environmental, he was basically our project manager, but it was green roofs and that was really expensive. But that wasn't small things. So I was going, what about hemp insulation? Because it's cheap. I know it's a bit more expensive, but it's also longer lasting. And there were other things that I had kind of read about, but they didn't want to do it. And because I was just, I'm not the expert, they are the expert. What I didn't want to be in a position of is putting a load of stuff into the house that then falls apart. They weren't willing to take the risk, so therefore we went down quite a conventional route.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think architects have been quite conventional because they're specifying so many different things, hundreds of thousands of things, really, if you think about it. There's hundreds of thousands of components that go into a building. And controlling the quality on those things is a challenge. And I think quite often people just revert to norm to do that, and it's not good enough. I accept that 100%. It's not good enough. Yes. And I think it's partly because we're prepared to take some risks. These are not outwith normal risks, and we carry all the normal indemnity insurance and do the due diligence. Actually, I think it is that we're willing to do the extra work that it takes to work out if something's going to function as the way you want it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

is that to try something new, you need to do a lot more effort to work out how it's going to work and then enact it. And a lot of the time we've done that on my own projects. I've used my own projects over the years as test cases for things because it's like, I'll take the risk on myself. I don't want to take it on a client, but I'll take it on myself and then I'll roll it out. And so, for example, we built our office 2 years ago and we worked you know, with an old tin, you know, metal-framed shed. And we reused the concrete slab by leveling screed and a bit of local repairs. We used the steel frame by just moving bits of steel around to stiffen it. Um, had to buy about 4 bits of steel to stiffen the frame out. We used a pre-cut timber I-beam system in to make the house, to basically build a building inside the tin frame. Because those steel and corrugated iron frames are very highly engineered to just take the weight of the wind and the cladding. They're not designed to take load. And the mistake everyone makes is they put floors in them and then basically end up rebuilding the entire thing because they're not designed for it. We just built inside that external shell using pre-cut timber I-beams blown with wood fiber. So it's completely wooden. The insulation on the floor is polystyrene. But we designed it in such a way that with as few cuts as possible and dry laid, so when the building comes to the end of its lifecycle, you should be able to just lift the building off and reuse that polystyrene elsewhere because we've kept it as big sheets, standard sheets as possible. We put solar panels on the roof, we put an air source heat pump, we put in heating in the heater matrix. So the MVHR, mechanical ventilation heat recovery. So we're heating and cooling the air from a very small heat pump. as the air comes into the building. And sort of in doing all of those things, you know, we brought together a whole lot of techniques that hadn't been done before that I was willing to test on myself. And the idea of it is to massively reduce waste and reduce embodied carbon. So then we, having built the building, we retrospectively tested it for its embodied carbon and it came out at about 63 tons for lifecycle. So that's over 60 years. And we're now looking and we think that we've then— that sits in a 3.5-acre plot and we're planting lots of scrubland and wildflower and trees. And we think that over about 25 years we'll offset that, we'll drive that carbon into the soil and it will be again carbon neutral. So we tried that on ourselves and now we're rolling that out for this big ethical investment company. So I think there's something about taking risks And if you do it for yourself, you, you sort of, you tend to go a bit further and take a bit more risk. And, and I think that's really important. And that's, I think, really been the, the driver for everything we've done in Charlie Luxon Design. And was, you know, that building that we did won— the Architects Journal is like the main architects magazine, like weekly magazine journal— and we won the Small Project Sustainability Award. And it's a small project because it's below £350,000. And because we've done all the carbon work and, you know, and so that's, that's really interesting. You start off going, I just want to do this really well. And then you go and enter awards and people are like, oh my God, this is, this is way beyond what most people are doing. And this is pretty exceptional. And hopefully you can tell stories about that.

Brilliant.

Quick word from our sponsor, 51tocarbonzero.com. If you're a CFO or board member staring down CSRD or Scope 3 and thinking, where do we even start? We at Sustainability Solved would point you to 51tocarbonzero.com. They turn complex, fragmented emissions data into something simple and give boards clear, audit-ready visibility on exactly where the reduction opportunities are. It's not another reporting tool that adds work. It's built so the data holds up when your auditor asks the hard questions. If that's a conversation worth having, get in touch with 51 to carbonzero.com, or just drop me a message and I'll point you in the right direction. Right, back to the episode.

And what about you? Tell me, why, why are you Green Element and Sustainability Solved and Compare Your Footprint? What is that journey?

So it's funny, I think very similar to you, a very common theme through early childhood, picking up litter on Wimbledon Common with my gran. I've got very fond and vivid memories of walking around and Abu Dhabi as well, actually around the beach there. And I think I remember that time fondly I then was reading my school reports the other day. Mum was getting rid of them all. And when I was about 15, I did a talk on climate change. And the school report said, I can't quote it exactly, but did a somewhat erratic, out-of-the-blue talk on climate change. Interesting. But strange nevertheless. And I think— and I had completely forgotten about that. Completely. So I was clearly impassioned enough to want to do talks on climate change at that point. Because you've got to remember, that was the late '80s. And we knew about climate change really to start off with in the late '50s, early '60s. So it had still been around for 20, 30 years at that point. So it was in the academia and it was around, which is worrying that we're now 24 and we're still talking about trying to tackle climate change. And then I actually did my first degree, the thesis on how people perceive the effects they have on the environment whilst partaking in sports within the Cairngorm region. So I work in sustainability. And I live in Scotland, which is kind of strange that 20 years on, I'm almost reliving my university, and that was a hospitality degree. And then back in 2004, I did a— or 2003, I did a master's and set Green Element up in 2004. I think partly driven by the fact that I traveled a lot in my 20s and I wanted something to do that I was actually interested in. I think I was a bit lost. I was a bit kind of, I'd been a wine merchant, I'd been a travel agent, but I needed to get my teeth into something that actually interested me, I think.

And also something you believed in.

Yeah, totally.

Ultimately, yeah.

I was never going to be someone that just did a job because I thought it was a job. I think I needed a job that I actually woke up in the morning and went, this is the right thing to be doing. This is what I want to do. And yeah, we are here today.

And do you still have that passion? Yeah.

People talk about climate anxiety a lot, and I don't. And I think that I remember going through climate anxiety in the early 2000s quite badly and not wanting to fly at all, not wanting to do anything, really worrying about the state of the world. And I think I have it less now. And I've been thinking about it a lot recently, because I think more and more people are understanding the horrifying nature that we are putting our climate in and our world in. And climate anxiety is a really big thing. And I think we need to be very careful about how we talk about climate change to particularly our younger people because they are the ones that are going to inherit the world that we're in. And I feel like I've almost put up a barrier in front of me now where I'm not worried, I don't get upset. And I think it's years and years and years. You know, when you get—

It's a callus, isn't it? It's like a callus or a blister.

It's years of concern.

And after a while, you just can't Be as deeply traumatically concerned.

No. And I do wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm still here, still fighting a fight.

I personally think the way that you're trying to solve it, I'm trying to solve it, is work within the system and change it from within. And I know that there's a lot of criticism about that, but actually we're just finishing about to finish up the community-led affordable housing, you know, deeply carbon neutral in construction, occupation, housing scheme in the village. And, and that, you know, that to me is how you make change.

Yeah.

Now it's been really difficult. It's taken 5 years and it's, you know, I've gone gray during the processes, as have most of the community people who've been involved, partly because it's taken so long, not— and because it's been difficult. But, but that to me is how you make change really, is, is by setting up light beacons of good stories. And I think that's what we need. We need, you know, I think for a long time sustain, you know, and I stopped. So I, you know, I've talked about sustainability a lot, you know, in commercial settings, in corporate settings and stuff to try and get people to understand. And I think about 2007, 2008, I sort of realized that we were framing that entire debate in the wrong way, that we were framing it as a no. that climate change and sustainability is, is a problem. It's no, do not fly, do not drive a big car, do not have meat.

Yeah.

Which is true, which is right. But equally, there's, there's also the positive of don't fly, but like go slow on a train. And actually, I guarantee you will have as good a time as getting on a plane and jetting off somewhere. I guarantee it. And we go on holiday on the train all the time and I flipping love it. It's the best thing ever. Eat more vegetables. If you learn how to cook them really well and you have meat once or twice a week, you won't miss it and it'll be better for you health-wise and the planet. So I think it's like— and I really think it's about actually sustainability is about yes and better in many ways, not always, but in many, many ways. And actually, I think that's, that's the issue is going out and protesting is valid, absolutely bloody valid. And I'm very glad that someone's doing it. But equally, I think we also need a counterpoint, which is this is better like this, these ways of living. So for example, sustainable low-energy homes are simply better. They are healthier, they are more comfortable, they lose— use less energy over sort of 10 years. They are far cheaper to run, you know. And I think, you know, if they're done right, and I think these are much more important messages because actually these are the messages will change our system.

Yeah.

I suspect quicker than the other, although we need the other.

We need all aspects. I remember doing an audit of an E.ON site, it was probably around about 2007, and I was staying with some friends of mine in Brighton in a squat basically.

Cut to the chase, man, don't dress it up.

And I was staying there, And they were very environmental, the people. And I ended up chatting to one of the guys, Leif, who was quite a good friend of my mate. And I'd said to him, I'm just about to go to E.ON, to a site, to a coal power station and have a look at the sustainability aspects of it, which sounds slightly ironic now, but we are, what, 15 years on? So you've got to remember that things have changed slightly. And he was horrified. He was like, I was there last week. We were protesting. He was part of Greenpeace. We were protesting. I was in charge of this camp and my girlfriend was one of the people that climbed up one of the towers. And I can't believe that you were there for environmental reasons. And I then ended up going to the site and then talking and saying, oh yeah, I was with some friends over the weekend and actually they were the people that were protesting outside and they were equally as horrified. I can't believe you're friends with these people. That's— and I was looking at them going, you are on an environmental audit, so therefore you should be actually going, actually, we need all aspects. The only way society is going to change is you have people that are willing to take risks. You have people that work on the inside. You have people that are willing to throw money at it. And that's part of taking risk. You need everything.

I remember doing a film actually and flying to Denmark on a plane to Kalundborg. It's called, I think, and it's a— it's part of sort of— it's a coal-fired power station, but it sits at the heart of this industrial symbiosis network. Right. So the gypsum from the coal-fired fire station— coal-powered fire station, always get that wrong— is used to make plasterboard. The hot water is used in a fish farm, and there's there's this this this. I think there's like 22 businesses that share byproducts and waste products around in this in this model of sort of industrial ecology, and at the heart of it sits this coal-fired power station, which arguably you know is a deeply unsustainable thing, and we we need to get rid of them. And I think that's true, and I think the concept that we're going to get. Viable scrubbing anytime soon is not, is not there. But actually, these stories are important about what we do. It's quite interesting. So, you know, I know, you know, start of the year, trying to look at things. It's really interesting. Over the last 6, 8 months, there seems to be a real rise in this acceptance that fossil fuels are going to play a role in our economies. Going forward, and and I know that's been a big was quite a big focus on 2020 COP wasn't it? 28 is it 28? Yeah, COP 28. Yeah, and I think very cack-handedly the guy running it tried to sort of say that that we can't get rid of you know hydrocarbons anytime soon, and and I'm really interested in how that has sort of bubbled up and how that is sort of twisting the conversation. You know these things are going to be there. Seemingly, and I wonder what your take on that is. This kind of new understanding. I know that's the government's sort of argument about the big new Rosebank oil field.

I think it's a load of bollocks, to be honest with you. I think that we've just what's lovely about finishing a year is you can look at look back at the last year. We used less fossil fuels last year in the UK than we've ever used. Before. We really are on a trajectory to not using fossil fuels at all. So I think the government aren't— what they're not doing is actually looking at the actual usage. They're not. They're looking at their pockets and looking at how much money they can earn from fossil fuel companies giving them donations. But what they're not doing is actually thinking about the country and thinking about what we are actually able to use and what we can do. There's a great app that I've got on my phone called— it basically shows you the exact carbon intensity of the grid. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Most geeks, most geeks have got it.

I use it to work out where to charge my car if I don't have solar working. I like, yeah, I go, it's a windy day, I'll charge it up.

And I just It just surprises me that— and this is what worries me. We're just about to go into '24, which is the biggest year for politics that we've ever had. And we've just had Republic of Congo. We're just about to have the Taiwanese election. We have Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia. The list goes on. The UK, maybe this year. The latest it's going to be— no, it doesn't. The latest is January 15th in '25. Yeah, but it's highly likely it's going to be this year. But the latest it can be is— don't ask me why. I read it recently.

You have to dissolve Parliament, so it could be 6 weeks after.

Exactly.

About that date. Yeah. Okay.

Going back to your question about that, It's going to be very interesting to see what goes on in these countries from a sustainability point of view, because I do fundamentally believe that culture and people are way ahead of politicians in this space.

I did believe that, but I think 2023 is sort of slightly— I think there's been an unwinding. I think you've seen it in this country. And I think what Rishi Sunak did was opportunistic and destructive and vandalistic, his sort of breaking down of the kind of compact between the various political parties that we were pushing towards carbon neutrality or, you know, zero carbon 2050. And that was sort of like a sacred cow. And he has taken that and put that back in the political arena, which I think is so destructive. He will never know.

Yeah.

And I despise him for it because it was a cheap grab at some votes, basically. You'll see, you know, I think if Trump gets in, we've got real trouble around the sustainability side. And actually, even in Germany, you know, there is starting to be— who have traditionally been— there's been, again, there's been a complete understanding that this is the way it is, this is where we're going. That is starting to be challenged by some of the pushback to policies there. So I'm— I worry that the right wing, you know, the right wing press is sort of gaining momentum and see— and now seeing sustainability is being back on the agenda as one of the buttons to press. And it deeply worries me for this year. And I think we'll know a lot more at the end of it about where we're going to go and whether, you know, we should just keep moving north.

I do wonder. I do wonder if it's right wing or populist. I think there's a nuance. I actually think there's a nuance there.

Populist. I think populist. Yeah, I think that's a good— that's a very good point.

Listening to political podcasts on this, you realise that actually there are very few really right-wing people. They're very populist people that you could class as right-wing.

Yeah, no, I agree. It's a very interesting intersection. The majority of right-wing the majority of populists tend to operate on the right wing, but they're not—

Yes, yes. Exclusive.

No. No, I think it's a really good point. And it is populism. And I think we've got a real challenge in the media in this country who seemingly are very happy to make broad, unsubstantiated claims with limited research about sustainability. They've been doing it for years. We, for example, in my local village, we tried to put a wind turbine up years ago before the moratorium on wind turbines. Just, just a good stat. This Ukraine has put more land-based wind turbines up during the war than we have.

There you go. There you go. Just says a lot about our governments.

It's like, and we've got like 40% of the wind potential in this country. I mean, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

Anyway.

We tried to put it up and say, "Look, this is a community-owned wind turbine. We can get a mortgage. We've done the MetMask. We're going to make about 70,000 quid a year back then. Now imagine what we'd be making when it was like 12, 14 per kilowatt." And and we will put the money straight into the community. And oh my God! You know, most people didn't say anything. A few people really supported, and there was a few hardcore people totally anti it and prepared to say anything. Like they never pay to just make stuff up, literally just making stuff up without any research about. They never pay back the carbon that's in, but you know that's used to manufacture. It's like no, actually that's about eight to twelve, fourteen months depending on the site. So that's not true. You know, and they would just lie, and and I find that problematic. You know when you're you know because ultimately I think sustainability is about being very aware of the stats, and I think a lot of early sustainability stuff made very poor decisions because they didn't really they did it with heart and feeling, not. Statistics and numbers, and and you know I think modern sustainability is absolutely driven by numbers and efficiency because that's what it's all about, right? Doing less with more, you know, doing more with less. Sorry, more with less. Don't get that the wrong way around. That's the problem. Doing doing more stuff with less, and and and I so it feels very asymmetric, and that's what I find challenging is that you know like when you try and get scientists during the pandemic arguing against people that will just make stuff up and speak from the heart. It's, you know, scientists won't. And that's the challenge we've got.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And what are you excited about coming up in '24?

AI.

From a sustainability point of view?

Yeah, from an architecture— look, I'm really focused on architecture. You know, that's what I do. You know, I understand what's going on in the wider industry, you know, and, you know, there's some really good stuff going on around reclaiming minerals out of batteries. That's really exciting. You know, that's an absolute key. If we don't get that sorted, we're in deep trouble. I'm really excited about— about actually, I'm, I'm kind of excited about talking about nuclear as different forms in different ways and shorter lifespan units to help with the transition. I know it's a very hot topic, but I think it's a really important debate to have. I'm not sure I totally buy into these vast, massive, concrete-intensive constructions, but I'm more interested in the conversation around the smaller units to see where that goes. Um, within architecture, I'm really excited about the role of AI in optimization of, of buildings, both structure servicing, thermal design, orientation optimization. You know, I understand that AI is hugely dangerous, but ultimately what I'm increasingly finding is the way that we get to low-energy buildings is through more and more data and more and more backwards and forwards with the data. And unfortunately, that gets very expensive. There's lots of consultants backwards and forwards. You can imagine it won't be difficult for that all to be done within AI. And that really excites me.

Brilliant.

What about you?

I think I'm excited about the elections, actually. I think I'm excited that I feel optimistic. I feel optimistic about what's going on in the US.

In what way?

I really don't think Trump will win.

Oh God, thanks for saying that.

I really don't think he will.

I, I, I'm actually gonna bet on Trump winning.

Yeah, right.

I'm gonna bet on Trump winning because if he does win, it'll be like, oh God, the world's trashed, but at least I got a few hundred quid.

Yeah.

And if he loses, it'll be like, I lost 100 quid, but who cares?

I think we underestimate Joe Biden. I think that's— I think people do say he's too old, but yes, I can actually understand why The Democrats are keeping him on because I think he's got a very good underlying support from the country. I think he's pushed through that bill that he pushed through that was the most, and really in inverted commas because people are listening to this in audio, but in inverted commas, the most environmental or unenvironmental bill It was a bill that was called— I can't remember what it was called.

The anti-inflation.

Yeah. And the first parts of it were so not about sustainability, but very much within it was all about the environment and everyone voted on it and it has massively changed the US. The US as a country has changed big in the last year and a half from an environmental point of view. So I think That shift is happening. I think that we are caught up in— our media suck and our media want to tell us that Trump's going to win because it sells things. I remember talking to a friend of mine when I first got into this. She was a reporter, bless her, for the police news. So she wasn't a big journalist, but I got quite drunk and had a massive rant at her about why wind turbines weren't a part of our landscape and a part of our energy grid. I blamed the media. This is back in the early 2000s. And she was like, all right. And I went, it's because you as a journalist go, wind turbines don't work, wind turbines are noisy, wind turbines kill birds, wind turbines— and everyone thinks, I'm not sure if that's true. I'll buy that paper. because I want to read it. And so you are forming a rhetoric, and it was the start of populist media, I think.

Yeah, well, that's exactly what happened with Brexit, isn't it? People would say you can't sell bent bananas, and Boris Johnson has admitted he just made stuff up to throw stones through windows. He just made stuff up because it would sell papers. And I think that is the biggest challenge we've got, actually, is the media And its lack of long-term commitment to the quality of our society.

So from that point of view, you've got a lot of contact with the media. Do you think there's less fact-checking now and it's just a race to get a clickable headline out?

What I would say is that I think that there, as I just said, I think that there is a huge issue with the media having a lack of investment in the long-term success of our society in the widest possible terms. And I think having a multinational media is problematic because the focus moves and country— they move countries. I mean, Murdoch, to be a classic example, moved from Australia to England to America, effectively doesn't seem to mind what, what trail of destruction they leave behind them. And, and that really bothers me, um, deeply, actually. Um, and, and I think the media is actually core to, to doing— I mean, politically, though, you talk about politically, I am fascinated to see what Labour do going into the election and how How gingerly they will tread, and I kind of understand why they're treading gingerly. But it also fills me with worry that that that you know surely there's an open goal. And was fascinating. You know they had this twenty eight billion fund green fund, which compared to the American three hundred and sixty five billion, right? I think that that anti-inflation act is about three hundred and sixty five billion, and they're talking about investing twenty eight billion pounds dollar pounds. Figures might be wrong, but it's that sort of magnitude. And they and they and actually, they had independent government. Did you see that independent government report about the investment required per annum to transition towards carbon neutrality? And they said it would be about 28 billion that the government needed to put into it, but it would come back in in savings. And you know, it's not that you know, it all comes back. And Labour had basically the same figure. I don't know why coincidence or not. I don't know. But now they're questioning that. I really. really hope that Keir Starmer and his team have the guts to understand that this needs to happen. And it needs to happen, and it will be better for everybody.

Yeah. Well, you've had Chris Skidmore, Alex Sharma, and other Tory MPs now stepping down because they can't stand what the Tories are doing. So yeah, that should hopefully help Keir Starmer understand that there is a sentiment out there. And I find it interesting that it's the people that know It's the people that suddenly have an opinion and were willing to put their actual lives on the line are the people that understand the facts. They go, I've now learned enough to realize I can't keep on being a politician under a government that don't give a monkey's.

Yeah, but the problem is you're just hollowing out all of the centrist conservatives have left, which is a problem actually going forward. But anyway, I'm not sure we can solve that.

No.

But, you know, I think the bottom line is, like you, I am slightly dulled to the challenge of sustainability over 20-odd years. Not, you know, I see it, but I can't be as petrified as I used to be. And maybe that's age and what have you, but I'm also sort of optimistic about the things that are going on within our industry, within the architecture and construction industry. Elements of it are really exciting, and, and, and I can't wait to to get stuck in this year and push the agenda further.

That's it for this episode of Sustainability Solved.

Next month, we're going to be talking to Iain Pritchett of Greencore Homes. They are a developer company trying to disrupt the way in which new housing is provided in this country. And we're going to be talking to him specifically about planning and its role in sustainable transition.

So if you're trying to be more sustainable this year, you can help others to learn about green issues and the visibility of this podcast by leaving a quick review in your podcast app. If you're in Apple Podcasts, for example, scroll down to the bottom of the main podcast screen and click on leave a review. Thanks for listening. I'm Will Richardson.

And I'm Charlie Luxton.