Retrofit as a movement for social change (there's more to it all than fabric and finance), with Dan Hill (Dark Matter Labs)

Zero Ambitions Podcast

This week we're thinking about retrofit differently with Dan Hill from Dark Matter Labs (DML). Or rather, we're talking about retrofit's potential to become a movement for social change.

In reality, retrofit is about much more than fabric and economics, it's about people and how they live. With that in mind we should be thinking much more about engagement. This is itself a massive challenge because thinking about people properly, as the users of a building, requires a massive shift in how retrofit practice is organised and enacted.

Dan has 25 years of experience from working in housing and planning in senior roles at housing associations, Newham Council, CICs, and in a bunch of other consultative roles.

We really enjoy talking about these subjects with him because he has gifted us different ways to thinking about the sector, even when we're talking through familiar territory. So, listen up, eh?

Updated notes from the show

• Dark Matter Labs' published work on Retrofit
• DML on 'Community Powered Retrofit'
• Retrofit Reimagined Festival 2022 videos of sessions
• Retrofit Reimagined Festival 2023 website
• Retrofit Reimagined Festival 2023 videos of sessions
• Report on Feasibility for a Regional Retrofit Impact Fund, with a focus on Outcomes based financing with West Midlands Combined Authority and Partners
• Common Wealth report The Case for Community Energy Democracy
• Report on the embodied carbon of retrofit materials versus operational carbon
• A report on the concept of Embodied biodiversity from Expedition Engineering
• The reference about the 40% figure (fig 1.7) and the maritime trade in fossil fuels

Notes from the show

• Dan Hill on LinkedIn
• The Dark Matter Labs website
• The 'People-First Retrofit' panel about the Energiesprong Comfort Plan research we did, held at Futurebuild 2024
• That story about the Tory Minister who thinks swimming in sewage is good actually
• The Catalogue of Good Practices a hybrid green finance catalogue for the reconstruction of Ukraine
• The National Retrofit Hub website
• The Civic Square website
• The HEAL (Home Energy action Lab) Linktree page

**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.

• Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a website)
• Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - [e-mail]; Everything is User Experience
• Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
• Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon Upfront
• Join ACAN
• Join the AECB
• Join the IGBC
• Check out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)

**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**