- 23/06/2025
It is vital that Scotland’s homes are decarbonised at pace if the country’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2045 - five years ahead of the rest of the UK - is to be met. This topic is the focus of a new episode of The Scotsman Sustainable Scotland podcast, in association with social enterprise Changeworks.
The podcast features: Josiah Lockhart, chief executive of Changeworks; Sam Cribb, retrofit strategic development manager at Changeworks; and Rebecca Lovell, senior business model consultant at Energy Systems Catapult, a not-for-profit organisation that works to accelerate the journey to net zero.
The podcast features: Josiah Lockhart, chief executive of Changeworks; Sam Cribb, retrofit strategic development manager at Changeworks; and Rebecca Lovell, senior business model consultant at Energy Systems Catapult, a not-for-profit organisation that works to accelerate the journey to net zero.
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00:00Hello, I'm Rosemary Gallagher and welcome to our Sustainable Scotland podcast, brought to you by
00:07The Scotsman. Scotland's national newspaper since 1817, now bringing you fresh and relevant content
00:13for the 21st century. Sustainable Scotland looks at how Scotland is doing its efforts to be cleaner
00:18and greener for the next generation. In this episode, in partnership with Social Enterprise
00:22Changeworks, we're focusing on how to decarbonise Scotland's homes on the journey to net zero.
00:27Our guests are Josiah Lockhart, Chief Executive of Changeworks, Sam Cribb, Retrofit Strategic
00:33Development Manager at Changeworks, and Rebecca Lovell, Senior Business Model Consultant at Energy
00:40Systems Catapult. Could you all please introduce yourselves and your organisations please, starting
00:44with you Josiah. Hi, I'm Josiah Lockhart, I'm the Chief Executive at Changeworks. Changeworks is one
00:51of Scotland's leading social enterprises focused on supporting households to both decarbonise,
00:57but also to work across the country to make sure households aren't left behind and those
01:01in fuel poverty are brought with us to the transition. Thank you Josiah. And Sam, you're
01:06at Changeworks as well, can you tell me a bit about your role? Yep. Hi, I'm Sam Cribb, Retrofit Strategic
01:11Development Manager at Changeworks. I led on the development of Changeworks home retrofit service,
01:19EcoCosie, and also lead on developing and testing new services across different housing tenures at
01:26Changeworks. Thank you. And Becky? Hey, I'm Becky Lovell from Energy Systems Catapult. So I'm a senior
01:34business consultant at the Catapult and we're a not-for-profit research organisation that's trying
01:39to help accelerate innovation across net zero, across the whole energy system. My particular interest
01:46is in business models for decarbonising homes and a trust transition. That's great, thank you everyone.
01:53Today we're going to talk about decarbonisation of homes. It's obviously a big topic and an important
01:58topic. So if we look first at the benefits of decarbonising our homes, both to individual
02:03households and to society as a whole, who would like to kick off with that one?
02:08But I think looking at the main drivers in individuals' homes, looking at our kind of situation
02:15here in Scotland where we have some of the least performing homes as far as energy is concerned,
02:21and we're literally sending energy out through our windows and doors and through our walls,
02:25that by decarbonising isn't just about reducing the carbon, which of course has a major benefit
02:30to the climate, but it also ensures that we help have warmer homes, cheaper bills, and helps
02:37tackle fuel poverty at the same time as creating big economic opportunities for local suppliers,
02:42local contractors, and the like across. I think Sam and Becky have perspective on it as well.
02:48Yeah, so I'd say our homes are where we can all feel the impacts of the energy crisis and
02:57probably the effects of climate change. So as I just alluded to there, so unfortunately our
03:04homes are one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions. So about 13% of Scotland carbon emissions
03:09come from domestic properties. So I'd say every home that's better insulated, every heat pump
03:16or solar panel that's installed can provide tangible climate action. And at Changeworks, we're here
03:25to help people take action where they can. So that's just like I said, that's about lowering energy bills
03:31through better insulation and more efficient heating and hot water. And I'd also probably bring into that
03:39as well, improving leaky and damp homes. So when I say leaky, I mean sort of those that are not well
03:46insulated. So letting cold air, let out a lot of heat and damp homes. So in order to make those homes
03:53warmer and healthier for families, and also provides peace of mind, knowing that our homes are future
04:01ready for dealing with the impacts of climate change.
04:03I kind of like the term living more sustainably more than decarbonizing, because a lot of the
04:12kind of opportunities and benefits that come with decarbonizing, like they also come with reducing our
04:17energy usage. So decarbonizing is about making sure that the energy that we use is green and like not
04:22emitting carbon dioxide. But also, yeah, as Josiah and Sam already said, you know, by reducing our
04:30energy demand, we can also reduce our energy bills, make our homes cheaper to run, you know, make them
04:35warmer. And by having warmer homes has significant benefits for health and well-being, as well as
04:42reducing our environmental impact.
04:45Well, thank you, everyone. There's great lots of benefits to living more sustainably or decarbonizing,
04:51but it's not happening fast enough. So what are the key issues faced in Scotland when it comes to
04:56both living more sustainably and decarbonizing our homes to do with the nature of our housing stock
05:01or weather? What are the big, the big issues and challenges?
05:05Well, pace is a big one. So if you look at what Changeworks has done in the past year alone,
05:11so we supported around 13,000 homes, majority in Scotland, a bit of a few into England and Wales
05:17to decarbonize in the past year. That sounds like a really big number. But when we start looking at,
05:23you know, if we take Scotland by itself, and we used to have a million homes by 2030 target that
05:28the Scottish government evolved recently. But if we were to still work with that number,
05:33that 13,000 should be 120,000 a year just to be on track for a million homes by 2030. So the gap
05:39is growing. And every year we miss that, we that 120 gets bigger and bigger, because we keep stacking
05:45them out. And I think there's simply the recognition that the pace is not there. But at the same time,
05:50I think we have questions around how we do it sustainably, how we bring everybody with us.
05:56Finances is something that keeps coming back in. As we're aware, government doesn't have the same
06:02ability to pay for everything that they we may have asked them to or thought they could do or even
06:08the levers that they thought they had to do that. So one of the big barriers is how we create the most
06:14appropriate business models to help encourage this to happen faster and at a larger pace to come
06:19through. We know how to do it technologically. There's very few properties in the UK that we
06:23don't know the physics of to be able to install the right heating system or insulate it or get the
06:29energy bills down. But the kind of systems bit about how we do it fastly, how we bring everybody
06:34with us and don't just lump the cost of it on the homeowner or the tenant is one of the big
06:41challenges. I know this is a place that the energy systems catapult is innovating a lot on
06:45the kind of pace and technological change. I don't know if Becky wants to throw some of
06:49that in. So we've been doing a lot of kind of large scale trials of things like heat pumps
06:57and new heating systems, new storage technologies for people's homes. But yeah, like you're saying
07:04that the issue of kind of like how to pay for these things, how to kind of get people on board
07:09with the idea of having them in their homes, just like increasing the appeal or the kind
07:13of like understanding of these technologies is still quite a big challenge. And I think
07:19there are definitely still some kind of types of properties that make it more tricky. So
07:24things like flats and tenements, you've got an issue of not only are these like quite old
07:28buildings, but sometimes, you know, like quite lovely aesthetic features that you want to
07:32preserve or like difficult kind of like detailing that can make it tricky to insulate around.
07:36But also if you have a building which has kind of like multiple owners or kind of leaseholders
07:42in there, then it can be quite tricky to get everyone together to agree on and like find
07:47the funding or provide the finance to kind of make that change happen. So yeah, lots of
07:51little issues.
07:53Yeah, lots of challenges there. And we've already touched on some of these points. But in terms
07:58of, I think poll data from Changeworks really draws it out. I found the majority, 71% of people
08:04in Scotland support sustainable energy, but around two thirds are concerned the UK isn't
08:08investing enough. And 83% are very concerned, understandably, about steep rises in energy
08:13prices. I mean, what do you think can be done to address these challenges? Who can help?
08:18And how can people help?
08:20I think it's a really interesting dichotomy, because sometimes the public narrative that we
08:25read or hear is that this isn't what people want. And people are more worried about certain
08:32things and not about climate and not about their homes. But I think there's an interesting
08:36thing that stood out to me when we when we did this independent polling data to show that
08:41people do think that they're just may not be vocal about it in the same way that as other
08:46parts of conversations are happening. So I think there's one of the big tasks is helping
08:54that voice become a bit louder. So how do we start building, demonstrating that people have
09:00that viewpoint and demonstrating that people want that and seeing the economic opportunities
09:05because it's not, you know, carbon is a huge thing. And also the warmth of our homes, which
09:09is kind of core to all of this, make sure we live in, you know, affordable, warm homes.
09:13But those opportunities to help with energy security, help with jobs, help to build our economy
09:21into that net zero future, which most of the world is moving towards, are big other drivers
09:26that we have to bring into the conversation. Because sometimes, you know, when we go speak
09:31to a fuel poor household, they're not wanting to talk about carbon, you know, they're wanting
09:35to talk about how much does my energy bill cost? How am I warmer? And it's about bringing
09:39the narrative a lot closer to people to help bring them with us on the journey.
09:44Is that education, do you think? Do you think people need some more education on benefits and
09:47how it might not be more expensive to live in a home that's run sustainably?
09:51So through the delivery of our home retrofit service, EcoCozy, we talk to homeowners a lot
09:58about the barriers that they face and some of the things that they come up against when
10:03they're looking to conduct home retrofit upgrades. And the main ones are a lack of knowledge and
10:11confidence. So people are unsure what's right for their home or who they can trust or, and
10:18they want to just have really clear, simple, non-biased advice. And that's what we need
10:24to do across the industry. We need to make access to information and services easier and more
10:32visible to people. The second one is cost. So we've heard both Josiah and Becky talk about
10:40that as well. So retrofit is a cost challenge if we think about retrofitting our homes as one big
10:48project. However, tackling upgrades in smaller bite-sized chunks means that projects can become
10:55more affordable. And then taking advantage of available grants and loans and personal budgets
11:02can be stretched to do more. So we need to educate people around what they can do, but also how they
11:10can do it. So not to think about this as one big challenge. However, it is important to recognize
11:17that some technologies are still expensive, you know, sort of as the market still emerges or new
11:24technology comes to market, they can be expensive and so can be out of the reach to many hardworking
11:30families. So having access to the available finance. So in Scotland, we're very fortunate that we have
11:38some government grants and loans that people can utilize. But also recognizing not everybody is
11:47actually going to be, will not qualify for those. So we need to go a lot harder in terms of making
11:53finance available and more suitable to every home in Scotland, not just few.
12:01Thanks, Sam. So it's about making it more managing for people, I suppose, and perhaps
12:04break it down into chunks where they can afford to do things gradually.
12:07Yeah, absolutely. And that can happen now, I think, but it is that point of educating people as to
12:14what's involved in retrofitting a property. It's not always, you know, sort of gutting your home and
12:22starting from scratch. It can be piecemeal. And so with the Eco Cozy service, that's what we do. We
12:28try and break things down for homeowners and give them tailored advice that really picks
12:34the projects or the measures that are going to have most impact for them, but meets their
12:41individual budgets.
12:42You're listening to our Sustainable Scotland podcast. This episode is brought to you in partnership with
12:46Changeworks. If you'd like to discuss partnering with a Scotsman for an episode of Sustainable Scotland,
12:50please email podcasts at scotsman.com. And now back to Changeworks.
12:56So looking at the big picture, I suppose, and looking at Changeworks 2025 to 2030 strategic plan,
13:02it needs to decarbonise 180,000 homes by 2030. Can you tell me a bit more about that, Josiah,
13:08starting with you, and how that works and how you plan to meet these targets, which sound ambitious?
13:15Yes, it is. 180,000 homes is an ambitious target. You know, they said that earlier that we're
13:22currently doing about 13,000 a year and to 180, that should be 36,000 a year, just kind of giving
13:27ourselves a challenge. But it is an ambitious challenge that is really, really, really important
13:33because there's a lot riding on people's lives, people's health, people's wellbeing, and, you know,
13:39the country's economy if we don't achieve that. And really looking into how and why we think we want
13:47to move and almost our behaviour change a little bit is we think that moving into this next period,
13:53when we're in the environment that we live in, the environment being the economic environment,
13:57the political environment, and all of the kind of even the global political environment, all the
14:01barriers that come with those challenges, we really think that the next phase of our work,
14:07but also what we want to encourage the rest of Scotland and the rest of the UK to do is do that
14:12in partnership with each other. And that takes us being collaborative to find solutions.
14:18Government has been leading this conversation for a long time, and we've all been working along the
14:22timeline of government. But I think the real challenge that we have between now and 2030,
14:272045, when our net zero target is, is how we're not necessarily limited by the pace that government
14:33operates at. And in order to move beyond that, it takes us working together. So for Changeworks,
14:40there's a few ways that we see doing that. So one is looking at other technologies, other solutions,
14:46and other business models. One of the things we're kind of experimenting with, with energy systems
14:51catapult, and we did some experiments in Aberdeen recently with, but also looking at how we can bring
14:57other financing models. So how can we bring other financing partners to the table to help support the
15:02householders that we support? And also looking at how we collaborate across the UK, recognizing that
15:08Scotland is a part of the UK, we share a grid, we share a lot of the incentives, we share a lot of
15:12the economy, how do we bring that UK wide partnership to bear on how we do it? And I think we've set
15:19ourselves a five year challenge, it is a big challenge, we don't necessarily have the answer
15:23of how we're gonna hit 180,000 homes. But we have the ambition, momentum and the right people and
15:28partners around us to start moving in that direction. Yeah, so just in terms of partnerships,
15:33you mentioned partners there, Josiah, and what partners are you looking to work with as part of
15:37your strategy? We're really looking for partners who share our ambition more than anything. So we're not
15:44starting out by dictating who the partner should be, but looking for partners who are open to thinking
15:50differently about this challenge, who aren't necessarily held back by the way that we've done it
15:55before, and share that vision that we shouldn't simply operate only at the pace that government
16:01gives us, but we have the opportunity and ability to move faster, differently, move in a different
16:05environment, or even a different direction. That's not to say we shouldn't be working with government,
16:10we do a lot of work with the government, but that shouldn't be the only partner that we should be
16:14working with. Energy Systems Catapult is a really good example of someone who we worked previously with,
16:20and we're now in conversation about how we can turn that partnership and begin to build upon those
16:25things we did together. We're also in particular looking for people who are thinking creatively
16:32about finance and business models. As I said earlier on, the business models themselves may have to
16:36evolve and change for us to reach this challenge. I think these are questions that we're introducing to
16:42the space and we're trying to act and ask, sorry, that we're trying to ask proactively with people, and it's
16:48really about looking for partners who are willing to ask those questions in practice with us over
16:52the next five years. I know that sounds good, and in terms of what comes next, the strategy is fairly
16:58new, you launched it this year, but what are the next key stages of the strategy? The next key
17:03stages, we're moving towards implementation. So we had a strategic plan over the past three years
17:09that we've been working on, which is really about ensuring that Changeworks had grown, that we had
17:13grown our infrastructure, that we have done some stuff in the backgrounds, and really this phase of
17:18Changeworks is using those, the next phase is using all the work we've done in the past three years
17:25to really catapult us to the next version of what we're doing. The next phase now is to begin to
17:31identify those partners, so continue to deliver what we're delivering at scale. So delivering all the
17:37stuff with 100,000 householders, the 13,000 homes we work with, supporting local authorities and housing
17:42associations. But the next phase is to identify those projects and those partners and really start
17:47investing in them and forming these partnerships a bit more deliberately and a bit more strategically.
17:53Thanks, Josiah. So what's happening with the strategy busy time? Sam, we've touched on EcoCosy and
17:59you've mentioned a bit about it. Could you expand on exactly what it is and what its aims are coming up?
18:05Yeah, so EcoCosy is Changeworks' innovative home retrofit service. We created it to support
18:14homeowners to make any energy upgrades and make that process more simple and also have greater impact
18:22for homeowners, so helping to reduce their fuel bills and their carbon emissions. So EcoCosy provides
18:29tiered support, giving householders flexible levels of advice and help depending on their individual needs
18:36and budget. So as an example, we've recently launched my EcoCosy, our free online retrofitting planning tool.
18:45So that's ideal, I would say, for early stage homeowners, for those that are starting to explore
18:52their option. So it gives a very quick and simple summary of energy saving advice, supplying some sort of
18:59basic home information that the homeowner can input themselves. And then as an example of a step up from
19:07that, we also offer our EcoCosy whole home survey and plan. So that's a more comprehensive in-person service
19:16that we deliver through our expert retrofit advisors and coordinators and includes a much more in-depth
19:25for home energy survey and provides tailored step-by-step plan for recommended upgrades. So
19:32really give some clear information on providing advice on measures and costs and how to get the work done.
19:38And then once the homeowner is informed of what can be achieved in their home, we can support the
19:46installation of projects. So we connect homeowners with a network of vetted and certified contractors. So
19:56this was another barrier really that homeowners have called out and said, look, we need to build trust in
20:03the supply chain as well as those giving advice. So we've taken that work away from the homeowners and
20:11done it ourselves. So we vet contractors, we embed them in our network, and then we provide that connection
20:18between the homeowner and the contractor. And then when installation happens, we provide essentially a
20:26handholding service to homeowners through that process. So that includes providing quality assurance
20:33checks. And by doing that, we're hopefully giving the homeowners extra peace of mind that the money
20:41that they've invested in their home is done so efficiently and delivers the greatest improvement
20:47to the home because we recognise that, you know, for some, it's going to be quite an investment for them.
20:53Sounds good. You can help people from the start to the finish of the process and
20:58something daunting for them, which I imagine it can be.
21:01Yeah.
21:02And then, Pecky, Josiah's mentioned a lot about partnerships and obviously you're one of the
21:07partners. Can you explain what Energy Assistant Catapult is doing to help people
21:11live more sustainably and decarbonise their homes?
21:14Yeah, so we're looking at a few different things at the moment on home decarbonisation.
21:21So one from the kind of like just transition lens is looking at the kind of interaction between
21:29energy, housing and health and how we can better support low income and vulnerable consumers in the
21:35energy system, particularly those who are currently living in kind of like cold, damp homes.
21:39And so one of the ways we're doing that is through our warm home prescription programme,
21:47which we've been developing and is aimed at giving a warm home prescription to people who
21:53have been identified by the NHS as suffering from the effects of a cold home,
21:58which is one programme that we've worked with ChangeRex on a couple of years ago in one of our trials where we were looking at how to provide retrofit measures to homes through this referral process.
22:07And yeah, ChangeRex is one of our key partners on that kind of providing energy advice and retrofit coordination there, which was a really good partnership.
22:19Other things that we're looking at include flexibility for households.
22:25So we know that as we move to a kind of more flexible, smarter energy system that's more driven by renewables,
22:33the time that energy is generated is not always going to match up with the times that people want to use energy.
22:39And so we need storage, of course, like batteries to be able to store energy for the times when it's needed, but we might also need flexibility.
22:47So kind of looking at how we can change the times that we use energy to better match that generation.
22:53And so we're using some systems to kind of like model the effects of that and try and look at different ways that we could,
23:03for example, like charge EVs at different times or use things in the household or heat pumps and things like more flexibly.
23:09And the other thing that Josiah has kind of mentioned already is we're looking at green finance as well.
23:15And what are some of the business models that might help people to decarbonize their homes?
23:20So one of the things we're particularly interested in at the moment is something called energy as a service.
23:25So it's looking at how can we get away from this model of kind of buying products and measures for the home and more towards buying outcomes and kind of like reducing or eliminating the upfront cost of these things
23:40and instead having a kind of monthly service charge and hopefully getting additional value from that.
23:45So you actually receive a service where these measures are kind of like properly operated and maintained, not just installed.
23:51And then, you know, you're left to it and good luck to you.
23:53You know, we've been talking about needing new creative business models to be able to unlock this.
24:00And starting to think differently about how we both identify the households that need stuff,
24:05but also how we deploy the right thing in the right situation.
24:09And I think the project that we delivered with Energy Systems Catapult as a pilot a couple of years ago in the northeast of Scotland
24:16was really trying to look at the health outcomes of retrofit and how we can identify homes and people where they could benefit from them.
24:25So the concept of the project, although it was in a pilot and we're still discussing how we can kind of try to scale this up elsewhere across Scotland and the UK,
24:33was can you work with GPs, work with GTP surgeries to identify those people with very specific, distinct health needs that retrofit and energy advice and energy support would help them overcome those,
24:47whether they're things caused by damp or things caused by simply having a cold home.
24:52And by using that and identifying those homes through the health system to be able to go in and use that as a lever to access funding to retrofit that person's home or deliver other services to them,
25:04doesn't just have the carbon impact, but it has the distinct health impact for those householders.
25:09And I think that's one of my favorite and most interesting alternative business models of how we look at resources across different parts of government,
25:17different parts of the economy to really drive impacts, not just on carbon, but in other people's lives.
25:23Yeah, 100% agree with that.
25:25And I think that's part of the challenge of kind of really maximizing the collaboration between public and private sectors,
25:31is getting private sector in particular to recognize the value of those social impacts and include that in their business case.
25:38Sounds good. Are there any new projects coming up with Changeworks that you'd like to share?
25:43So we've recently just finished a project with Changeworks.
25:48We were working with them on a program called Inclusive Smart Solutions, which was about developing solutions to make sure that low income and vulnerable households are able to participate and benefit from a smarter, more flexible energy system.
26:06And Changeworks was one of the innovators that we supported through that program.
26:11And yeah, it was pretty successful at kind of like helping to develop the EcoCozy solution.
26:19And we're kind of like hoping to take that forward and keep working together on that at the moment.
26:24It was myself that worked alongside Becky and the Energy Systems Catapult on the project that Becky was just talking about.
26:33And I'd say that that collaboration proved to be very impactful and positive for Changeworks.
26:41So when we're looking to develop new services or new programs,
26:47having the ability across our partnerships to bring in fresh thinking and deepen sort of our own technical knowledge in these processes can really help streamline design process and development processes and helps us make better and quicker business decisions.
27:06So, you know, one of the things that we have spoken about is pace.
27:10How do we get these things moving and actually collaboration can be a real benefit to that?
27:15So and as Becky has mentioned, where we're now working on a plan to take that latest project sort of concept that we've been working on from paper to real life as a new service that we can bring in to support social landlords across Scotland.
27:34Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to add to that as well.
27:38I think the kind of like success of that program was not just from the collaboration between the partners,
27:42but also like bringing in the voice of kind of real consumers in that process.
27:48So we had people with like lived experience of, you know, the various different categories of vulnerability.
27:53So social tenants and people on low income, people over 65, people living alone, renting, all of these different kind of categories of vulnerability.
28:02And I think having their voice in that kind of design process was really important and impactful.
28:08Yeah, that sounds interesting project with some good results there.
28:12And then we've all mentioned to collaboration and partnerships.
28:16I mean, what do you think the consequences are of people private and public sector don't fully collaborate and work in partnership in terms of trying to decarbonise and make living more sustainable?
28:26And we'd like to start with Josiah, would you like to start on that?
28:30Yeah, sorry.
28:31I think one of the big challenges is we don't collaborate on this.
28:34We leave people behind.
28:35We do four, five, six, 45 different routes to trying to solve this challenge and where people don't fit into one of those routes.
28:44We leave them behind where we don't get the voice of the householder, where we don't see the people in where they are, remembering that for every home that we're working on that people live in it and how that voice is there.
28:56And we'll have a scattershot version of net zero that leaves loads of people behind.
29:03And I think that's my biggest worry is that we put all this work, effort, resource and money into trying to get to net zero and we forget a whole bunch of people across Scotland.
29:17And that's a challenge because we already have people that are cold in their homes that are getting ill because of the quality of their homes, the inability to heat it down and burning lots of fossil fuels to do it.
29:31And without collaborating, we miss that.
29:34Failure to collaborate means failure to deliver. Right. So ultimately, the scale of the challenge is not the responsibility of anyone's sector.
29:44So we need public sector leadership and funding to be matched by private sector innovation and delivery.
29:53So, like I said earlier, homes are where climate, cost of living and health all intersect and really sort of collaboration for all of those parts is the only way to unlock the benefits at scale.
30:10Otherwise, you know, we risk slow progress. As Josiah said, we leave many households behind and also really to cut out any duplicated effort and wasted resources, because there is a lot of really good work going on in the sector and lots of existing knowledge and experience.
30:31And if we can pull that together, we can have greater impact a lot faster and really sort of help to bring more households along on a positive journey.
30:44And how receptive is the private sector to collaborating? Have you found that businesses do want to talk and do want to step in or, of course, depends on the business and the sector.
30:52But in general, how receptive have you found business?
30:55I think businesses want to step in. We've had lots of conversations. I mean, I have them every day with private sector who want to do something, who are looking at their opportunities, but are hamstrung by the certainty around what is coming, what policy is, what the future is.
31:15That's like, for me, that's government's role is to give us the certainty to be able to act, to be able to give the resources to be able to leverage the private sector and give certainty to the private sector to be able to step in.
31:28And I think that's where the government and public sector challenges to give that opportunity and give that certainty for the private sector to invest, because the private sector will invest if they know what's coming, if they know where the innovations are, if they know how they can grow the business to bring more staff into their teams to grow their supply chains.
31:47But we need to find a way of further enabling that. But I've never, I say there's very few private sector businesses I've met who just aren't interested in it at all. They all see it as the future. And as you know, you saw from our polling data, 65% are concerned that the UK is not investing in this.
32:04And they do see this as an economic opportunity. They just don't know how to start.
32:08So there's a big role for government there to give that reassurance, that long term certainty.
32:13I think as well, it's not just about the government reassurance, it's also about the fact that a lot of the business models in particular are really new, and they're not necessarily proven. And so we need kind of trials and demonstrators to kind of prove the sort of the revenue streams or like whether these business models work, you know, for the businesses and the consumers.
32:32And we also need public sector to kind of like be ready to step in with consumer protections when needed as well.
32:37But I think even that in a sort of an operational level, even when we talk about the supply chain, you know, even sort of sole traders want to get involved in this type of work and want to know how to do it and want access to skills and training and want to know what the level of business demand is.
33:01And business demand is so that they can actually, you know, sort of pivot their businesses at the right time.
33:08And so I do think we, we as an organization as well, in terms of change works have our role to play in that in terms of being more vocal about what we're doing and what homeowners themselves are saying as well, so that we can share that willingness that does exist with with other organizations that might not come into contact with it every day.
33:31So I think it, we need that, we need sort of that broader voice all the way through, right the way down from, you know, sort of, or starting at the top from government all the way down as well.
33:45And giving the homeowners the voice to declare that this is what they're looking for as well.
33:50In terms of pace, we've talked about the need for pace as we draw to close today, we're getting to the end of our conversation.
33:54We've mentioned a lot about pace and the need for more speed.
33:57What do you think can't be done to increase anything you'd like to add in terms of getting people to just get things done faster to meet our target?
34:04Well, I kind of go back to two things that I've said a couple of times on this is certainty, people will grow their businesses.
34:14We, through one of our subsidiaries, Warmworks delivers the Warmer Home Scotland scheme, which is a seven year contract to decarbonize fuel poor homes of people on benefits or that are aged.
34:27As soon as that contract was announced, all of the suppliers in that supply chain scaled up to meet that demand where we're delivering five, six hundred.
34:33And so the certainty, there's a real practical example of how the supply chain will scale to it on all the other programs where their annual renewals or their ad hoc household by household suppliers still struggle to scale.
34:46So I think certainty is, for me, one of the number one things altogether.
34:51And I think that's a really good example to explain that.
34:54But two is finance.
34:55We need to find the business models that unlock different types of capital to come and pay for it.
34:59And government was never going to be able to pay for it.
35:01All the reports have always shown that we need billions from the private sector to reach net zero.
35:06And what's going to unlock that pace is the new business models that allow action to happen fast.
35:16I think as well on the point about certainty, we also need certainty for households as well and confidence.
35:23I think there's a bit of a lack of confidence at the moment in the kind of the quality of some of the work that's been done.
35:30You hear horror stories about, you know, like failed cavity wall insulation, things like that.
35:35And we need more robust kind of quality assurance and redress procedures, I think, to kind of enable the demand for the work to be done.
35:42Because if people don't trust that the work's going to be done well, then they're not going to pay anyone to do it.
35:47And I think ChangeWorks model for kind of like really robust quality assurance seems to be working really well has been really successful.
35:56And yeah, I wish we kind of had a similar model in England at the moment for some of our programs of work.
36:01Yeah, and I'd also say make it easy for people to act as well and make it easier for people to act.
36:08So, you know, we need to remove complexity out of the processes, simplify funding schemes, improve awareness and make trusted support available.
36:21So, services like EcoCosie help people move from that confusion state to clarity.
36:28But this needs to be mainstreamed, not niche.
36:32And so, it's about making sure that everybody has access to those types of services and support.
36:40Thank you very much for listening to this episode of Sustainable Scotland, produced by The Scotsman.
36:44This episode was lived in partnership with ChangeWorks.
36:47Please listen out for and join more episodes of Sustainable Scotland and all your main podcast platforms.
36:51This was sent by me, Rose McGallagher, and produced by Andrew Mulligan.
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