Held in London this week, a round table consisting of architects, sustainability consultants, retrofit experts, industry bodies and suppliers confronted the major challenges of achieving home retrofit at an unprecedented scale, to bring millions of homeowners and tenants future resilience. Staged in the wake of the Government’s newly-launched £15bn Warm Homes Plan (including £5bn of Warm Homes Fund grant funding for upgrades), the event was a crucial opportunity to share practical insights and address some of the fundamental obstacles to progress.
The round table was sponsored by NIBE Energy Systems and IDSystems, who both posed questions and solutions to the group from their differing but aligned perspectives. These included how low carbon heating solutions fitted into the context of holistic retrofits including fabric improvements, and the changes in window and glass design specification required to ensure homeowners received reliable retrofits. The group also reviewed recommendations made by a previous Building Insights LIVE round table held on the retrofit challenge in 2024.
NIBE’s attendee, Product Manager Rick Clarke, prompted some in-depth and frank discussions about the practical application of heat pumps in different retrofit contexts, by asking where the pinch-points were currently holding back a widespread rollout of heat pumps in UK retrofits. IDSystems also provoked some insightful and open debate around the priorities being given to thermal efficiency in retrofit window specification, versus cost, aesthetics and functionality.
There was also a comprehensive look at the Warm Homes Plan, introduced to fill a gap left by the sudden cancellation of the Energy Company Obligation scheme in late 2025, and the potential shortcomings of the Plan, which the Government needed to take account of. The need to maintain a focus on fabric improvements alongside renewables was fundamental, our delegates agreed, but there were also views expressed around the need to not “make the perfect the enemy of the good,” given the urgency of achieving huge numbers of retrofits that are required, to protect occupiers from energy costs.
A series of recommendations were made by the panel, for both industry and government, from intervening to close the ‘spark gap’ between electricity and gas prices, to introducing ‘building passports’ which would upgrade a building’s resale value based on its retrofit measures. And there was an overarching focus on the need to increase the credibility and quality of retrofits, in the wake of controversies around ECO projects, and thereby build trust among end users.
James Parker, event chair and editor of ADF and Housebuilder & Developer magazine commented:
“This was a frank and often lively discussion about the fundamental shifts required in not only the construction industry but the wider property sector in order to bring the ‘sticks’ as well as ‘carrots’ that are going to be needed to achieve good quality retrofits at unprecedented scale. Despite the size of the challenges, our round table came up with a series of important recommendations on how to solve them, which will be reported on in full in Architects’ Datafile and Housebuilder & Developer.”
The full list of attendees was as follows:
Chair:
James Parker Managing Editor, Architects’ Datafile/Housebuilder & Developer
Attendees:
Simon Kemp Growth & Innovation Director, Warmworks
Greg Mathers Co-Founder, Studio CMA
Brian Berry CEO, Federation of Master Builders
Naomi Sadler Director, SEES (Sadler Energy & Environmental Services)
Laura Forster Innovation Lead, Innovate UK
Andrew Tod Head of Net Zero, Sureserve
Ben Whiterod Head of Decarbonisation, Social Infrastructure
Cypren Edmunds Project Coordinator, Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance
Trevor Wilkins Managing Director, PAH Building & Construction
Sponsors’ Attendee:
Rick Clarke, Product Manager NIBE Energy Systems Ltd
A Building Insights podcast capturing highlights and recommendations from the discussion, will be available at: insights.netmagmedia.co.uk