Natural materials, healthier homes, and the culture of sustainable building, with Will Kirkman (Ecomerchant)

We enjoyed the company of Ecomerchant’s Will Kirkman a business that's specialised in sustainable and natural building materials for the building trade and consumers.

We mainly rambled our way around the culture of building in the UK, how embodied carbon has always been on the Ecomerchant agenda and the impact that sustainable and natural building materials have on the buildings they make and the people who occupy them.

Notes from the show

• Will on LinkedIn
• The Ecomerchant website
• The We Build Eco website
• Stewart Lee's taxi driver argument
• UBS white paper: Rethink, rebuild, reimagine (on laying the foundation for better buildings)
• UBS  report: Retrofit revolution
• UBS report: Under one roof (opportunities for public and private stakeholders to decarbonize the global building sector)
• UBS report: Building society (looking at the social opportunity of retrofitting and the relationship between retrofitting and area regeneration)

**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
• 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**

What is Zero Ambitions Podcast?

Zero Ambitions is a podcast about sustainability and the built environment. There is no single solution to fixing the built environment, so we're talking our way through as much of it as we can.

We find interesting guests who know what they're talking about and speak with them about sustainability, good practice, and how to make a difference because the challenges are massive and the problems complex.

You can also find us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/91573716.

Hosted by Jeff Colley (Passive House Plus), Dan Hyde (Everything is User Experience) and Alex Blondin (Everything is User Experience).