Mark Allen: 0:00

When I moved to Fulton, which obviously all it does is social housing and it's been around since 2002,. One of the reasons I went there is because I wanted to do the right thing, because it was the right thing to do, and I've heard stories about Fabric Fifth and Fabric First. But, like I say, there's a lot of knowledge out there about Fabric First and what to do and optimise and all that good stuff. And one of the benefits of going to Fortum, which obviously is part of Wilmot Dixon Group, for me was I'm getting the support of a big company. We can commercialise a lot of stuff that came from my past lifestyle past life when I was previously employed, and all the data that I've got there. But also, you know, for me, when some of the stuff that I did previously, which was the multi-comfort and the health and wellbeing, is actually you know, how does that translate into commercial viability? How does that move? You know, so that you're looking at things like indoor air quality, you're looking at thermal comfort, you're looking at visual comfort and the benefits of light, because I think we do make a lot of mistakes as an industry where we create buildings devolved of any human being that's physically in them and the benefit with every home matters that we do as a business is that every home does matter because ultimately the occupant that's in there, the tenant, has got to be comfortable and I think, like I said to you before when we were having a conversation, one of the biggest issues that we have is fuel poor and therefore it can't be just fabric fifth. There's got to be a fabric first element in there. And I do liken the fabric fifth as well to a little bit like the 1990s Dash for Gas, because that's what it feels like to me. It's just go bolt on a load of renewables, expecting that the people are going to do that. So just explain that concept Fabric Fifth.

Mark Allen: 2:15

So the Fabric Fifth element was so you may know Nigel Banks and a few other people that are in the industry, and I've known Nigel for a long time. I did some work with him at Keymore many years ago and one of the things that they're pushing for is and he works at Octopus now so one of the things that they're pushing for is the fabric fifth. So what they're saying is that you know we can, we can put an air source heap on, we can put renewables on your house and then we do the fabric. But one of the things I've always said is you either do the fabric first and then do the renewables, or you optimize the fabric first and you do the renewables at the same time. You can't not do it the other way, and the reason for that is in my own house, which I've spent an enormous amount of money, it was a typical standard three bed detached that I bought in 2003, just to say, you know, the building control element of it.

Mark Allen: 3:17

When I got it and when I finally started doing the works was clear that the quality and the checks on sides had not been there, because the level of insulation that should have been in there wasn't there. The boiler clearly wasn't doing what it should have been because, uh, in the in the sap rating calculation that I got then he said he said it was 84 efficient boiler. When there was a big sticker on his end it was 78. You know so clearly the the building control teams weren't checking what they should have been checking. But what that's allowed me to do, by improving the building and fabric and staying where I am and getting it to a reasonable level, means that now I can put on the renewables in the correct manner, which means I've got a comfortable house.

Mark Allen: 4:05

Yes, I'm going to put an air source heat pump in, which means I'll be completely electric with the battery. All right, you know the overall energy cost is not going to vastly reduce. You know it'll stay roughly the same, but it's just that comfort factor because obviously the air source heat pump's on all the time. The problem with doing just renewables and bolting renewables on is you don't get comfort in my eyes. So one of the problems I have with it is if we're talking about social housing, for instance, mold and dam, you know we're talking about fuel. Poor people that switch off electric soon as they see it. Or if there's a vent in the house, they stuff a rag down into the vent because that's the behaviour that they have exhibited for years.

Mark Allen: 4:50

The problem with that all just compounds mould and damp and as a country at the moment it's £1.4 billion it's costing the NHS, with an expected increase over the next 10 years up to £15.6 billion, which, as we already already know, we're having issues with finance within the country. Um, you know, and unfortunately you know, rachel reese has got to go find some more money somewhere. Um, but we?

Mark Allen: 5:16

but the reality is you know, if we are going to make comfortable homes, you know you can't just go bolting on renewables and expecting the person to to live in them again. We know from um you know the houses and stuff and existing typologists that's out there the average temperature of the walls are going to be 8 to 12 degrees c if you've got no insulation on there and you're not increasing that. You know standard physics that we're all taught at university in construction courses. You know doing psychometric charts and things like that clearly shows you that a 20 degree internal temperature that's caused by you, me, cooking, various other things will condensate on 12 degrees c walls. And if you've got furniture that's bang against the wall, then all that's going to do is compound and you're going to end up with mold and damp. And and obviously we know you've got furniture that's bang against the wall, then all that's going to do is compound and you're going to end up with mold and damp. And obviously we know we've got an issue there From a country in the G7, we've got the highest asthma levels in any G7 country. It's running at 20% of the population typically and a lot of that could be contributed to the fact that in terms of ventilation strategies that we have in the UK and also the solutions that we're posing at the moment.

Mark Allen: 6:29

Are they the correct solutions? So for me, it's not fabric first or fabric fifth. It's about how do we optimize that so that we can get an improvement on the fabric, so that we increase the thermal temperatures on the walls, reduce all that problem, ensure that you know, fuel poorer are getting the comfort out of the property. Because even if we put renewables on unless it's solar panels and we put air source heat pumps, they're still going to switch off the air source heat pump. They're still going to want to use the air source heat pump, even though it's supposed to be run 24 7 on a cycle through the winter period on a cyclical basis, like we do with boilers. I'll stick it on for an hour here and I'll stick it on for an hour there. They're not going to get comfort out of that. So it's about how do we optimize that?

Mark Allen: 7:11

Um, and I think you know, whilst we're also doing that, we as a company, you know, have got a clear strategy and that strategy is that you know, we do repairs and maintenance, we do capital works and we do retrofit. It's not by accident that that's the strategy. But when you look at maintenance and asset management of a building, actually we can do a retrofit that's optimal to the building and to the occupants that's in it. So we're getting better health and well-being for the occupants. We can do an optimal solution, which means we're getting better value for clients. Because at the moment a lot of the clients are finding it difficult to work out from a feasibility perspective. Do they go down the renewables route because they can do more buildings, or do they go down the retrofit and it's a very simplified matrix that they're using without actually understanding the buildings properly and how buildings interact with tenants in general. So we can do that.

Mark Allen: 8:11

We also know that in the early 2000s, when I was a boy in this industry and I was working for the council, we were doing decent homes. Not every social landlord, unfortunately, has been able to convert all their housing stock to decent home standards. We've got some clients that have struggled to do that and certainly that proliferates the problem because actually what's happening is a lot of the social landlords are now looking at how they manage their housing stock going forward, given the cost problems that we're now facing. And actually what's happening is and this is ready available statistical data that's out there from the government. What's been happening is that over the last 10 years of austerity, they've been putting more and more money into repairs and maintenance side and less and less into capital investment, and what that's done is actually, whilst they may have been a decent home standard, they're actually deteriorating in value. So what we can add is by having that optimal solution looking at the Fabric Fifth versus Fabric First and having that debate we can actually come up with a you know what does the dilapidation of that building look like?

Mark Allen: 9:29

What can we improve or how do we improve that so that actually the asset increases in value, which then allows the councils and the social landlords to use that asset to leverage other finances, which is typically what happens in the market. What that'll do is it'll move the repairs and maintenance costing and distressed capital effectively into capital expenditure, and the easiest way of doing that is through looking at data insight, which is what we're doing as a business. We spend enormous amounts of time and money now looking at how we do that, and some of my colleagues are really, really good at this. You know it's their forte, it's not my forte, but what it's allowing us to do is now go have conversations with clients to say you know what happens if we do this, or because we've been in a repairs and maintenance contract with that client for so long, actually start to see trends, you know, in their portfolio stock. So actually we can say to them wouldn't be a better value, rather than doing x if we do y, we spend a bit of money here, but actually once we've done that, your repairs and maintenance go down in that area. You know, so substantially you're improving, uh, that, that aspect, and we and again, we know from Awad's law and the way that that's coming in and the HHSRS system and all that good stuff that they've got as a housing industry, that you know it talks about vulnerability of people. So again, if we're looking at fabric first, we're not saying put the fabric onto ridiculous thicknesses, but just enough so that things like dexterity are improved, allowing the older generations to have reasonable dexter, and things like that that are aiding and improving asthma. We know that, you know.

Mark Allen: 11:18

And one of the biggest problems that I perceive and you'll know this because obviously you've spent a long time in your industry homing your skills on this but EPCs, one of the biggest detriments that we've had with those over the years, which we don't now because it's now coming to fruition is that it's just been oh, this is, these are the standards, these are the metrics that you get out of this table, this is what you input into it and this is what you get out. And I've had and I've had that with my own house, you know, doing the soc pump, and the guy's done that. Uh, before, um, the new systems came into place and it was saying that I was using 10,000 kilowatt hours for my heating and I'm sat there going, yeah, but clearly that's not the case, because if you look at my electric bills, it says I'm using 5,000. So you know you get spurious outputs from EPCs, which is just a tick box exercise. But actually, if you then start to get real life data, like we can from either trends or some other systems that we're currently looking at, actually we can start to put that into the EPC and start saying to clients look, this is not about you just going and bolting on a load of insulation to create a fabric that's an EPCC. This is about you optimising that fabric but also optimising the renewables. And actually, if we start to put real-life data in line air tightness testing, like some of the smart systems that's now out there that can monitor heat loss on buildings. Actually we can start to quickly work out what, you know, what is viable and what's a suitable solution.

Mark Allen: 13:09

And the example that I was recently told, which I thought was a very, very good example and I'm not going to mention any names, who it is, but we're working really well with them at the moment and he said you know, we did an assessment on a house and first thing is that people said, oh well, we need to put more insulation on it, and it was an 1800s house, terraced house arrangement. And actually what they quickly worked out is by doing the air tests and all the good stuff with the thermal imaging and various other things, which is very cheap these days. You know, I remember when thermal imaging cameras were like fourteen hundred ten thousand pounds, and now you can, you know, do one for like 250, you know, and you can bolt it onto a, onto a, an ios phone. So what he said is that by doing this stuff they were able to quickly say to the client actually you don't need to put, uh, the insulation on the walls because your air tightness in that building is so high that the the problem that you've got with a mold and damp is not thermal. And actually when they did the calculations back from doing the thermal analysis of the walls, you know they were, they were really good for that era um. But what they quickly said is, again from doing relative testing on site, they quickly determined that the um, the ventilation strategy for the house was very poor.

Mark Allen: 14:39

And again it's about how do I use that ventilation strategy to maximize? Because a lot of people think, oh, we'll just bang in a ventaxia fan in this corner and it'll be great. But actually if people started doing proper computational fluid dynamics which I'm not suggesting that we do that for the social landlords because of the time and funds you'd quickly find out that actually the air wasn't moving as efficiently as it is. So why not look at, you know, probably put in a ventax here on that side and a ventax here on that side, you know? So you've got a push and pull arrangement. So then you start to get better flow through the building and there's things like that.

Mark Allen: 15:20

You start to think about Similar with windows. You know we put windows in buildings and you know I went to the cheese grater building when it was open, I was very fortunate to know the individuals that had been part of that work and the first thing I said when I walked into it was wow. And she said to me what do you mean? And I said it's a really nice building, but I feel like I'm permanently wearing a pair of shades. Now, from a SADS perspective, you know Seasonal Affective Disorder and you know anxiety and depression and all that type of thing you need good lighting quality. So you know, one of the things that we see is and I've seen it time and time again oh, we'll specify really high windows with this film on it, on that film, and it's like, actually, is that truly what you need to do? And again, it's going back to basics and understanding what we're doing. And there's a lot more science?

Darren Evans: 16:27

Is that doing that thing because you're trying to pass a regulation or trying to tick a box, versus I'm trying to create a space where people can come in here and, like you say, feel comfortable.

Mark Allen: 16:37

Yeah, the problem we've got is that people are just trying to tick boxes. They're forgetting that humans are actually inside these things. And again, from past experience and again I'm not going to mention who we were working with at the time, but from past experience what we found is that, by ensuring that the comfort of the occupant is thought about and ensuring that the occupant is getting good value out of that, we found things like less rent arrears because they were happy with it. You know, spending a bit of money on retrofit means that not only does the asset get better, but actually people start to feel like they've got worth and value and all those things that are credited to. You know, community projects that were done in early 2000s, for instance, where they were and I'm not I'm not suggesting this is a good thing, but they were knocking council estates down and rebuilding modern housing to try and uplift the area and get people thinking about it. And I think, if people can see that there's something going into the buildings and whatever and we've seen it ourselves.

Mark Allen: 17:50

You know, at Fortum, with some of the projects that we're doing, you can see, you know, the eyes glistening, the people, the, the smiles that you get, um, you know, and the client liaison officers that we've got are going around and saying this is this is really good. You know it's really making a communal difference, um, and that everybody's getting behind, and actually what that then does is it enforces them to look after these things a lot better as well, and they know that the social landlord that's looking after them is also thinking about them as well as just thinking about the asset value. So for me, it's getting that tangible difference on every one matters. It's looking at the health and well-being, looking at how we can improve the assets so that our clients can obviously have better outcomes for that, and also ensuring that the clients are getting value for money. So there's a bigger address here that can happen, and one of the things that we're currently investing in Fortum is that we are now looking at how we realistically monitor buildings, and quickly and cheaply, because there's a lot of monitoring systems on the market that are very expensive, don't really turn around what you need them to turn around quickly.

Mark Allen: 19:05

The quality of the data. That is questionable, because one of the things that we found when I was working for somebody previously is that when you put sensors into a piece of plastic, suddenly that sensor starts to lose all its tolerance of plus or minus of what it was able to sensor originally and actually the plus or minus tolerance starts to get bigger. And if you want that data to then substantiate what you're doing and actually get to the point where you can start proving that what you've designed is built and performs as it should, then actually you need data and data insight that's coming from sensors that you can trust.

Darren Evans: 19:48

So where can people start, mark? I think that everything that you've spoken about here, I can hear people listening to this saying, yeah, we want to do that. We want to lead with a project or an end result where the occupant goes in there and they're really, really happy in there. Yeah, but a problem that I've got is money. A problem that I've got is the way that the corporate structure is. The way that I've got is a fear if, if I do something a different way, I'm going to need to charge more to my client. My client's going to refuse that and then go somewhere else because they're doing it for cheaper. What is a starting point for somebody?

Mark Allen: 20:25

So, in terms of us at Fortum, for instance, we are heavily engaging with clients up front. We are spending an enormous amount of time putting process and procedures in place, not just for our law, but other things that have come about so that we've got governance and transparency in the business, and then we're effectively going out with clients and we're saying this is what we're doing. You know, what do you think of this? We're also, you know, inviting leading industry specialists into our business to check out process and procedures ourselves. So it's not like, you know, we've marked our own homework, because that tends to happen quite a lot, but it's about how we can be perceived to be transparent to our clients and say look, you know, if you want to work with us, we're quite happy to come in and work with you, knowing what we know, and help you develop feasibilities and things like that, which is what we're starting to do. We're starting to get up front and I think one of the the whilst it's not a failure as such one of the downsides, um, of the retrofit movement, which is uh, as you know, I got heavily involved in 2011 onwards uh, in this, in this industry, uh, to the point where I've done a bit of teaching on master's courses at Salford University and for me, I think one of the key aspects of this is sitting down with these clients, because not everybody's got all the knowledge and what we're finding is that people are making knee-jerk reactions based on best value, but not necessarily understanding the bigger picture. So we've sat down with a number of clients now and we've said you know, is that the right thing that you want to do? Is that the right thing that you want to do and actually brought them to the table so that we can work with them to structure something that's more value for money. But looks at the social demographics so that you know you're getting the comfort for the clients. But you're also looking at the fuel pool, um, and not just thinking this fabric first versus fabric fit. It's around, it's about an optimal fabric, um, and people need to start using that because there are inherent. If you go down just doing the retrofit and doing, you know the fabric, uh, the fabric solution.

Mark Allen: 22:54

There are knee-jerk reactions which people have not necessarily or don't necessarily understand, which I understand because of the amount of testing that we did with Salford University under Energy House, lab 1. You know things clearly like overheating. You know, if you wrap a fabric around a building and there was a client of mine at the time having major issues where the services were still giving off that significant portion of heat for hot water, that actually was raising temperatures in flats where it should be, flats where both where it should be well, that's not going to be allowed going forward, because owans law is quite clear. You know, from a from a hazard and and something that's significant, a significant hazard to health, you've got to deal with it. Um, so overheating is going to become an issue if, if all you're doing is bolting on, uh, that type of thing.

Mark Allen: 23:48

So it's what is the optimal for me? It's, you know, and actually the optimal might not be 150 mils worth of insulation. That gets you down to a? U value of 0.16. It might only be needing to get down as low as, uh, you know, 0.3 or 0.25. Um, you know, after all, the backstop's always been 0.7 as a minimum condensation risk. Uh, and and the regulations, you know, if you go back to the 1990s, was 0.45. So we keep adding insulation, but actually we're not understanding the bigger ramifications of doing that and that's where we can have that trade-off. So we can say, yeah, we'll do the insulation, we'll get rid of the mold and the damp inside. We'll increase the comfort, the dexterity for the people. We're on all this good stuff. But We'll get rid of the mould and the damp inside. We'll increase their comfort. The dexterity is for the people and all this good stuff. But we'll also look at the solar.

Mark Allen: 24:40

We'll try and reduce some of their energy costs by providing solar solutions and it might be that they put air source heat pump into those people. But again, with air source heat pump, one of the things that we're doing and we're trialling quite a lot of is before it was, you did a job, you finish the job, you move on. You know, and, yes, you were in a 12-month defects period, but why not look at that 12-month defects period as being a right? You know how can we best serve the community so that over that 12-month period if there is a problem they can come to us, but setting up structures that are within that 12-month, that actually they don't need to come to us. I mean, one of the biggest things that I found from looking at, you know, a lot of social dynamics and psychology is that people trust other people in the community. What they tend not to want to do is trust people that are from outside. So if you can bolster that and you can create solutions around that, then actually quite quickly you can start to let it self-proliferate under its own steam and actually you know it then becomes self-governing. So rather than getting that call in that says I've got a problem and it's a complaint, it's not working as it should be, actually the complaint goes away because maybe they're not using the equipment right, but number seven might know how to use the equipment, so they go around to number eight and tell them how to use it. It might be a WhatsApp group or something to that extent where they're talking to one another.

Mark Allen: 26:08

All these things we need to look at, because it's not just about how we do the service. It's about how we do the service, you know. It's about how we uh ensure that the communities are doing what they should be and and help them facilitate so that they can, they can work with this change, because it is a change and humans hate change. You know, we are uh a bit true, yes, we are uh, and it and you know and that's that's one of the things that we can take away from human psychology is that we hate change. So it's how do you help them progress in that change? How do you commission it so that it works? How do you teach them and educate them in the right values? How do you ensure that they've got a support network around them?

Mark Allen: 26:52

There's then the long term of right now. We've done that because we know we're going to have to retrofit. We know that 80% of the houses that we've got today are going to be still here in 2050. So we know that we need to deal with that. But then there's the well. If we've now done the retrofit, we've got capital. That's, you know, your repairs and maintenance bills are going down because you're not having to do as much distressed work on that particular element. Your assets have gone up and in the long term, you know you're going to end up with less problems because people are going to want to look after it. They're going to want to help wherever they can and the community is generally going to. You know, be thankful and value what you've done.

Darren Evans: 27:38

One of the things I'm wondering here is how often you would suggest that folks? Let me start that question again. One of the things I'm wondering here is how often you would suggest that post-occupancy assessments are done, because when you look at the design stage whether that's a new build or a retrofit you'll have a goal or a target or something in mind which equates to good. And then how often does that get evaluated? Not so often in my experience. Yes, but you mentioned a 12-month period. Yeah, for defects.

Darren Evans: 28:13

Yeah, wouldn't it be great to use that 12-month period to do post-occupancy and then, with your community groups, then to feed that information back in and saying, hey, this property is doing really well. Okay, what is it that they're doing to ensure that the outputs of this property are good compared to the next one? Yeah, and then share that information in that group. You're talking about a WhatsApp group, yeah, yeah, yeah, it could be anything. You know WhatsApp's just a. So, within a 12-month period, effectively, what you're doing is you're teaching someone how to live most efficiently and effectively in that property.

Mark Allen: 28:51

Yes.

Darren Evans: 28:52

And creating a group around that and that group can support one another.

Mark Allen: 28:58

Yeah, what I would say is that, yes, you're right, whether it's a post-occupancy evaluation similar to what you would do with a commercial building, or not, I think that's probably slightly different. The way that I was looking at it is that if the insight and data of the systems that we use initially to design and optimize the solution is provided, and we're looking at how we then test after, because it would be good to go back and test in certain circumstances- Because otherwise, how do you know if what you've designed is actually working without?

Darren Evans: 29:35

you need that feedback loop, right and I think that's one of the areas in the industry that we really struggle with is the time that it takes for that feedback loop to.

Mark Allen: 29:44

To conclude, but going back to the point about epcs, if epcs, like they are now, is looking at as build data, which they're starting to do, you know we've got things with air tiniest going in and various other bits that are starting to be, uh, plugged into the software.

Mark Allen: 29:59

Actually, what that starts to starts to create is the ability for you to then go do post-tests anyway and come up with an actual, so that rather than the 10 000 kilowatt hours units that I've got on my epc, even though I should be using five, actually that starts to become more realistic about how's that building being used from a heat loss calculation point of view, and it will quickly determine whether the measures that you put in are still creating a condensation risk, which is very limited, because the condensation goes down with temperature or surface temperature and an improved internal temperature. But there's for me, I think it's a. I think, yes, you can get a benefit out of doing it. One of the biggest issues that we have and I'll be brutally honest with you when you're in social housing is gaining access to properties.

Darren Evans: 30:56

I mean, it would be the same if you just gain access to my property. To be honest, yeah, I'm not in social housing, but to get inside my house you're going to struggle.

Mark Allen: 31:04

Yeah, but I do think that the private, private individual, because of the way that they think, and usually when they're wanting something, doing it's for them, you know. So I is that when you it's their asset, right?

Darren Evans: 31:16

so social housing is like that's not my asset. I'm just living here.

Mark Allen: 31:19

Don't know how long I'm going to be here yeah, which is why, um, all the clos and and uh, some of the training that we're doing with TPAS at the moment is excellent, because actually, what it's doing is it's giving the client liaison officers a significant understanding on how things are doing and how to improve lives and where there's other assets that we can plug into that. You know, like monetary values, you know people that are struggling with money and various other things. There's other organizations that we can plug into that. Uh, you know, like monetary values, if you know people that are struggling with money and various other things, there's other organizations that we can plug into that to help facilitate them using that, that building, in a better manner. So for me, I think it's a yes, performance, post-performance needs to happen, whether we are in, uh, that regime at the moment and I will say regime because it will come, it's definitely going to come.

Darren Evans: 32:13

Yeah, we're not there at the moment, but I don't think that's the main thing, mark. I think that if we're moving in that direction and there are steps to be taken we're aware and we're starting to move forward in that direction then I think that that's something to celebrate. It's a positive contribution to the agenda.

Mark Allen: 32:28

we're aware and we're starting to move forward in that direction, that I think that that's something to say. It's a positive contribution to the agenda. Yeah, are we there yet? No, but no, but we are starting as fortum to look at that and how we uh improve uh, certainly our clients uh, and attendance.

Darren Evans: 32:39

So last question for you I know that you've got experience in both new build and retrofit. Yes, which is the best, and define the best as which is the one that is going to help us as a country nearly said organization, then but which is the one that's going to help us, as a country, meet our carbon targets and provide a place where people can I'll use the word thrive in their property, so that's they're warm enough and cool enough, that they've got the correct lighting, the correct view out of the window and all the things that are needed for for a good, healthy human life so I don't think that the 1950s and 1960s agenda of knocking a load of houses down that are perfectly suitable and structurally sound is the agenda.

Mark Allen: 33:34

From an embodied carbon perspective, I think to do that in this day and age, given the cost of what a new house costs to build, would be very foolish of any government agenda or anybody's agenda per se. We do need to tackle retrofit and I suppose the reason for me being here and having this conversation is one of the biggest. As I was saying earlier, one of the biggest failures is that we've got people that are clearly, you know, being trained and and the the original retrofit courses you know we we developed and patented with Peter Rickerby and another you know, david Pierpoint and a number of other people originally. Yes, they've moved on and certainly, you know, the retrofit coordination course is now substantially better than it ever was when we originally started back in 2014 with Mark Elton and other people. But I still think one of the problems is we're spitting people out who strategically, whilst they can get to groups with one building and the retrofit, and not really strategically looking at it from a community's aspect and looking at how they can remove distressed capital into capital expenditure and look at the strategic outputs and I think, whilst a number of social landlords and people have taken people on to do that, um, it still feels um, I'm not going to say tick box, but it still feels like we're missing an opportunity. We're missing a massive opportunity to to go in and and, uh, turn the curve on what's happened over the last 10 years with austerity and decent arms and drive a new decent arms agenda. And I know the government's looking at the decent arms standard.

Mark Allen: 35:38

One of the things I would say to anybody that's doing the decent arms standard, if they're doing it, is think about it strategically, not as a word or a line or a sentence that's going into a booklet, because one of the biggest issues with the funding for instance, it says EPCC how you get there is up to each social landlord, which is why we're helping them to do what they need to do so they can get best bound for book but also improve their asset portfolio, and that's what it needs to be about. It needs to be about how you drive the asset portfolio and the health and wellbeing of the tenants so that we can A get more money and funding through, so that the guys can do more projects, more community projects and bigger projects, because ultimately, these projects are not small. The stuff that we're doing, uh, at the moment within fortum, they're big community projects. They're not small.

Mark Allen: 36:33

You know, we've done pull. Uh, we're doing some with birmingham at the moment. Um, the whole one that you do was that in brown's home or, uh, I don't know, because it was. It was one that I, that I saw the latter end when I came into fortum.

Darren Evans: 36:45

I've only been in Fortum just under two years, so I think that from what you're saying, then it's not about new build versus retrofit. It's more about building homes that are fit for people. Yes, and having that at the front of your mind instead of saying we just are looking for a silver bullet to kind of solve the problem. Silver bullet is let's use PV or let's use renewables, or let's do fabric first or fabric fifth. It's not that strip it back and say what can we create so that an individual or a family or a group living in here are going to thrive yes, going to have a great life, definitely um, and, and for me you know again, the fabric fifth versus the fabric first argument.

Mark Allen: 37:31

the people that are doing fabric fifth will always argue that people going into houses that have done fabric first, over time what will happen is those people will start to regress so that the energy usage starts going up in their house because they're taking woolly jumpers off and putting T-shirts on, they're being more comfortable in their homes, and some of that does happen, but the statistics do clearly show that while some of that does happen, it doesn't completely happen and it's not going back to the energy performance that it used to, going back to the energy performance that it used to. Um, and I think, if, if people take, take cognizant of human behavior and what's best for human behavior, uh, then I think we'll be in a far better place. And certainly that's what fortum's looking at. It's about how we, you know, look at the tenant but also help the client, uh, and our communities, uh, we, you know we do the tenant but also help the client and our communities.

Darren Evans: 38:29

we, you know, we do massive amounts of community projects and community engagement as a company because we see the inherent value of it been great having you on the podcast, really appreciate your wisdom and your passion and wish you well for the future. Thank you, thanks for watching to the end. I think that you'll like this, but before you do that, the future, thank you. Thanks for watching to the end. I think that you'll like this, but before you do that, just make sure that you've commented and liked below and also that you subscribed.