The Building Sustainably Podcast

There are genuine operational insights buried in the episode—notably the immersion heater overuse finding, the subcontractor execution point, and the case for home diagnostic sensors—but they are surrounded by considerable padding, platitudes ('opportunity not threat'), and meandering conversation that dilutes the idea-per-minute rate significantly.

“in new built housing, subcontractors build them, not developers. And in the retrofits arena, it's subcontractors again. If we don't involve our subcontractors and get them on board and give them the skills, both their soft and functional skills that they need, then this project will fail”

“we've seen a significant overuse of immersion heaters for and we think that at the moment I can't confirm it because we're still working on it, but we think it's just habit”

The car-diagnostics-vs-home-diagnostics analogy and the regulatory gap for heat pump installers (contrasted with Gas Safe) are mildly counterintuitive, but the broader framing—skills gap, consumer education, Grenfell as cautionary reference—follows a well-worn track with no genuinely contrarian or first-principles argument.

“almost anybody could set up as an 8 pump in school tomorrow with no regulatory control to stop them”

“the diagnostics are available on your home are significantly less than they are in your car. That's a bit odd really”

Mike Leonard has real practitioner credibility—he ran actual research builds, trained sales staff, embedded with civil servants, and launched the 2008 Get Britain Building campaign—but he is now primarily in an academic and advocacy role rather than currently operating at scale inside a developer or major contractor, which caps his score.

“we engaged very early in this process with Middle and Heart Housing association to develop 24 homes in Edgbiston and Handsworth areas of Birmingham”

“I'm personally responsible in 2008 for launching the Get Britain Building campaign”

The episode delivers a reasonable density of concrete numbers and named entities—specific carbon reduction percentages, home counts, cost premiums, local supply chain distances, and the £2.84 multiplier—though some figures are hedged or approximate, and the flagship 100-home net zero neighbourhood cannot be detailed due to planning sensitivity.

“they were probably about 15% more expensive than the same plots just down the road built by the same builder”

“the bricks came six miles and the blocks came 18 miles”

The host asks broad, leading questions ('Do you see that as a key part of the challenge?') and never challenges a claim or requests quantification unprompted; follow-ups are essentially invitations to keep talking rather than probes that sharpen the guest's thinking.

“Do you see that as a key part of the challenge?”

“Can we just touch on that in a little bit more detail?”