So when UK policymakers failed to define a consistent, credible path to net zero for the built environment, it wasn’t Whitehall that stepped in. It was the engineers.

The result? The UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard: a voluntary, rigorous, and collaborative benchmark for measuring—and more importantly, achieving—net zero in both new builds and retrofits.

Not Just Another Framework

The standard isn’t a white paper or a wishlist. It’s a tool, developed by a coalition of professional bodies—including CIBSE, RIBA, and RICS—and stress-tested by over 200 companies. It defines the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of net zero for real buildings, based on performance, not aspiration.

“This isn’t making it easier for engineers,” Anastasia admits. “But if we’re serious about net zero, this is the way to do it.”

She describes the standard as both “ambitious” and “realistic”—a phrase that only seems contradictory if you’ve grown accustomed to the vagueness of corporate climate commitments. The real success of the standard isn’t just technical. It’s cultural. For once, the fox hasn’t just designed the henhouse—it’s built it out of audited steel, daylight models, and embodied carbon calculations.

From Heat Pumps to Heatwaves: Engineering for the Future

At the core of Anastasia’s work is futureproofing. Her PhD at Cardiff focused on overheating risk in buildings. Her work with UKCIP and Oxford University centred on how climate impacts architecture—not in abstract terms, but in thermal loads, drainage systems, and human comfort.

“I always wanted to be an artist,” she laughs. But architecture taught her that buildings aren’t just objects; they’re organisms.

“It clicked that the building is not just a pretty thing—it’s a living, breathing, dynamic entity.”

That realisation has shaped her entire career, from technical guidance on weather files to overheating methodologies. It’s also why she sees this new standard as a culmination of two decades of work.

Voluntary, Yes. Optional? Not Really.

Why did industry create a voluntary standard when government wouldn’t? Two reasons, Anastasia explains. First: confusion. Competing definitions of net zero made cross-sector collaboration almost impossible.

Second: influence.

“You can’t lobby for policy with ten different versions of what net zero means,” she says.

A single, shared benchmark enables engineers, architects, and clients to finally compare apples with apples.

The irony, of course, is that what began as a workaround now looks like world leadership. “Nowhere else in the world has developed something like this,” Anastasia notes. Already, countries like the UAE and the US are asking how to adapt it.

Cost Is the Elephant in the Plant Room

So why hasn’t the government adopted the standard as policy?

In a word: cost. “There’s an implication that high standards come with high expense,” Anastasia says. But she flips the question: What’s the long-term cost of not adapting? Of relying on imported energy? Of making design decisions that bake in inefficiency for decades?

Her answer isn’t just philosophical. It’s practical:

“Net zero isn’t a five-year thing. It’s the entire lifespan of a building.”

The Magic Wand Moment

When asked what she’d change about the commercial world, Anastasia’s answer is quietly radical:

“I’d like it to be less commercial.”

In a Star Trek-like future where money wasn’t the ultimate measure, she believes we’d rediscover the value of people, nature, and spaces that actually enhance life.

And if that sounds naïve, it’s worth remembering who’s saying it. Anastasia is not an idealist. She’s a professional whose day job involves translating planetary-scale urgency into wiring diagrams, airflows, and load profiles.

The magic, it turns out, isn’t in the wand. It’s in the wiring.

“People still think sustainability is a cost,” she tells The Responsible Edge. “But it’s a strategy for long-term relevance.”

🛋️ Sustainability’s Image Problem

Let’s be honest: in the interiors world, luxury has long been defined by newness. A redesigned kitchen, a showroom-fresh sofa, or a perfectly curated look. As Mirry explains, this traditional mindset often clashes with a planet in crisis.

“Sustainability still gets shrugged off as second-best or second-hand,” she says. “But increasingly, it’s becoming an additional value add—something people are proud of.”

The challenge? Convincing both clients and interior designers that responsible design doesn’t mean compromising on beauty or luxury. That requires education, better data, and most importantly, better storytelling.

🎯 Key Challenges in Sustainable Interiors

Mirry pinpoints five friction points currently hampering progress:

• 📦 Packaging & Waste – Furniture needs serious protection in transit, often creating mountains of non-recyclable waste.

• 🛋️ Big Format, Big Emissions – Think sofas, dining tables, lighting—hard to move, store, or dispose of sustainably.

• 🔥 Sofa Safety Regs – UK fire safety rules make recycling upholstered furniture a nightmare.

• 🧾 Transparency – Designers are often in the dark about supply chains. Brands need to give them better product data.

• 💰 The Perception of Cost – Many still believe sustainability must be more expensive, which simply isn’t true.

“There are huge opportunities for brands that get ahead of this,” she argues. “If you build with transparency, you build loyalty, and that builds long-term commercial value.”

🌱 Meet the Green Room

To help tackle some of these barriers, Mirry co-founded The Green Room with Jules Haines (of Haines Collection). What began as a casual pub chat with a few industry peers has grown into a thriving forum of over 50 interiors brands—big and small—committed to sharing knowledge, cutting corners (ethically), and ditching the industry’s culture of secrecy.

“No question is too stupid in the Green Room,” Mirry jokes. “We get everyone round the table—literally and figuratively—to learn from each other.”

Roundtables, webinars, open-source guides: The Green Room is what the interiors industry desperately needed—somewhere to find inspiration and practical help.

🔮 What’s Next? (And What Keeps Her Going)

At B·ABLE, Mirry works with SMEs across industries, but interiors remains close to her heart. Her goal? Empower teams to act, not just outsource sustainability to one poor soul in the comms department.

“99% of UK companies are SMEs. They don’t have ESG teams. They need simplicity, structure and clarity—and someone to help them communicate it all properly.”

She hopes the long-term legacy of her work will be a generation of brands that don’t just market responsibility—they practice it, collaboratively.

And if she had a magic wand?

“I’d change the perception of sustainability. It’s not a tick box. It’s a growth strategy. It’s your best chance to thrive.”

Kate Chilton, Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief of Staff at BamCore, has experienced both the corporate and startup sides of sustainability. After starting her career at Accenture and working her way into the core of climate startups, she now finds herself in the thick of it—caught between investor expectations, startup survival, and the uncompromising realities of planetary boundaries.

In this episode of The Responsible Edge, Kate takes us on a journey through the messiness of real-world sustainability: the idealism, the disillusionment, and the flickers of optimism that still make the fight worth it.

What Happens When Net Zero Becomes “Too Expensive”?

The catalyst for the conversation is Bloomberg’s recent report on the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a group of major banks committed to aligning their lending with the Paris Agreement. One by one—U.S. banks, Canadian banks, and then Japanese banks—have stepped away from the group.

Why? According to Kate, the answer is chillingly simple:

“By exiting NZBA, these banks have sought greater autonomy to set and adjust their environmental strategies without being bound by a commitment to stay aligned to the Paris Agreement—which they now view as a fictitious world.”

Put bluntly: NZBA is aligned with a future that’s becoming increasingly unlikely. And the market will punish banks for focusing on decarbonisation if they are perceived to be giving up earnings potential.

“Sustainability Only Works If It Makes Business Sense”

Having worked at a corporate giant like Accenture and now at a bio-based building materials startup, Kate sees the problem from both ends of the spectrum.

“The sustainable decision needs to be the right business decision. We can’t just expect businesses to do the altruistic thing when they are fundamentally mission-driven to turn a profit.”

Startups may be mission-first, but they’re not immune either. Even companies like BamCore, which manufactures climate-positive building products, must navigate a system where clean energy and low-carbon materials still struggle to compete—on cost, supply, and capital access.

Built-In, Not Bolted-On

Kate wears two hats—Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief of Staff—which gives her a unique view across the entire organisation.

“Sustainability shouldn’t be an afterthought. It needs to be built in, not bolted on.”

This dual role allows her to connect sustainability to every department—from marketing and product development to sourcing and manufacturing. It’s a model that makes sense for startups—but it’s rare in larger organisations, where ESG still too often sits in a silo.

The Capital Gap No One Wants to Talk About

One of the sharpest insights comes when Kate breaks down the climate finance landscape for startups:

• 🥇 Seed-stage: Government grants, angel investors, climate-focused VCs.

• 🏗️ Growth-stage: A funding valley between VC and private equity.

• 🏦 Mature-stage: Shift from equity to debt—often inaccessible for physical solutions that need massive CapEx.

“We’re not playing in electrons—we’re playing in atoms. In order to combat climate change, this is a physical problem. We need physical solutions.”

When capital dries up—particularly for manufacturing-heavy solutions like BamCore—the transition stalls, no matter how compelling the climate case is.

Realism vs. Idealism: Can We Still Be Optimistic?

Kate doesn’t sugar-coat it:

“There’s always a little flame of eco-anxiety driving me. But I’ve moved from being an optimist to an optimistic pessimist.”

And yet, there’s still hope:

• The next generation—Gen Z—is taking climate seriously.

• Clean energy is reaching cost parity with fossil fuels in more regions.

• The appetite for systemic change—from carbon pricing to Doughnut Economics—is growing.

“Our financial system is intertwined with emissions… We need to unwind them such that we can make decisions that are still good for our economies but that also drive down emissions.”

💬 Kate’s Magic Wand Moment

If given a magic wand, what would Kate change?

“Make it easier for companies that want to be sustainable to succeed.”

It’s a simple ask—but behind it lies a radical truth. We know what to do. We just haven’t made doing the right thing easy—or profitable—enough.

Brogan’s journey—from a creative young vegetarian to a senior engineer and environmentalist—reflects a bigger shift taking place across the built environment sector: one that demands we stop settling for “less bad” and start designing systems that actively restore.

From Carbon Focus to Climate Justice

Brogan’s role at Ramboll has expanded far beyond traditional carbon accounting. Today, she leads initiatives around:

• Embodied carbon reduction

• Circular economy and material reuse

• Biodiversity impact management

• Equity and climate justice in design

“We’re still operating in a degenerative paradigm—taking more than we give back. Regenerative design asks: how do we leave places healthier than we found them?”

Her point is clear: net-zero isn’t enough. Construction must actively repair, rewild, and rethink its entire relationship with natural and human systems.

Breaking the “Creative vs Scientific” Myth 🎨🔬

Brogan’s path challenges the old idea that you’re either a creative or a scientist. Initially pigeonholed into the arts at school, it was a single teacher who opened her eyes to the possibilities of blending both worlds.

“Engineering isn’t the opposite of creativity. It is creative—problem-solving with ingenuity.”

This blending of artistry and technical rigour defines her philosophy today, whether redesigning steel systems or reimagining corporate leadership models.

Leading with Softness 💬

Another powerful insight Brogan shared is the shift in how she leads.

“For years, I tried to blend in—to be one of the guys. Now, I lean into softness. Authenticity, empathy, and care are leadership strengths, not weaknesses.”

In a male-dominated engineering world, this shift has helped her build trust and influence far more effectively than traditional command-and-control styles.

Steel, Scrap, and the “Uncomfortable Truth” of Decarbonisation 🔥

Discussing the recent Scunthorpe Steel crisis, Brogan illuminated a critical, often misunderstood issue:

• Scrap steel can only meet a third of global demand.

• Demand for steel is set to rise 50% by 2050.

• Even “low-carbon” solutions like electric arc furnaces aren’t silver bullets unless paired with drastic consumption reduction.

“Specifying recycled steel might look good on a project report. But it doesn’t cut global emissions. We need material reuse, systemic reduction, and real honesty about our limits.”

She also issued a stark warning: without better scrap recovery, smarter material reuse, and demand reduction, the green steel revolution risks being a mirage.

Radical Solutions: Reuse, Bio-Based Materials, and Mindset Shifts 🌱🏗️

Despite the serious challenges, Brogan remains hopeful:

• Steel reuse: Salvaging and recertifying steel from demolition sites could slash emissions dramatically.

• Bio-based materials: Timber, hempcrete, mycelium composites, and more could transform mid-rise construction.

• Innovative concrete technologies: New blends like calcined clay concrete could revolutionise infrastructure if clients embrace innovation and risk.

But the biggest barrier? Mindset.

“Construction moves slowly. It took twenty years to fix basic safety. We can’t afford that pace for the climate transition.”

Graduates and younger professionals, she believes, are key to unlocking faster cultural change.

Brogan’s Magic Wand Moment 🪄

If given a magic wand, Brogan would replace GDP as the dominant measure of success with Doughnut Economics—balancing human needs within planetary boundaries.

“GDP doesn’t equal happiness. We need an economic model that values health, equity, and environmental regeneration.”

Final Takeaway 🚀

Brogan MacDonald’s vision challenges the construction industry—and society more broadly—to stop patching problems and start building net-positive futures. Through material reuse, radical honesty, systemic redesign, and authentic leadership, a regenerative built environment isn’t just possible—it’s urgently necessary.

Bridging the Knowledge Gap in Architecture and Design

With a career spanning architecture, environmental engineering, and policy advocacy, Mina has worked at the forefront of embedding science-based sustainability frameworks into the industry. However, despite the growing push for net zero and ESG commitments, she warns that many professionals still lack the foundational knowledge needed to implement real change.

“Many people still don’t know what net zero carbon truly means—what it entails, how to measure it, and how to verify claims. That’s where problems arise.”

In this conversation, Mina highlights the urgent need for climate literacy, the role of governance in preventing greenwashing, and the steps the industry must take to move beyond fragmented sustainability initiatives.

Why Climate Literacy is Critical

Sustainability is now a non-negotiable in the built environment, yet many of the professionals responsible for delivering net zero strategies are not equipped with the scientific, technical, or regulatory understanding required to do so effectively.

Mina explains that this knowledge gap leads to:

• Misaligned sustainability claims that fail to translate into measurable impact
• Buildings that underperform despite being marketed as ‘net zero’
• Greenwashing—sometimes unintentional—due to misunderstandings of carbon accounting

“It’s not that people are deliberately misleading others—many simply don’t know the full technical implications of what they’re committing to.”

This is why climate literacy must be treated as a core competency, not just for sustainability consultants, but for architects, engineers, developers, policymakers, and financial decision-makers.

A Science-Based Approach: The Net Zero Carbon Building Standard

One of the most promising developments in tackling these issues is the Net Zero Carbon Building Standard (NZCBS), a UK-based initiative aiming to set science-backed energy and carbon targets for real estate projects.

Mina has played an integral role in shaping the framework, which aims to define what “net zero” truly means for the built environment, ensuring companies can no longer make vague or misleading claims without accountability.

“If we cannot join forces, we will never be able to truly understand where we stand—and if we don’t know where we stand, we cannot map the route to net zero.”

The NZCBS pilot phase is currently underway, allowing businesses to test its methodologies and refine the approach before its full-scale launch later this year. Mina encourages industry professionals to actively engage with the standard now, rather than waiting for it to become a regulatory requirement.

Beyond Silos: Why Collaboration is Key

One of the biggest roadblocks to effective climate action in the built environment is fragmentation. Too often, different stakeholders—architects, engineers, developers, investors, and regulators—approach sustainability from disconnected perspectives.

“We need to eliminate this sense of ownership—where organisations want to ‘lead’ rather than work together. Progress is not about individual recognition; it’s about collective impact.”

The industry needs greater alignment, where sustainability is integrated from the earliest stages of project planning, rather than being added on as a compliance exercise. This shift requires leadership at all levels—from company boards to project managers—ensuring that sustainability is not just a marketing statement but a structural priority.

Governance: The Guardrail Against Greenwashing

The risk of greenwashing is one of the biggest challenges in sustainability today. While some organizations intentionally overstate their progress, many others simply fail to measure their impact accurately, leading to claims that don’t hold up under scrutiny.

For Mina, strong governance is the most important factor in ensuring sustainability commitments are real, measurable, and aligned with long-term business objectives.

“If you don’t have governance in place, you will struggle to ensure accountability. The board and leadership teams must understand that net zero is not just a goal—it’s an ongoing responsibility.”

This means:

✔ Embedding sustainability education into leadership training programs
✔ Ensuring sustainability claims are independently verified
✔ Making science-based decision-making the norm, not the exception

A Call to Action: Climate Literacy as a Non-Negotiable

When asked what single change could accelerate progress in the built environment, Mina’s answer was clear:

“Climate literacy. If we could all have the same foundational knowledge of sustainability—its challenges, solutions, and interdependencies—we could make better decisions, avoid unintended consequences, and scale impact faster.”

Rather than relying on short-term initiatives, the industry must invest in long-term education, knowledge-sharing, and governance structures that ensure sustainability is understood, applied, and enforced at every stage of development.

The future of sustainable construction will not be shaped by ambition alone—it will be shaped by those who have the knowledge and leadership to turn ambition into action.

In the quest to achieve net-zero targets, the construction industry faces a unique challenge—the urgent need to bridge the green skills gap. Amanda Williams, the Head of Environmental Sustainability at the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), sheds light on this critical issue. Her insights underscore the importance of embedding sustainability competencies into every role within the sector, not just specialised green jobs. Drawing on her extensive experience, Amanda shares how the construction industry can cultivate a workforce capable of building a greener future.

From her early years growing up on a family farm to her career spanning academia, corporate roles, and policy work, Amanda’s journey reflects a lifelong commitment to environmental stewardship. Her role at CIOB allows her to drive change on an industry-wide level, providing her with what she calls “an enormous potential impact” through CIOB’s network of 50,000 professionals globally. She is passionate about ensuring that the construction sector remains resilient, sustainable, and inclusive, urging everyone within the industry to engage in sustainability efforts.

The Green Skills Gap: More Than Just Green Jobs

For Amanda, the green skills gap extends far beyond the creation of specialised roles such as retrofit coordinators or biodiversity specialists. She argues that true sustainability in construction will only be achieved when green skills are embedded across all roles in the industry.

“Sustainability needs to be in everyone’s job description, not just reserved for specialists,”

Amanda emphasises .

The challenge, as Amanda explains, is twofold. First, the industry faces a shortage of workers with the necessary technical skills to perform green jobs. Second, there is a need for individuals in traditional roles—plumbers, electricians, builders, and project managers—to develop competencies in sustainable practices. “We also need people in existing trades to have those green skills as well,” Amanda notes, explaining that these workers will need new skills and knowledge to adapt to sustainable materials, modern construction methods, and energy-efficient retrofitting .

Breaking Down the Barriers to Sustainability Skills

Amanda identifies several barriers that have contributed to the green skills gap, particularly within construction. These include insufficient investment in green skills training, a lack of awareness and interest in green jobs, and misconceptions about the industry. Additionally, Amanda points to a cultural challenge: many workers feel that green skills are not relevant to their current roles. Changing this mindset, she believes, is essential.

“Underinvestment in green skills has held the industry back,” Amanda asserts. Many educational institutions and training programmes have been slow to prioritise sustainability education, and industry recruiters often overlook green skills in their hiring criteria. As Amanda puts it,

“we can’t rely on sustainability practitioners to solve this for us operating in silos; it has to be embedded in everything we do, in all our processes, and in everybody’s roles” .

Flexible and Accessible Training for a Diverse Workforce

Amanda advocates for a collaborative approach to closing the green skills gap, calling on the government, educational institutions, and industry stakeholders to support flexible training solutions. One proposal she highlights is a government-funded “Green Skills Fund” that would make training more accessible and affordable. Such a fund, Amanda explains, could cover apprenticeships, upskilling for existing workers, and new green certifications.

Amanda envisions a training ecosystem that accommodates different learning styles and schedules, with options ranging from virtual classes and on-the-job training to flexible, hands-on learning experiences. “We need to think about…scaling up capacity, but also making training accessible to people in existing trades, not just new entrants,” Amanda explains, underscoring the importance of reaching those already in full-time roles who may want to add green skills to their repertoire .

She also believes that industry leaders should partner with professional institutions, such as CIOB, to integrate green competencies into ongoing professional development. As Amanda notes, membership in a professional institution like the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment has been instrumental in her own career progression, offering both technical training and the opportunity to build transferable skills like critical thinking and leadership.

Empowering the Workforce to Tackle Real-World Sustainability Challenges

Amanda’s role at CIOB allows her to influence sustainability across the construction industry in a way she has not experienced in previous roles. Unlike her former positions, where she focused on reducing the environmental impact of a single organisation, her current role emphasises industry-wide change. She collaborates with CIOB’s various directorates, including membership, communications, and policy teams, to support professionals in integrating sustainability into their work.

Through CIOB’s Continuing Professional Development (CPD) offerings, Amanda and her team provide industry members with resources and training to help them navigate the green transition. “Our members are working in all corners of the built environment,” she explains, noting that the organisation’s broad reach enables it to drive change on a large scale. “The potential impact is huge,” Amanda says, expressing her commitment to ensuring that sustainability becomes a central consideration in every aspect of the industry  .

The Social Responsibility of the Construction Industry

A recurring theme in Amanda’s insights is the idea of social responsibility within the construction industry. For Amanda, bridging the green skills gap offers an opportunity not only to meet net-zero targets but also to foster a “just transition” for workers transitioning from high-carbon industries, such as oil and gas. “The construction industry could be a receiver industry for those workers, which would help close the skills gap and secure a just transition,” she remarks .

Amanda also highlights the need to address the gender gap and broader diversity issues within the sustainability and construction sectors. She points out that the industry has traditionally struggled with an “image problem,” which has deterred many young people, particularly women, from considering careers in construction.

“There is a shortage of women interested in green-skilled jobs within the built environment,”

she notes, adding that a key solution lies in rebranding green skills as universal skills relevant to all roles and industries.

From Technical Skills to Systems Thinking: A Holistic Approach to Sustainability

Beyond technical training, Amanda stresses the importance of what she calls “systems thinking” in sustainability. She believes that addressing the green skills gap will require construction professionals to develop a holistic understanding of how their roles fit into the broader environmental picture. This type of thinking, she explains, will help the industry avoid unintended consequences, such as those that arise when a poorly planned retrofit inadvertently causes moisture damage to older buildings.

Amanda believes that systems thinking should be central to any green skills training, enabling professionals to look beyond the immediate tasks at hand and consider the long-term impacts of their work. “Sustainability issues are complex and cut across disciplines,” she remarks, “and systems thinking helps us look at the big picture” .

A Call to Action: Closing the Green Skills Gap

For Amanda, closing the green skills gap is not just about upskilling individuals; it’s about transforming the construction sector into a sustainable and resilient industry. She believes that industry leaders, educational institutions, and government entities must work together to build a pipeline of green talent. “We need to acknowledge just how critical it is that we address it,” she says, highlighting the urgency of training skilled professionals to retrofit existing buildings and meet climate goals.

The construction industry, responsible for nearly 40% of global emissions, plays a pivotal role in the green transition. As Amanda points out, 80% of the buildings used today will still be in use by 2050, making retrofitting essential to achieving net-zero targets.

“Failure to deliver a large-scale programme of retrofit for existing buildings is going to put net-zero targets at risk,”

she warns, underscoring the high stakes involved .

Amanda’s message is clear: sustainability in construction is not optional. The industry must act swiftly to develop green skills across the board, empowering every worker to contribute to a sustainable future. “It’s not just a huge challenge; it’s also an opportunity,” she concludes, calling on everyone within the construction industry to embrace sustainability as a collective responsibility.

Final Reflections: A Vision for the Future

Reflecting on her career, Amanda expresses both hope and urgency for the future of sustainability in construction. Her vision is one where green skills are woven into the fabric of the industry, allowing construction professionals to make a positive impact on the environment. “I hope that by the end of my career, I’ll see a genuine shift—a built environment that values sustainability as core to every role,” she shares, adding that every small step contributes to a larger movement towards a greener future .

Amanda’s insights serve as a rallying call for the construction industry to build a resilient, sustainable, and inclusive workforce equipped to tackle the complex challenges of the 21st century. Through her work at CIOB, she is paving the way for a future where green skills are no longer a speciality, but a standard across the industry.