Explore every episode of the podcast The Future We Build
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The One With... The Architect That Says the UK Has Lost Its Edge | 02 Sep 2026 | 01:01:50 | |
Andrew Waugh co-founded Waugh Thistleton Architects nearly 30 years ago, straight out of college, and has spent his career pushing bio-based materials and low-carbon construction into an industry still dominated by concrete and steel. He's Alex's first architect guest on the show — a deliberate choice, given how much of the conversation about sustainable real estate happens downstream of decisions made right at the start of a project. The two get into what actually happens when an architect's original vision meets the financial reality of an investment-led development process — where it survives, where it gets quietly cost-engineered out, and whether that's inevitable. Andrew argues that most of what looks like compromise is really a failure to listen early, and that the UK's real blind spot isn't ambition — it's believing it's already ahead of Europe and the US on carbon. Listeners come away with a clearer view of where the friction in the design-to-delivery value chain actually sits, why a research-led architecture practice looks different from a design-led one, and what Andrew thinks needs to change in government policy before the rest of the industry follows. ## Key Timestamps - **[00:02:00]** Andrew founded Waugh Thistleton straight out of university - **[00:04:00]** Why Alex wanted his first architect on the show - **[00:07:00]** Starting a practice in mid-1990s Hoxton on youthful confidence and energy - **[00:15:00]** Why Andrew avoids thinking about his own architectural legacy - **[00:16:00]** Designing for the people using a building now, not for how it will be remembered - **[00:20:00]** Why listening to budget and speed concerns early avoids compromise later - **[00:22:00]** Why most buildings are still concrete and glass despite new materials and AI - **[00:24:00]** The UK's blind spot: assuming it leads on sustainability when it's falling behind Europe and the US - **[00:29:00]** What London's historic architecture reveals about successful placemaking - **[00:33:00]** Why US planning authorities and cost consultants collaborate from day one, unlike the UK - **[00:38:00]** Why a third of Waugh Thistleton's turnover goes into pure research - **[00:39:00]** The real innovation isn't timber — it's industry acceptance and policy change - **[00:44:00]** The insurance quote that jumped 50% for choosing to build in timber - **[00:46:00]** Why the Hackitt Report's call to fix construction process became fixing regulations instead - **[00:53:00]** Andrew's message to sustainability teams: influence starts in the room, not just at board level - **[00:56:00]** Closing question — the one change Andrew would make: government-led low-carbon procurement - **[00:58:00]** Materials transparency: where does the sand, rebar and glass in your building actually come from - **[00:59:00]** Andrew's current frustration: wanting more collaboration across the investment and construction process ## Organisations Mentioned Waugh Thistleton Architects, Nuveen, RIBA, National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture, Department for Education (DfE), Network Rail, EU Horizon ## Reports & Tools Mentioned - Building a Safer Future (the Hackitt Report): --- *The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. *This is the final episode of Season 2. Filmed at 17 Hanover Square, Podcast Rooms, London Produced by Atalor ## Follow the Show - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build ## Connect with Alex - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds ## More About Our Guest - Andrew Waugh — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-waugh-5b4b4a53/ - Waugh Thistleton Architects — Website: https://waughthistleton.com/ | |||
| The One With… the Man Who Wants the Best Investors to Hold the Worst Assets — Chris Pyke, GRESB | 26 Aug 2026 | 01:02:08 | |
Stars aren't quality. That's the quiet admission at the heart of this episode. Chris Pyke is Chief Innovation Officer at GRESB — the benchmark that shapes how institutional capital flows across real estate globally. He helped build the five-star system. And he'll tell you it was designed to rank funds, not signal quality. Investors have been reading it wrong for a decade. GRESB is now redesigning it from the ground up. Alex pushes on the reporting burden, the bunching at the top of the scoring distribution, how investors actually use the data beyond headline scores, and whether GRESB can shift from an annual retrospective into a real-time decision-making tool. In this episode: Key Timestamps What you'll learn about Organisations mentioned: GRESB, USGBC, GRI, APG, PGGM, MSCI, INREV, EPRA, Schneider Electric, Cushman & Wakefield, Measurabl, PSP Investments, JLL, LaSalle Investment Management, Nuveen, CBRE, BlackRock The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Obolife showroom (obolife.com), 8 Goswell Road, London — with thanks to Gary Helm. Post production by Atalor. Follow the show Connect with Alex: alex@thefuturewebuildpodcast.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds More about our guest | |||
| The One With… the Aerospace Engineer who spotted Real Estate's broken system — and built a firm to fix it | 19 Aug 2026 | 00:49:03 | |
This episode is sponsored by MapMortar - the capital planning management tool that turns portfolio risk from a spreadsheet headache into a boardroom-ready capital plan in around 50% of the time and cost. Check out https://mapmortar.io Basil Demeroutis founded FORE Partnership in 2012 with one conviction: sustainability and financial performance aren't in tension — the industry just built a system that treats them as if they are. Trained as an aerospace engineer at Cornell and shaped by years managing the real estate portfolio of Jeff Skoll's family office, Basil thinks in systems. And the system, he argues, is broken — not just the buildings, but the procurement, the capital allocation, and the culture that produced them. This episode goes deep on what innovation in real estate actually looks like in practice. At TBC.London, FORE tracked 2 million components from 565 suppliers. At One Poultry, they partnered with Breakthrough Energy and UKGBC to build a Commercial Retrofit Innovation Map — 160 points of intervention, 100+ products evaluated, 16 adopted — to stop good ideas dying at RIBA Stage 3. And at CADWorks Glasgow, switching to all-electric mid-build didn't cost more. It saved £200,000. Key timestamps [00:04:00] - From Cornell aerospace engineering to Jeff Skoll's family office to founding FORE Organisations mentioned: What you'll learn about The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Follow the show Connect with Alex More about our guests | |||
| The One With... the Engineer Turned AI Innovator and the 300-Year-Old Estate — Ranjeet Bhalerao & Simon Tranter | 12 Aug 2026 | 01:05:24 | |
This episode is sponsored by MapMortar - the capital planning management tool that turns portfolio risk from a spreadsheet headache into a boardroom-ready capital plan in around 50% of the time and cost. Check out https://mapmortar.io Ranjeet Bhalerao left his consultancy job after a £100k study could model just 5 of 300 buildings. He founded MapMortar.io to fix that. Simon Tranter has to decarbonise nearly 900 mostly-listed buildings across Marylebone by 2040 — and he's the one actually using the tool. One sells the fix. The other tests it in the real world. Alex has never used it, so he asks the awkward question: does AI-led retrofit planning change what actually gets built — or just produce a better-looking version of the problem? In this episode: Timestamps: Organisations mentioned: More about our guests: Follow the show: Recorded at Podcast Rooms, 17 Hanover Square, London. Edited by Atalor. New episodes weekly. | |||
| The One With... the Team Who Mapped Every Barrier to Scaling Sustainability in Real Estate — UKGBC | 05 Aug 2026 | 01:05:26 | |
This episode is sponsored by MapMortar - the capital planning management tool that turns portfolio risk from a spreadsheet headache into a boardroom-ready capital plan in around 50% of the time and cost. Check out https://mapmortar.io — The built environment doesn't have an innovation problem. It has a scaling problem. Emily-Rose Garnett and Philippa Birch-Wood of the UK Green Building Council authored the report mapping why sustainable solutions in real estate keep dying in pilot. Alex — who once ran innovation inside a major property firm — recognised every barrier in it. The solutions we need mostly already exist. The problem is systemic, not technical: risk-averse cultures, a certification catch-22 that starves materials innovators, and pilots never designed to scale. In this episode: Timestamps: Organisations Mentioned
Reports & Tools Mentioned
The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Recorded at Podcast Rooms. With thanks to the production team at Atalor. Follow the Show and connect with Alex
More About Our Guests
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| The One With... the QS Who Went All In On AI | 29 Jul 2026 | 01:04:49 | |
If AI has only made us 20% faster in five years, James Garner calls that abject failure. Everyone in the built environment is talking about AI. Very little of that conversation is about what people are actually doing with it today. James Garner has spent 20 years as a quantity surveyor and now leads AI and data at Gleeds. He sits on the RICS panel that wrote the profession's new AI standard, and hosts Project Flux. This conversation is about practice, not projection — where AI is genuinely changing decisions, and where the industry is quietly kidding itself. In this episode: → Why the real picture of AI adoption is "jagged" — brilliant and broken inside the same firm Timestamps: [00:01:00] Twenty years a QS — and a 1990s dissertation on digitising construction The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. Produced by the team at Atalor FOLLOW THE SHOW 🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-we-build/id1877617346 CONNECT WITH ALEX
MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST James Garner, Senior Director and Global Head of AI and Data, Gleeds | |||
| The one with... the Housebuilder Seeking To Decarbonise 8500 Homes A Year | 22 Jul 2026 | 00:52:49 | |
Bellway builds around 8,500 homes a year — and a large share of its carbon footprint comes not from construction, but from the homes people live in after they buy them. Jamie Bursnell, Group Head of Technical and Innovation at Bellway Homes, has spent years working out how you actually decarbonise a new home at scale. His conclusions upend a few assumptions. The gas boiler won't be banned — the compliance tool will simply make it impossible to build with. And the hardest problem isn't technology, it's pricing: with electricity roughly three times the cost of gas, the greener home can cost more to run, and no politician wants to move that cost. In this episode: Timestamps: The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes weekly, filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. 🔗 Show LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build Connect with Alex | |||
| The One With... The Investor Who Switched Sides To Run The Climate Standard For Real Estate | 15 Jul 2026 | 01:06:54 | |
CRREM tells real estate investors whether their assets are Paris-aligned or heading for stranding risk. Andrea Palmer is one year into the role as CRREM's first CEO — appointed after leading ESG integration for PGGM's global listed real estate portfolio, where she was pricing climate risk into valuations before most of the industry was paying attention. She previously worked at LaSalle Investment Management, GRESB, and Triodos. In this conversation she draws a hard line between two ways the industry uses CRREM — and argues that collapsing them is where the confusion starts. The first is transition risk assessment: understanding exposure, pricing it, and deciding whether to mitigate, accept, or get paid for it. The second is portfolio climate alignment — a different intent that can be achieved through capital reallocation without any CapEx. Andrea also addresses whether grid decarbonisation gives asset owners a free pass, reveals methodology assumptions being retired, and explains the deliberate strategy to embed CRREM into existing tech platforms rather than building a standalone tool. Key timestamps [00:00:00] Andrea's path from Chicago to Amsterdam via LaSalle and GRESB [00:06:00] How she approached CRREM — and what the first year has been like [00:13:00] The two buckets: transition risk assessment vs climate alignment [00:21:00] Grid decarbonisation assumptions baked into CRREM — policies not targets [00:25:00] Top-down pathways vs bottom-up asset reality — the pizza oven problem [00:36:00] Expanding to climate zone pathways for the US and Australia [00:39:30] Data centres: why they need an entirely new methodology [00:42:30] London Climate Week — Technical Council and the 0.8 version of CRREM's 2030 vision [00:48:00] Hong Kong — self-organised data sharing and the open contribution model [00:50:30] The one-to-many strategy and why Andrea doesn't want another login [00:54:30] Embodied carbon — relevant but not ready [00:57:00] Magic wand: data sharing across the board [01:00:00] Education at LP and banking level — the critical missing piece Organizations mentioned CRREM Foundation PGGM / PFZW LaSalle Investment Management GRESB Triodos Investment Management EPRA Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) APG Asset Management International Energy Agency (IEA) CBRE The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Obolife showroom, 8 Goswell Road, London - with thanks to Gary Helm Post production by Atalor Follow the show LinkedIn: The Future We Build Connect with Alex Connect on LinkedIn More about our guest Connect with Andrea Palmer on LinkedIn CRREM Foundation: https://crrem.org | |||
| The One With... the World’s First Green Bond in Real Estate — Anna Denell, Vasakronan | 08 Jul 2026 | 00:20:17 | |
Anna Denell is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Vasakronan, a Swedish office real estate company managing 2.4 million square metres across Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Sweden’s other major cities. Owned by three state-controlled pension funds, Vasakronan has been embedding sustainability into its business model since 2008 — nearly two decades before it became a regulatory expectation for most European operators. What listeners come away with is a rare thing: a long-run case study where the financial and sustainability arguments genuinely converge, built on 15 years of integrated, audited reporting. Anna also lands a pointed critique of the EU’s CSRD rollback — arguing that one word change in the omnibus legislation has inadvertently exempted nearly the entire European real estate market from the reporting obligations that were beginning to drive real capital allocation change.
Companies & organisations mentioned
The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed on location at GBCI Circle, Milan. Follow the Show LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-we-build/id1877617346 Connect with AlexLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds More About Our GuestAnna Denell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annadenell/ Vasakronan: https://vasakronan.se/en | |||
| The One With... The Sustainability Valuer - There's No Such Thing As a Green Premium | 01 Jul 2026 | 00:56:23 | |
Sam Carson leads sustainability within CBRE’s Valuations practice — a role that sits entirely separate from the firm’s sustainability function, by design. After fifteen years in consultancy, Sam joined CBRE to solve the question the sector had been dancing around for years: what does sustainability actually do to value? It’s a question that turns out to be harder than it sounds, and far more consequential than most people appreciate. Key Timestamps
The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. Follow the Show LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-we-build/id1877617346 Connect with Alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds More About Our GuestSam Carson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samcarson/ CBRE: https://www.cbre.com | |||
| Season 2 Trailer - The Future We Build | 29 Jun 2026 | 00:04:18 | |
The Future We Build is back! After a first season spent mapping the landscape — exploring where capital is flowing, how sustainability frameworks are being applied, and what it means to lead change from inside real estate — host Alex Edds returns with a sharper question for Season 2: what does it actually take to execute? Season one made one thing clear: the ambitions are there, the tools are increasingly available, but a stubborn gap remains between intention and delivery. Season 2 closes in on that gap. Alex speaks to the people working at the sharp end — measuring performance, valuing sustainability, assessing climate risk on the P&L, and navigating the friction that comes with trying to change a fragmented industry from within. The conversations span investors, developers, cost consultants, sustainability leaders, property managers, and innovators in construction and housebuilding. What makes the show worth your time is what it doesn't do. There are no polished conference presentations here. These are honest conversations — about what is working, what isn't, and why the distance between strategy and execution is still the defining challenge facing sustainability in the built environment.
What you'll learn
The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. This show is edited by the wonderful team at Atalor.
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| The one with.. The AI provocateur. Part 2. Agency and the Architecture of Change - with Antony Slumbers | 22 Apr 2026 | 00:46:25 | |
Antony Slumbers is one of the most consistently provocative thinkers at the intersection of AI and real estate. In this second of a two-part conversation — recorded before the recent stock market turbulence that he references mid-episode — Alex and Antony pick up where they left off and go further: into the future of AI hardware, the geopolitics of energy, the sustainability implications of large language models, and what it will actually take for real estate businesses to transform rather than just tinker. Key Timestamps • [00:41:00] The exponential efficiency curve —why the cost of a given level of AI intelligence has fallen 10x per year for the last three to four years • [00:42:00] Right-sizing AI models — why state-of-the-art frontier models are already overkill for most real estate tasks, and what that means for cost • [00:43:00] The Apple business model for AI — how open source models will converge with on-device computing to shift processing away from data centres • [00:45:00] Data centre energy and the 3% myth —why the macro figure is less alarming than the localised grid constraints in Virginia and across the US • [00:47:00] AI optimisation of the built environment — why DeepMind cut Google's data centre energy use by 40%, and why most buildings leave 10–20% on the table • [00:51:00] Materials science as the next frontier — DeepMind's investment in low-cost sustainable materials and the question of when solar glazing becomes viable at scale • [00:54:00] Europe's innovation deficit — why high energy prices create demand but regulatory instinct stifles supply, and the poor storytelling around net zero • [00:58:00] Sustainability as a byproduct of technical buildings — Antony's argument that a fully sensored, efficientbuilding is already most of the way to sustainable • [00:59:00] Institutional mandates haven't changed — European investors still require sustainable assets, they juststopped saying ESG out loud • [01:01:00] The hospitality niche — real estate assets designed for digital detox, 'human as the new luxury', and the demand side that might pull sustainable development forward • [01:04:00] How to eat the sustainability elephant — Antony's argument for ignoring what you can't move and doing what you can within your own patch • [01:07:00] The competitive threat to incumbents — how well-funded spinouts with domain expertise and AI-first architecture could undercut established firms on margin • [01:09:00] Alex on building a sustainability duediligence tool in three evenings using Claude Code — and the question of what actually creates defensible value • [01:11:00] The three components of real AI value — data access, orchestration across systems, and trust; why software is the easiest part • [01:15:00] Hallucination and the trust problem — why even cited, credible-looking sources can be entirely fabricated, and why domain knowledge is the verification layer • [01:16:00] The CRE Automation Matrix — Antony'sfour-quadrant framework for deciding which real estate tasks to automate: plumbing vs cognition, easy vs hard to verify • [01:19:00] Making sustainability economically viable for the whole market — how AI could bring the cost of high-quality analysis down from Blackstone-level to mid-market • [01:20:00] Closing question: What one thing would Antony want changed? The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly.Filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds Antony Slumbers • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonyslumbers • Website: https://www.antonyslumbers.com | |||
| The one with... the AI provocateur. Part 1. The real estate countdown | 15 Apr 2026 | 00:35:24 | |
Antony Slumbers has spent more than two decades at the intersection of real estate and technology — first as a software company founder writing property management systems, then as one of the most widely read voices on AI in the built environment. He runs the Generative AI for Real Estate People course, now on its 50th cohort, and has become a go-to thinker for anyone trying to understand what artificial intelligence actually means for how this industry operates. This episode is the first of a two-part conversation. Part One focuses on the here and now: where AI has already changed the game for real estate professionals, what genuine productivity transformation looks like (not 5% faster — 80% different), and why real estate, despite its slow cycles, has more reason than almost any other sector to pay close attention to technology right now. Key Timestamps• [00:06:30] Antony's background: 20+ years in PropTech, software businesses, and how he became a leading voice on AI in real estate • [00:09:00] Why the 'use cases' conversation has become almost meaningless — and how generative AI has outgrown the 'text, code, images' framing • [00:09:45] André Karpathy's 'kernel of an operating system' idea and what natural language computing actually means in practice • [00:11:00] Why cracking Excel changes everything for real estate — and what that means for how analysts actually spend their time • [00:12:30] The data problem: why most real estate firms' data is still 'pretty rubbish' and why that has to be fixed before AI can do its work • [00:13:00] Inverting the 70/30 ratio: from 70% wrangling models to 70% thinking about inputs and outcomes • [00:14:30] Why real estate developers need to pay more attention to technology than almost anyone — the seven-to-ten-year gestation problem • [00:19:30] From SaaS dashboards to outcomes-as-a-service: where the market is heading and who is already building for it • [00:21:00] The co-pilot obsession in real estate firms — and why locking people into inferior internal tools creates a governance vs capability tension • [00:22:00] From engineers writing code to engineers managing agents: how Karpathy went from 80% human/20% machine to the reverse • [00:23:30] Why JLL, CBRE and Cushman & Wakefield lost 25% of their market cap in two days — and what the market is actually pricing in • [00:24:00] The structural shift: from human-plus-software to agents-plus-APIs, and what that means for building management • [00:26:00] Domain expertise as the killer advantage: why the people getting the most out of AI right now are those who already know what wrong looks like • [00:27:30] The junior talent paradox: cutting graduate intake may look efficient now but hollows out domain knowledge in a decade • [00:31:00] Bloom's Two Sigma problem and the prospect of AI as a personal tutor that compresses years of professional development • [00:35:30] Closing out Part One: the environmental and social paradox of AI that will be the focus of Part Two Organisations Mentioned • OpenAI • Anthropic • Google DeepMind / Google Gemini • Tesla • Salesforce • JLL • CBRE • Cushman & Wakefield • LaSalle Investment Management • Hines • CQuel • 2150 • UK Green Building Council • Better Buildings Partnership • McKinsey & Company • Knight Frank • NREP • GREEN • Google (NotebookLM) • Microsoft The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly.Filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. • LinkedIn: The Future We Build on LinkedIn • LinkedIn: Alex Edds on LinkedIn • Antony Slumbers — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonyslumbers • Antony's newsletter and writing: https://antonyslumbers.com | |||
| The one with... Property Management 2.0 — Moving from Data Reporter to Value Creator. | 08 Apr 2026 | 00:45:25 | |
Carl Brooks leads sustainability for CBRE's property management business — a role he built from scratch when he joined as the first embedded sustainability hire in the PM division. With a career spanning 25 years from waste management consultancy to developer-operator roles at Hammerson and MAPP, Carl now oversees sustainability across one of the largest property management platforms on the planet: 19,000 buildings, 3.2 billion square feet, across 41 countries. This episode is a ground-level look at what it actually takes to deliver on the sustainability ambitions that investors and landlords are writing into contracts. The central tension Alex and Carl dig into is one that anyone who's sat on either side of a property management agreement will recognise: investors want more — more data, more insight, more active performance management — but the property management model is structurally low-margin, fragmented, and historically designed for risk reporting rather than value creation. Something has to give. The question is whether the model gets rebuilt around genuine performance, or whether the pressure just keeps compressing margins until the system breaks. Key Timestamps • [00:00:00] : how does property management actually deliver on sustainability commitments made at investment level? • [00:03:50] Carl's career origin:, working with Diageo and Nike out of a seven-person office on the South Bank. • [00:05:00] Moving into real estate 18 years ago — starting at Hammerson • [00:06:00] Why Carl joined CBRE: the opportunity to build the first embedded, decentralised sustainability function in the PM business from scratch — at global scale. • [00:07:00] The "big green machine" problem: how siloed business lines inside firms like CBRE and JLL mean clients see one brand but get fragmented services • [00:10:00] The spectrum of client maturity globally: three broad contractual buckets • [00:12:30] CBRE's PM scale: 19,000 buildings, 3.2 billion square feet, 41 countries. • [00:18:00] The origin of the BBP Managing Agents Partnership: . • [00:20:45] What the specialist sustainability team actually looks like: • [00:21:30] Why CBRE standardised on a single data platform. • [00:24:00] The "hourglass" model: a specialist sustainability team sitting at the centre. • [00:26:00] AI-assisted triage at portfolio scale: virtual retrofit modelling, climate risk adaptation, benchmark analysis • [00:29:00] The real people problem in PM: on-ground building teams care deeply about their buildings • [00:30:00] "We want 20% more for 10% less" — the recontracting dynamic that is slowly destroying the value of property management • [00:33:00] COVID as a watershed moment: property owners suddenly understood who was keeping the lights on and the doors open. • [00:34:00] Centralised delivery vs. engaged delivery: why implementing solutions without involving building teams almost always reopens the performance gap • [00:39:00] Carl's closing answer: he wants sustainability to be the actual objective — not just a filter applied to investment decisions. • [00:42:00] The data blind spot: social impact, occupier engagement, and placemaking generate huge amounts of value that never gets captured, structured, or reported Organisations Mentioned • CBRE • JLL • LaSalle Investment Management • MAPP (previously referenced as MAP) • Hammerson • Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) • BBP Managing Agents Partnership • UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) • DeepKi • Measurabl • Diageo • Nike • Amazon The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Work.Life Farringdon Follow the Show • LinkedIn: The Future We Build Connect with Alex • LinkedIn: Alex Edds More About Our Guest • Carl Brooks on LinkedIn • CBRE Property Management: cbre.com | |||
| The one with... the $140bn Real Estate investor. On embedding sustainability, the ESG backlash, and data! | 01 Apr 2026 | 00:43:35 | |
Abigail Dean is Head of Strategic Insights at Nuveen, one of the largest real estate investment managers in the world. Her role is unusual: sustainability doesn't sit in a silo at Nuveen — it lives alongside research and PropTech under a single team, deliberately designed to give a more unified view of what's actually driving real estate value. Abigail came up through sustainability at JLL before taking on this broad role at Nuveen, and that journey — from specialist to strategic integrator — shapes everything she talks about in this conversation. The central question Alex and Abigail wrestle with is one that every sustainability leader in investment management will recognise: how do you make this stuff land? Not just at theinvestment committee — that, Abigail argues, is too late — but embedded into deal sourcing, underwriting, due diligence, and asset management from day one.They get into the mechanics: how voting rights at IC actually create accountability upstream, why having ex-asset managers inside the sustainability team changes everything, and how Nuveen is navigating the anti-ESG noise from the US without changing what they actually do. They also talk about the housing crisis, the role of private capital in affordable housing, and the data problem that Abigail — after 20 years in the industry — still finds staggering. If you're a sustainability professional, an investment manager, or anyone trying to understand how institutional capital is actually making decisions right now, this one's worth your time. Key Timestamps • [00:01:00] Alex introduces Abigail and her unusual role: sustainability, research, and PropTech under one team at Nuveen • [00:03:00] Abigail explains the logic of the team • [00:04:00] How mega trends, demographic shifts, and the energy transition are interconnected • [00:07:00] Nuveen's scope beyond real estate: infrastructure and natural capital, and what cross-asset collaboration on strategic insights looks like • [00:08:00] How sustainability and research feed into the investment committee • [00:10:00] Why the IC vote is too late: the real work happens at pre-IC, underwriting, and due diligence — and what that looks like in practice • [00:12:00] The debate: should sustainability sit on the IC? Abigail and Alex agree to disagree, and both have a point • [00:15:00] How Nuveen's sustainability team is structured — and the shift from roughly 50/50 reporting vs. strategy to two-thirds execution and client engagement • [00:16:00] Why hiring ex-asset managers into the sustainability team was a game-changer for integration and credibility with the investment side • [00:20:00] The anti-ESG backlash in the US: how serious is it, and how Nuveen is navigating it without changing what theyactually do • [00:21:00] Reframing sustainability as building efficiency: why every investor agrees with it when you strip away the labels • [00:24:00] Tracking corporate SBTi commitments — still rising — and why US city-level regulations like Local Law 97 may actually have more teeth than European equivalents • [00:27:00] The housing crisis and private capital • [00:29:00] What government needs to do to unlock private capital for affordable housing • [00:33:00] What problem are you trying to solve? • [00:37:00] Is the green premium real — and does it roll out from prime to secondary markets • [00:40:00] If you could change one thing The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Work.Life Farringdon • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds • Abigail Dean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigail-dean-nuveen • Nuveen Real Estate: https://www.nuveen.com/real-estate | |||
| The one with ... the VC aiming to remove a gigaton of carbon from the urban environment | 25 Mar 2026 | 00:50:00 | |
What does it actually take to back the companies rebuilding our cities? Rahul Parekh is a Partner at 2150, the venture capital fund created by and for one of the Nordics' largest real estate investors — now under the Urban Partners brand — a €20 billion platform that combines real estate capital with venture capital to accelerate the adoption of climate technologies in the built environment. 2150 has just closed its second fund at €210 million, bringing their total AUM to nearly half a billion euros, deployed into what they call Gigacorn companies — businesses with thepotential to remove gigatons of carbon while generating real financial returns. But the tension is real: venture capital needs returns in 7–10 years, real estate moves slowly, and procurement cycles are brutal. So is VC even the right tool for this problem? In this conversation, Rahul and Alex challenge both sides — why innovation adoption in real estate is still so broken, what it actually takes for cleantech founders to raise capital and break into the sector, and why the next wave of climate tech might look a lot more like AI than renewable energy. Key timestamps: • [00:03:04] From Goldman Sachs to VC — Rahul'scareer path into climate investing • [00:06:08] The origin story of 2150 — how a realestate business decided to back innovation • [00:07:43] Thinking in cities, not buildings —the urban tech thesis • [00:09:13] The climate tech funding gap — whybuilt environment was being ignored in 2020 • [00:10:56] Where 2150 invests — Series A &B, execution risk over technology risk • [00:12:39] Hardware vs. software — why you needboth to have real impact • [00:13:15] Portfolio construction — findingwinners across software, hardware, and the combination • [00:17:44] Ember: building the electric buscompany from the ground up in Scotland • [00:22:47] The building automation problem — whythe journey from £10m to £50m ARR is so hard • [00:24:13] How the VC-real estate relationshipactually works in practice — and where it doesn't • [00:28:35] Lux Well: next-generation vacuuminsulated glass and what it takes to displace incumbents • [00:30:41] The funding gap for hardware founders— and the credit product that doesn't exist yet • [00:35:08] Data centres, energy demand, and whythe grid won't cope — from 2% to 25–30% of global electricity • [00:37:07] AI and scrap metal — how Meatal isunlocking primary-grade aluminium from secondary sources • [00:39:01] Circular economy in the builtenvironment — the promise of material passporting and the logistics problem • [00:42:07] Climate tech 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — how themarket has changed three times in six years • [00:45:03] The direct energy market — cuttingout the middleman between generators and corporates • [00:46:29] If you could change one thing? Companies mentioned in this Episode • 2150 • Urban Partners • Goldman Sachs • Global Founders Capital • Ember (electric bus company, Scotland) • Lux Well (vacuum insulated glass) • Meatal (AI-powered secondary metals trading) • JLL • LaSalle Investment Management • Stagecoach / Megabus The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. LinkedIn: The Future We Build LinkedIn: Connect with Alex Edds Connect with Rahul Parekh on LinkedIn — 2150 on LinkedIn Learn more about 2150: 2150.vc | |||
| The one with... the marketplace innovator and why nobody wants another dashboard | 18 Mar 2026 | 00:43:37 | |
Commercial real estate has no shortage of decarbonisation plans. What it lacks is the infrastructure to execute them. Pål Hauff Hvattum, CEO of CQuel, knows this from the inside out — and he's spent the last two years building the solution. Spun out of Hines Global Ventures with Aroundtown as a second shareholder, CQuel is a tech-enabled implementationplatform for commercial real estate retrofits. Not another dashboard. Not another consultant. A marketplace that connects vetted retrofit suppliers with asset managers who have a decarbonisation plan sitting in a drawer and no clearpath to execution. Pål brings an unusual perspective: fifteen years building online marketplaces across Europe (including Gumtree), followed by a stint scaling a solar energy marketplace across Europe. Key Timestamps • [00:01:35] — Why This Podcast — Incubating Ideas in Real Estate • [00:02:27] — From Marketplaces to Missions — Pål's Origin Story • [00:05:02] — The Hines Phone Call — How CQuel Was Born • [00:07:49] — Sandbox First: Testing Inside the Portfolio • [00:10:21] — Who Is the Customer and What's the Value Proposition? • [00:11:15] — The 70% Opportunity — Why Light Retrofits Are the Real Play • [00:13:58] — The Three Broken Options: Consultant, In-House, SaaS • [00:14:46] — The Implementation Platform — How CQuel Works • [00:16:08] — The Brief Builder — Why a Better Brief Gets 40% Better Prices • [00:16:53] — A Two-Sided Marketplace — 16-Step Supplier Vetting • [00:24:28] — Two Corporate Parents: Hines Ventures + Aroundtown • [00:28:48] — The Numbers: 80% Time Reduction, 8% Cost Pressure • [00:29:35] — 83 Bids, Five Megawatts, One Procurement Nightmare • [00:31:13] — 200 Hours to 30 — How AI is Tackling Q&A in Tenders • [00:38:09] — The Rate of Retrofit Needs to Triple • [00:39:06] — Why Nobody Wants Another Dashboard • [00:40:55] — What Problem Needs Solving? • [00:41:12] — What Government Must Do ?
Organisations Mentioned • Hines Global Ventures • Aroundtown • CQuel • Otovo (solar marketplace) • Schibsted / Gumtree / eBay • Mac49 (venture builder)
What You'll Learn About • Why the decarbonisation problem is implementation, not planning • How marketplace dynamics apply to commercial real estate retrofit • The three broken models: consultant, in-house team, point SaaS solutions • What a good tender brief is actually worth (hint: up to 40% better pricing) • How AI is cutting procurement time from 200 hours to 30 hours • Why 70% of retrofits are simpler — and more scalable — than the industry thinks • What corporate venture building looks like when it works • Why regulatory clarity matters more than regulatory perfection • Why the retrofit rate needs to triple — and what that demands of the supply chain
About the Show The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London.
Follow the Show LinkedIn The Future We Build
Connect with Alex Email: alex@thefuturewebuildpodcast.com
More About Our Guest | |||
| The one with... Real Estate's data crisis, PropTech growth, AI readiness & the new Real Estate UK | 11 Mar 2026 | 00:44:15 | |
In this episode of The Future We Build, host Alex Edds sits down with Sammy Pahal, Managing Director of the UK Proptech Association (UKPA). As the real estate sector undergoes a massive consolidation with the formation of Real Estate UK, Sammy discusses the evolution of the industry over the last decade. The conversation explores how the dialogue has shifted from "What is proptech?" to "How do we execute digital transformation?". Sammy shares insights on the psychology of change, the necessity of "getting the plumbing right" for AI adoption, and how the UKPA is working with the government to scale technology in housing. Whether you are a tech entrepreneur or a real estate manager, this episode offers a roadmap for navigating the looming AI disruption and realizing the true value of digital tools. Key timestamps:
The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom Follow the show LinkedIn: The Future We Build Website: thefuturewebuildpodcast.com Connect with Alex More about our guest Connect with Sammy Thanks to Jason and Sophia for guiding me through this journey. | |||
| The one with... the ex-Heads of Sustainability. On burnout, role evolution, and going fractional | 04 Mar 2026 | 00:49:24 | |
In this candid episode of The Future We Build, Alex brings together two former heads of sustainability—Robbie Epsom (ex-CBRE Investment Management) and Emily Hamilton (ex-Savills Investment Management)—for what Alex calls "a therapy session." The three discuss why so many senior sustainability leaders have left their roles, what's changed in the market, and where they're channelling their energy next. This is an unusually honest conversation about burnout, the shift from strategic thinking to operational execution, and why the fractional model might be the future of sustainability leadership in real estate. Key Timestamps [00:01:17] - Why are we all ex-heads of sustainability? Setting the scene[00:02:08] - Robbie's journey to fractional advisory[00:05:34] - Emily's transition: losing strategic foresight in "control mode"[00:08:16] - Have we outgrown the role, or has the role outgrown us?[00:11:07] - Sustainability teams now need to justify ROI[00:15:01] - Emily on resilience: asking difficult questions vs. pleasing the client[00:17:14] - Did in-house roles lose the "challenger" voice?[00:18:38] - Infrastructure booming while real estate churns[00:20:00] - Green hushing: "keep our heads down"[00:21:11] - Emily: we've lost the sense of innovation [00:22:07] - Was net zero set with genuine understanding—or peer pressure?[00:27:09] - Emily: nature is now a strategic national security risk (Defra)[00:31:14] - The future of energy as a service[00:32:08] - Emily on ROI: we're not accounting for wider structural benefits[00:33:40] - Parting wisdom for those still in post[00:38:12] - Protecting your energy and mental health[00:40:06] - The emerging network: fractional work as a new collaborative model[00:42:10] - Final question: one thing you'd want from government, business, or individuals[00:46:50] - The AI/data centre nexus exposing supply chain fragility What You'll Learn
Key Resources The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom Follow the show
Connect with Alex
More about our guests
Thanks to Jason and Sophia for guiding me through this journey. | |||
| The one with... the godmothers of green buildings. Now is the time for creativity, collaboration and leadership. | 25 Feb 2026 | 00:46:50 | |
In this special episode, Alex returns to his roots with two remarkable leaders who shaped the beginning of his sustainability journey. Julie Hirigoyen (former CEO of UK GBC, now advisor to investors and property companies) and Sarah Ratcliffe (CEO of Better Buildings Partnership) were co-directors of Upstream, the consultancy Alex joined back in 2006. Together, they reflect on 20 years of progress in real estate sustainability—from the creative, pioneering early days to today's systematized approaches. The conversation explores the tension between compliance and creativity, why we're still only measuring half the carbon picture, and the critical need for place-based collaboration. Julie and Sarah share their perspectives on what's needed from industry leadership, the power of grassroots action, and why reconnecting with our dependency on nature might be the mindset shift we need most. Key timestamps [00:01:42] -Where It All Started [00:04:26] - The last 20 years: Awareness to Embedding Organizations mentioned:
What you'll learn about
The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom Follow the show
Connect with Alex
More about our guests
Thanks to Jason and Sophia for guiding me through this journey. | |||
| The one with.. the $4tn climate coalition transforming real estate | 20 Feb 2026 | 00:42:59 | |
In this inaugural episode of The Future We Build, Alex sits down with Vincent Van Bijleveld from GREEN (Global Real Estate Engagement Network) to explore how institutional capital is—or isn't—driving decarbonization in real estate. Vincent offers a rare investor perspective on the tensions between financial returns and climate goals, the limitations of current rating systems, and why real estate might be easier to transform than we think. Key Timestamps [00:03:01] - Why GREEN was founded: where does real estate capital actually come from? [00:05:09] - Is real estate moving fast enough on climate? Comparing to other sectors [00:09:13] - The brown discount dilemma: selling problematic assets doesn't solve the planet's problem [00:14:19] - Decarbonization as the dominant focus (and what else matters) [00:16:13] - Physical climate risk rising up the agenda [00:18:23] - Would investors accept short-term performance drag for long-term resilience? [00:23:03] - GRESB under the microscope: praise, criticism, and what needs to change [00:27:59] - Can regulation move markets? EPBD vs. SFDR [00:32:01] - What investors expect from fund managers in 2026-2027 [00:34:17] - Impact investing in real estate: what does it actually mean? [00:37:05] - What would Vincent like to see change from real estate investors? [00:39:23] - What one thing would Vincent want from government, business, or individuals to make the change we need? [00:40:42] - The long view: disappointed by one-year changes, encouraged by 20-year progress What you'll learn The Investor Lens on Real Estate Transformation
The Brown Discount Dilemma
Rating Systems Under Scrutiny
Regulation as Market Maker
The Reality Check on Impact Investing
What Investors Actually Want
Key resources The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly Filmed at Mute Showroom Follow the show on Connect with Alex Email me alex@thefuturewebuildpodcast.com Connect on LinkedIn More about our guest Connect with Vincent on LinkedIn Thanks to Jason and Sophia for guiding me through this journey. | |||
| The Future We Build Season 1 Trailer | 16 Feb 2026 | 00:05:47 | |
The built environment accounts for 30-40% of global CO2 emissions. The way we construct, finance, and manage the built environment will determine whether we meet our climate goals—or fall catastrophically short. Beyond that, the construction and maintenance of buildings uses vast amounts of resources, the majority of which are extracted, used and disposed in the typical linear model. And then there is us. We spend 90% of our time indoors. As Winston Churchill once said "we shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us." We need to make buildings and spaces better for us - our health and wellbeing. Welcome to The Future We Build—a podcast for the people creating fundamental change in how we build, invest in, and inhabit our world. This isn't about incremental improvements or polished corporate messaging. These are the hallway conversations that happen after industry conferences end—candid insights from sustainability leaders, PropTech innovators, and real estate futurists who are fundamentally rethinking our approach to the built environment. Season 1 brings you inside conversations with: 🏢 Sustainability heads and former heads from major investment managers including Nuveen, CBRE IM, and Savills IM 🔄 Former sustainability executives now free to speak candidly about what's actually working—and what isn't 🏗️ Leaders pioneering new construction methods, materials, and procurement approaches 🤖 Visionaries exploring AI's role in transforming real estate 🏗️ Industry bodies such as GREEN, Better Buildings Partnership, UK Green Building Council and UK PropTech Association 🌱 Innovators, Venture Capitalists and emerging PropTech companies Hosted by Alex Edds a sustainability and innovation professional with 20 years across real estate investment management, consulting, corporate innovation, and PropTech. In a world where sustainability performance is now table stakes for raising institutional capital, we explore the practical tensions between financial returns and climate goals, the regulatory complexity reshaping the industry, and the emerging technologies that promise to help us build differently. New episodes available weekly. Subscribe to join the conversation about the future we're building—together. Building a sustainable future, one conversation at a time. Follow us: #SustainableRealEstate #GreenBuilding #PropTech #ClimateAction #RealEstate #Sustainability #innovation #NetZero #BuiltEnvironment | |||