Thrive In Construction with Darren Evans

Ep. 87 How Octopus Energy Is Powering Net Zero Homes | Emma Fletcher

• Darren Evans

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Can we truly create homes with no energy bills while tackling climate change at scale?

In this Thrive in Construction Podcast episode, Darren Evans speaks with Emma Fletcher, Low Carbon Homes Director at Octopus Energy, about her journey from rural surveyor to national leader in sustainable housing.

Emma shares the bold innovations behind Octopus Energy’s Zero Bills homes, reflects on her pioneering work building one of the UK’s first rural district heat networks, and explains why community-driven projects and visionary developers are key to the energy transition.

Key Highlights:

  • From Rural Surveyor to Climate Leader: How Emma’s career journey led to transforming communities through land, development, and low carbon innovation.
  • Taking a Village Off Oil: The story behind creating the UK’s first rural district heat network, proving community-scale solutions are possible.
  • Zero Bills Homes Explained: How solar, storage, and heat pumps combine to eliminate household energy bills for up to 10 years.
  • Future Homes Standard & Solar at Scale: Why developers must think beyond compliance and embrace full-roof solar and future-proof designs.
  • Community Action & Funding: Why climate solutions need local champions, strong teams, and innovative funding pathways.
  • Second Careers in Construction: Why Emma believes the industry should welcome talent from diverse backgrounds and promote new pathways into sustainable construction.

This conversation is a must-watch for developers, architects, policymakers, housing associations, and sustainability leaders looking to shape the future of homes and communities.


Links:

  • Emma's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmafletchercambridge/
  • Octopus LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/octopusenergy/
  • Octopus Website: https://octopus.energy/careers/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=learn_more_button

#ZeroBillsHomes #NetZeroHousing #ThriveInConstruction #OctopusEnergy #CommunityEnergy #FutureHomesStandard #ConstructionPodcast #BuiltEnvironment

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Emma Fletcher:

I don't think anybody probably thinks in the sixth form I'm going into construction or development. Very few people do. I had a teacher who sent me off to university, put me on a course that ended up qualifying and becoming a surveyor. So I read Land Economy at Cambridge and then I did some work experience in rural surveying, loved it and then decided to become a rural surveyor. So for two years I did that and then, just around Cambridge, by natural default, everything started going into development.

Emma Fletcher:

So I just hit that wave just at the right time in the early noughties and, and you know, got to know developers, got to understand land, how it's promoted, did that for well, probably 20 odd years. And then, not the day job, but about 14 years ago, set up a community land trust, built uh, eight homes, the village all on us, all seat pumps, even 14 years ago. And then, uh, eight years ago, decided to take the village off oil with the first rural district heat network in the country. And it's that project that caught greg jackson's eye. Uh, he asked me to come in and talk about it and then he offered me a job what did you learn from doing that?

Darren Evans:

because that I mean back then. Obviously that's a a big deal anyway, but back then even bigger of a deal to take a whole village off of oil so it was one of those things that starts because you just think, well, why not?

Emma Fletcher:

right, and it was a dare it wasn't a dare, but I do remember I was listening to a podcast. It was about the Island of Egg, or Eag, where a chap had retired and had taken the whole island onto sustainable energy Right. So wind, wave and solar energy on the island and I just suddenly thought you know what, if we treat every settlement like an island, what can we do? So it was that podcast that got me thinking yeah, but what could we do to?

Emma Fletcher:

the village, and was it, were you, the brainchild of it, then um, so I was the one that verbalized it and thought about it, but then I happened to be literally a dad of one of the kids in the village, when my kids went to nursery, said well, funnily enough, 10 years ago, I tried to do this. I worked for a danish company. I tried to do it. I think maybe we should have a go at it. So, so, yeah, I was probably the one that actually said it out loud and actioned it, and then my co-director, mike, came on board and and yeah, we moved it forward.

Darren Evans:

So this is fascinating, because what's fascinating for me is how you get someone to come up with an idea that is, for all intents and purposes, a bit wacky and it's only wacky because it's never been done before, as opposed to does you know any um, anything else more than that and then you manage to then infect other people in a positive way so that they are like, yeah, we like this, this is no longer a wacky idea, or, if is, we're all behind it, to the point of look how far we've come, this is awesome.

Emma Fletcher:

Yeah, funnily enough, I never thought it was wacky. I actually thought, well, they've done it all in Denmark and Sweden. I'd done my homework and actually thought, oh my God, we're behind the curve. We're really behind the curve versus our European counterparts. So I never was actually scared. The only thing that I thought was was will we get it to the next stage? So we did a bit of funding achieved that did a bit more funding rounds, you know, then we could do a trial borehole and it was little baby steps and I'm probably not a baby steps person, I'm sort of an A to G kind of person. But no, we had to do the little steps all the way along to get there. But yeah, every time we won some more money and we did a bit more, I thought, yeah, no, it's becoming more real.

Darren Evans:

Was it that everyone was on board at the same time?

Emma Fletcher:

You give me one community of people that is always 100% on board. You never get a room of architects that all agree. You never get a room of engineers that all agree. You will never get a community of people living in a village all to agree. There's there's maybe a few topics, like you know, but but not on the whole. So I wouldn't say everybody was on board, and definitely not everybody was on board at the start. But, um, we ended up working in partnership with the county council. Through them they had a framework contractor, uh Bweag, now Equans and that's how it really took off is that we took our idea, had taken it to a set stage, and then the county council came in behind and gave us that weight of of being able to deliver.

Darren Evans:

What advice would you give to someone listening to you thinking I wonder if I could do that in my village.

Emma Fletcher:

I think everybody has to stand up and be counted. I think trying to tackle climate change is really difficult. It's difficult if you're an individual, it's difficult if you're a homeowner, it's really hard if you're a tenant, especially if you're a private tenant, and therefore it does need people who are enthusiastic to come forward very much in the focus of the government at the moment in terms of supporting communities to actually galvanise change, and I think that's one of the best ways of seeing it come forward. I'm not asking people out there to tie their sheets together and pull up a wind turbine. You know the commercial sector is there to help out and assist.

Darren Evans:

I'd like to see that actually to be honest with you.

Emma Fletcher:

But what I'm saying is is can mean a community-generated idea, and actually there are commercial businesses that are willing to come in behind community groups to help assist deliver on their vision. But at the end of the day, whatever level of community you're dealing with, you have to decide. Do you want your community you represent to deal with these issues, maybe on a household scale, one by one, individually? Do you want to work on a project that tackles all the homes together, or do you actually want to think about a communal type of district heat network or something on a bigger scale that benefits everybody and only the community themselves, be it a street, a village, a town, a city, can make that decision, and I think it will be different across the country. So give me the steps.

Darren Evans:

And then what? What can I do? Or what can someone listening to this podcast do? What is step one? What's baby step two? What's baby step three? Where do we even start? Want to do it? It's in our hearts, it's in our minds. You inspired us. What, what is next?

Emma Fletcher:

Find your team. That's the first thing to do In your group of people, communities, wherever you're living. Find other people and ideally people that bring something to the table, be it ability to do stuff online and media, be it publicity. But then you want some technical people, really someone who knows how to write a big document always very helpful and just really find a diverse group of people that feel as passionate as you. I'd also find people that you really do like, people that you can meet in the pub and have a good chat with or in a cafe, because actually those people will get you through when it's a bit tough and it will be tough. You need someone to say, no, we can do this, we can move these projects on. So that would be step one.

Emma Fletcher:

Find a good team, ideally people with good resources around them and skills, and then I think it's then look at the money and the grants, and that's what I say to any community group Start focusing your efforts into where you can get funding to just do those first initial surveys, because you have to go prove concept and then also a questionnaire. You need to ask your community, whoever you're representing, do you want this? And you're never going to get 100 right. But I think if you get over 50 of your community saying yes, we're interested, then I think actually you know that's a green light to move forward where do you start to find out areas around funding?

Darren Evans:

what? Where do you go? Is it a website? Is it? Where is it?

Emma Fletcher:

so, since we did the project, there's some huge opportunities out there in terms of the communities. Go and find information online that weren't available to us. So there are net zero hubs located regionally around the country. There's local authorities have got grants, there's individual homeowners grants. It's safe to say there isn't one single nice source of truth to go and find all these grants. Not yet. Not yet, I don't think so. But you know, maybe that's an opportunity for you, hey, but you know, it just needs somewhere where you know where to go and those things vary regionally. They vary depending on what epc your house is. They vary on what your income is of the house, your age of the house. So it's not straightforward. You do need to drill down a bit to make it, um, uh, relevant to where you live I love that.

Darren Evans:

That's good. Well, I'm hoping that someone listening here is going to be able to know what to do next, take the next step and, um, who knows, maybe, maybe you're here sometime in the future.

Emma Fletcher:

This I was listening to this podcast and and emma inspired me that would be amazing, and and they don't ever have to say anything either just for other people to go out and want to do these things. I think the time is right. There's plenty of good examples that you can lean upon.

Darren Evans:

Show your community what's achievable and actually strive forward so now you're working for octopus and you are changing the world octopus are on an ambitious target to move things forward. Certainly not me, just personally I never said you're the only one changing the world, but you're part of the team, right? Yeah, we. I mean I think you could almost only one changing the world.

Emma Fletcher:

But you're part of the team, right? Yeah, we. I mean, I think you could almost ask any of the 10,000 employees what is our vision, and it is just to make the planet greener, make our bills for our customers cheaper and electrify the world.

Darren Evans:

I think that's probably a pretty clear vision what is it that you think, then, about the future home standard? Do you think that that's getting us closer to that end? I'm not talking about the world here, I'm talking about just the UK or do you think that this is just enabling us to tread water?

Emma Fletcher:

So it's not even just the UK, it's actually England and Wales. In Scotland they've already made a massive step forward and have stopped New Build having oil and gas boilers from April 2024. So we really are talking about sort of mainland England and Wales and I think the standard has come, but it's been coming for a long time and that's one of the biggest problems. Developers need certainty, housing associations need certainty and actually local authorities and the planning officers need certainty. What are they assessing the homework against? And I think finally we're getting getting some clarity.

Emma Fletcher:

I think the big decision about solar is fantastic. It's something we've been actively looking for in the future home standard and I think now that that's happening, definitely and certainly we've seen far more engagement from developers about thinking right now. Let's look at our house types, let's look at our roofs and, with the price of solar having come down fivefold in the last five years, batteries also similarly come down in price. From what we're hearing from a lot of the developers we're working with, a roof of solar is pretty much the same price as a roof of tiles now and that's phenomenal. So you know, on the whole, developers and contractors are motivated by price and if the price has come down. I think maybe now the time is right.

Darren Evans:

So is that the same for the small to medium size builders as it is for the large house developers? That price?

Emma Fletcher:

So if developers are building to one of our standards, the zero bill standard in particular, we're willing to open up our supply chain and we're buying thousands of panels every single week. So at the moment you're looking at somewhere around 48, 50 pounds for an on-roof solar panel and the efficiency has gone up dramatically in the last few years as well and an in-roof panel with the tray probably around about 80 pounds for that solar panel as well. So you know these prices have come down from when even I bought mine on my own house. Obviously you've got the cost of installing it, but actually as we upskill the labour force, you know that's only going to come down as well. And if you only got one tradie on the roof, you know that saves money as well.

Darren Evans:

I like that. Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think it would be interesting to see what happens in the coming years when we start to include PV on the roof of all new dwellings, because I think that that's the place that we're going to get to. Are we going to get to a stage where the whole roof is going to be covered, or as much of the roof can be covered, or is it going to be more of a token gesture, as in? This is the minimum that I can get away with in order for me to pass the regulation.

Emma Fletcher:

So we think it's going to be around about 40% of the roof, whereas to get to the zero bills tariff that Octopus are actively encouraging developers to build to, obviously that's a full roof of solar.

Emma Fletcher:

You know, as panels get better, you know we're up at 500 panels versus you know I've got 350s on at home. But you know, once we're getting to more efficiency out the same rectangle, yes, certainly one side of the roof probably is sufficient, but for the time being there probably is a roof of solar north, south, east, west which again developers on the whole have put two or three panels in the middle of the roof, on the south facing roof and sort of it's been a bit of a tick box exercise in the middle of the roof on the south-facing roof and sort of it's been a bit of a tick box exercise. But I think solar panels are now becoming more of a search for thing on estate agency websites like Rightmove etc. So now that people are actively looking for them, I think developers are going to see that as a selling point. You know the gold taps of the 80s, the B-Day. You know this is what purchasers want from their homes and I think they will always help drag the market up for what they want as a consumer.

Darren Evans:

Talk to me about zero bills.

Emma Fletcher:

So zero bills is a proposition. Effectively, at the end of the day it's just a tariff. It started off as a tariff for five years of zero electricity bills. It's now at 10 years no electricity bills. That's no standing charge, no bill as long as you don't go over twice what we expect the average homeowner in your size of house to use. Car charging is currently separate, but effectively what we do is we flex the solar, the battery and the air source heat pump in time against the grid. So therefore we fill up your battery when it's green and cheap on the grid and effectively export it back and we trade that together with what you're using in your house and means that we can eradicate your bill through flexing your house against the bigger national picture.

Darren Evans:

That sounds like a dream.

Emma Fletcher:

It is a dream but it's reality. And the exciting thing is we're now trialling this in retrofit as well. So for the retrofit proposition, we're trialling it only for five years just to make sure that the work's been done correctly. But we've managed to achieve that in a 170-year-old mid-terrace house and most recently with a housing association on a 1950s housing estate. So it's not often you talk to probably an energy company says our joy or our total vision is to eradicate people's bills.

Darren Evans:

But there's value in that flexibility, be it at big scale with solar, solar farms and wind turbines, but at the micro level, at the household level as well yeah, my reference to be it being a dream is more kind of ideal as opposed to fantasy, so it wasn't sorry if that came across as like to stop, so pull the other one. Emma plays jingle bells. You know it's. That's. That wasn't the thing. It's just like you know, thinking about um the annual noise that comes from the media around bills, around fuel, around people feeling cold in their home. I think it's great if you don't need to worry about that.

Emma Fletcher:

I mean, that's how we see it, you know live better, healthier lives, better social outcomes, less concern over mould and damp because you're keeping the fan running in the bathroom, you can cook a hot meal, you can keep the lights on when the kids are doing their homework and these are real issues for people every winter and there's a hot meal.

Emma Fletcher:

You can keep the lights on when the kids are doing their homework and these are real issues for people every winter. And there's a lot of anxiety concerns in the summer about how you're actually going to live through the winter months, and so, yeah, this eradicates that problem. You know we've moved that on as well. We've got a new tariff called tenant power, which is just solar batteries for landlords, which is effectively the next stage on from zero bills, but it allows us to flex and give a return back to the landlord but also a discount to the price to the tenant. So there's some exciting other things that are coming forward as well, because we are really listening to the industry. We're listening to developers, purchasers, tenants, housing association and government and just trying to use our technology to address real, proper problems that we hear about.

Darren Evans:

So I know a few people that are really on the poverty line and they would really benefit from zero bills. Is it accessible to people that can't afford the outlay or the finance or maybe their credit rating isn't that great.

Emma Fletcher:

So it really depends on the household, and that is literally a household by household assessment. But one of the things that we have being an energy provider is we collect money and distribute it under our eco obligations that's electricity obligations, where we, as an electricity provider, have to spend that money on improving low-income households who are in poor EPC homes. So that's something we're also now actively targeting. Is that how do we help our customers and people who want our customers can equally apply. But if they hit the criteria, if they are struggling, if they do have health implications, if they are on benefits, even if they're a tenant, they can go to their landlord and say, look, I qualify for this funding, can I now improve your home? And so that's something we're actively trying to show people that there is this money available.

Darren Evans:

So what is your passion then? You've started off doing one thing, you got involved in another thing, you're now working for this thing, but when you bring all that together, what is it the heartbeat of things that really matter to you?

Emma Fletcher:

so I didn't know what what it was? And everyone kept saying that to me. What is it? And then I I heard an Olympic rower speak about how she'd rode across the Atlantic and she quite simply summed it up and I thought, yeah, that resonates doing things that haven't been done before. That's what I really enjoy.

Emma Fletcher:

The thrill for me is in the chase, seeing the change, seeing the outcomes not there even to even probably cut the ribbon. There's plenty of people who want to do that but taking a problem and thinking, yeah, how can I go sort that out? Because these things are non-traditional anymore. The world is changing so quickly. The technology is changing quickly, tariffs are changing, households are changing, the way we live is changing, and that, to me, really excites me. I know for a lot of people that scares them, but actually there's huge opportunities to go and do things differently. Um, and then if you are doing things differently, there's no rule book against which to be judged, um. So therefore, actually it's weirdly liberating if there's no rules. No one's done it before. Well, you can kind of make these things up, because you have to go create the future, and that, to me, probably is the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. Where do you think that stemmed?

Darren Evans:

from. Was this, was this young emma was, were you like this?

Emma Fletcher:

I'd love to say, no, no one wants to be like their mother or like their grandmother, right, and then I see it in my daughter. So this is probably a bad thing. But I'd say there's a strong genetic link of women that go do you know, take on the problems. It's like an itch. As soon as anybody says something, I think, oh, I can do that. You know what I mean. Like you see something, can you think, yeah, no, I could probably handle that, I must do it. It's like, it's like a compulsion. You can't stop yourself. I can't explain it, but I have to just launch myself in.

Darren Evans:

So yourself I can't explain it, but I have to just launch myself in.

Emma Fletcher:

So you've been blessed with that ever since you can remember, then pretty much, yeah, I mean, yeah, I, it's one of those things, isn't it? You know, I don't see it probably in some of my other family members, but yeah, no, definitely a go-do attitude that's good.

Darren Evans:

Well, it's good to know that, um, that you recognize that within yourself. And I don't know, is it nurture in nature? Maybe that's another podcast, I'm not sure.

Emma Fletcher:

Yeah, and I think some good role models. Right, you know what you know. Maybe I don't want to become like my mother exactly, but you know she's not that bad, is she? No, she's an amazing woman and my grandmother was amazing and my daughter's amazing. So if you can pass it down the line, right, you're happy.

Darren Evans:

You know there are some people that just have the ability to do stuff and it's not even a motivation thing. It doesn't sound like a motivation thing with you, and I make a differentiation between ability and motivation, because they're made up of different components. Made up of different components, um, the motivation is to do with, um, a set of factors that sometimes you're not in control of, that enable you to do really really difficult things. Often it's for a short space of time if it's really really difficult, but ability and so so, um, motivation is not stable. Sometimes you can be super motivated to do stuff and other times not, sometimes for reasons that you don't quite understand why. But when it comes to ability, motivation is not stable. Sometimes you can be super motivated to do stuff and other times not, sometimes for reasons that you don't quite understand why.

Darren Evans:

But when it comes to ability, your ability to do something, that's really really stable. If you have the ability to walk up the stairs, then you don't often think about walking up the stairs because your ability in walking up the stairs is super high. So it seems like when I speak to you that you have an ability to do certain things that other people don't Does. That are you following? Does that make sense?

Emma Fletcher:

Yeah, I, yeah, but I don't think. No, I don't think I've ever thought I've been able to do anything. I'm sort of more like, well, let's give it a whirl, see where it goes, give it a try. Um. But then at the same time you're probably right, I've never thought I can't do something. And I pretty much start in my mind thinking well, if you had all the money in the world, you can pretty much do anything.

Emma Fletcher:

Now, I have hardly any money, but that's my mindset. You can achieve anything with money. You can make islands that represent the world from the sea, you can reclaim sea and make you know, and if you can do that with money, you can put people up in space. You can do amazing stuff with money. So actually, if you sort of park that to one side, you can pretty much achieve anything you want to. And, on the whole, none of my ideas are as wacky as trying to launch us into space or create islands out of the sea. So therefore, you can bring it back in a bit and relate it to you know. Oh, you just wanted me to do that.

Darren Evans:

Well, that's easy. So ability is made up of more elements than just money. So I've been studying this for a number of years now with a behavior scientist in Stanford University. So ability is made up of five components. They're money, time, mental effort, physical effort and routine. That's how ability is made up. That's the connecting threads of Okay, yeah. So if you take money in isolation, you will have people that would have won the lottery and have got the ability to do whatever they want just with money, but they've not really done too much with it and so they've lost it all.

Emma Fletcher:

You follow there's a few examples of those out there yeah, yeah.

Darren Evans:

And so then you have other people that have not got too much money, but what they've got is uh, is is a skill set to be able to get an output from a little amount in terms of resource in that area.

Darren Evans:

So they've been able to leverage other elements of disability change, so that money isn't the overall massive issue, because they've leveraged other other elements of disability chain yeah, yeah so I think that, when I listen to you, is that you do have the ability to do things, um, including bringing people along with you, um, maybe step by step, whatever that is, but I think that that's just super exciting to to see that you've got the ability to do things that that other people don't have, and that probably is why you got identified by your I don't know if it's your current boss or whoever it was that that headhunted you and said right, emma's going to come in and she's going to do this, and I know that she's going to run with it, and he wouldn't have been thinking this way. Right, because she has got these five elements here that enable her to do other things that other people can't that's pretty impressive.

Emma Fletcher:

I like that, um, and also sadly. I wish someone had said that to me earlier on at school. You're so pigeonholed into certain things and certain way of doing stuff. Actually I think if it could be explained a bit more like that, it would give people a lot more faith. I think I've never thought of it like that before, but similarly it took me a long time to realise what I might be good at, and even now I'm probably sure I don't recognise it. But actually I think if you could explain that to kids and say to them look, you know, this is what you could achieve. It's not just about the exams and spelling correctly. I cannot spell. Never put me in a spelling bee or anything like that. I am terrible. Thank god for technology, but but do you know what I mean?

Darren Evans:

it's those sort of things that could be of value to us and society I think, that would be amazing but when it when it comes to the situation that we have with climate change and reducing bills that lots of people focus on, this motivation. We need to be more motivated. We need to motivate people to change the environment, to improve the construction industry, to build more sustainably. And how do we motivate them? Well, we have conferences and we have inspiring speakers come and speak, or we have case studies and we show them what other people have done, and the hope is that if we show all these people, they'll get it, and by getting it, then that will turn into an action, which is okay, I can now do it, so everyone does it, but all we're doing is we're just motivating people to do stuff, but what we're not doing is we're not giving them the ability to do stuff.

Emma Fletcher:

Yeah, I can see exactly that.

Darren Evans:

And so by saying, ok, well, what is it that is preventing this ability that people have, and working through those five elements, then you can start to say, ok, well, someone's mental effort is that. That's a little bit shaky. Who do we bring in as you're putting your team together? You know, in your community I need someone that's very good at writing long-winded documents. Yeah, that's not my skill set.

Darren Evans:

No definitely not mine. Okay, yeah. So you then say, right, that element of the ability chain is weak. Let me bring someone in so that that one's strengthened yeah, that's total.

Emma Fletcher:

That does make total sense. And also the thing is is that I've always known that I I don't possess a whole load of powers, if that makes sense. I've always needed you are totally right, god, you should have come and met me with like 25 years ago, but you know, I've always had to bring in other people. I'm not precious about it. I know I'm not an expert in this, I'm not a technical energy expert, but I have those people I can go and call upon when I need them yes you know you are right, that's exactly it but that that is your superpower, I guess, is what I'm kind of identifying in the.

Darren Evans:

The gift here that I'm hoping that the audience will take away is that that instead of looking at I need to go and find someone that's got all the answers to everything. Is that what you need to do is go and find the connect some yourself with someone that has something that you don't have, but don't be embarrassed about that. Be like yourself, just be open. It's like let's bring this together, because together we're we're able to do some really great things.

Emma Fletcher:

Yeah, I really yeah, I rate that totally. And also the thing is is that I will always help somebody if they come and ask me for help. I will nearly always try. And therefore, I think you build that network of people who know they can rely on you. But similarly, at some point in time you will go back and ask somebody for help and I think if you give a bit and take a bit, actually that's how you create that network of people. You know that you may only you know interact with a little bit at some point in time, but you can come back I don't know five, 10 years later saying look, you're an expert in X, can you help me with this problem please? And I think, on the whole, most people always say yes.

Darren Evans:

Reciprocity.

Emma Fletcher:

Yeah, I think the world is a good place and you know, certainly within the octopus environment, we don't have HR, we don't have policies, procedures, we don't really have set job descriptions. So, actually, weirdly, thinking about it, that's sort of how we work. You know, you message someone and say, oh, can you help me with this? And they'll say, yes, I can, or it's not me or pass you on, but everyone's very willing to assist. There's no embarrassment in asking, because some of the stuff we deal with is really technical, some of it's very policy orientated or it's it's it's equipment or manufacturing manufacturer orientated, and so therefore, actually trying to get those people together, you're never going to have them all sat in one team the entire time. You know you are going to bring it together in a virtual way.

Darren Evans:

Love that. I'm looking for three gifts for you, for the audience. One is the gift of if I'm an architect, what advice would you give?

Emma Fletcher:

so that I can be in a better position to build a home or a property that's either going to be zero bills or going to be fit for purpose for the people living in years to come. Consider the roof. Consider how much solar you can get on the roof. The roofs do not need to be complicated or intricate. Think of them as a lovely roof of solar panels that tessellates perfectly with a rectangle, and actually the ability to generate your own power will bring resilience, could bring the benefit of zero bills, could also then actively show others that this is what they could achieve on their house next door.

Darren Evans:

And the second one if I am a developer.

Emma Fletcher:

Do the right thing, lead the way, show customers these are the very best homes you can have and actually install technology now. You don't need to wait for regulation there's always first mover advantages in any market and actually be brave, and I truly believe that those efforts will be rewarded.

Darren Evans:

And then, last of all, I'm interested for your colleagues at Octopus. Can you shine a light on something that is not widely known across the company, that maybe you know? That will help them better appreciate what they're involved with build up your contacts you can't have.

Emma Fletcher:

You can't have enough contacts in different environments and in different places. There are many tools available, linkedin being one, but I genuinely believe that actually connecting with people and seeing outside your bubble is a really important thing, as well as being inside your bubble. So make sure you get a 360 view of the world and make sure you make really great connections out there that aren't maybe just in energy, in order that it can widen your horizons, make you more rounded and provide you with a greater understanding of the world. There are so many more jobs coming forward in this industry. It's not just a place for people that maybe started on a site at 16.

Emma Fletcher:

I think it's a huge opportunity for many people who may be slightly fed up with being stuck behind a desk and want to go out and see the world and do other things, or for women who want to come back to the workforce after having had children, for example, and I think it's a pretty interesting place to be at the moment. I think I liken it a bit to a rugby team. There's a place and a space for everyone, every shape and size and ability in terms of running, and you know there's a role to be played and I think there are going to be many careers out there for our children in terms of things they can go into, jobs we've never, ever imagined. But in a world of AI and technology, I generally think construction will always require, you know, literally people to meet each other, hands-on roles, and I think that should be something we promote more widely.

Darren Evans:

So are you talking? When you say about construction, do you mean on-site construction or do you mean across the whole?

Emma Fletcher:

Across the whole board. You know I spend a lot of time working with the RICS. We're launching a retrofit pathway to bring more surveyors into the industry as well, and I genuinely think that we need to get better at telling the jobs out there, explaining what the roles are, because really, going back to what we were before, there were many able people in other career paths that would be just as good working in our industry, um, and bring a different set of eyes and skill sets, and I think that could be invaluable as we navigate a more complicated world.

Darren Evans:

I see exactly the same thing. I think that this industry can be a bit slow when it comes to change, especially if you compare it to fashion, makeup, definitely technology those types of industries that move very, very quickly. The rules have changed massively in the music and tech space, but the rules haven't changed anywhere near as large as they have, or as big. That's really not English is it? But the rules haven't changed anywhere near to the same scale in the construction industry.

Emma Fletcher:

Yeah, certainly the feedback loop is so much longer. If you were to walk into a sales unit today of a brand new home development that say it's on gas, with no technology installed, and say, hey, I want to buy one of your houses but I want solar panels, battery and a heat pump, by the time that goes back into the developer, by the time it feeds back into maybe the land team buying the land and changing the spec, that could be three or four years, right. So it's very hard to get that feedback loop of change, uh into our industry to try and keep up with maybe what customers want, um. So I think maybe I don't know how that would change but the ability to sort of um, add on, bolt on, buy extras you know what I mean heat pump ready, battery ready, solar ready, those things, maybe a few more options to to customers at the right time yeah, interesting concept.

Darren Evans:

I I agree with that. I think that the thing that's also driving the front end is the customers aren't really aware of what's on offer and what difference that it can make. Yeah, um, and so I think to wait for the customer to come and make that request, I think he's a bit short-sighted. Everyone's heard the henry ford thing about faster horses versus the motor car, but no one went up to steve jobs and said hey, can you get me on one device which has got a screen that fits in my pocket, all of my music, all of my pictures and the the intelligence that exists within the world on the internet? Oh, and please can you let me watch the BBC and also Netflix on there as well? No one ever would have said that to him. Oh, and can you put three cameras on and a flash?

Emma Fletcher:

There's a very funny Michael McIntyre clip that says you know that his teenagers are obsessed with always having the phone with them. He said never back in the day, before phones, did I say I needed the Encyclopedia Britannica to come on the trip, all my records, all my family photos I've ever taken, all bundled into the car before I can leave the house. No one ever said that. So actually I do wonder where the future of housing is going to go.

Darren Evans:

I mean like, really generally, where could it take us if somebody could disrupt that space? And this is the thing that I just feel really passionate about. Is that for anyone in the industry to have a mindset of, we need to wait for the customer to tell us that we want it? They've just not got their eyes open to understand how the world works. Yeah, because the world doesn't work in that way.

Darren Evans:

Broadband wasn't created in that way.

Darren Evans:

No one came and said, hey, I'm wondering, can I send a picture from this side of the country to the other side of the or from this country to the other side of the world in less than a minute, so that I can have a conversation with somebody on a camera and we can connect in that way, or we can play a game across.

Darren Evans:

Just, no one would have come up with that at all. And I use that as an example because back when they were talking about broadband, I actually worked for BT at the time and I remember going to the R&D hub and my mind being blown. I was like why are they working on this? No one's ever going to use it. I mean out after my right. So I'm not coming at this from a I know best and blah, blah blah, but it's more along the lines of what we need to do is spend time thinking and dreaming and then enacting those dreams, gathering those teams and making things happen, instead of waiting for someone to knock on our door and saying, hey, can you create this for me? And I've got 50 million people behind me all asking the same thing. We're the market.

Emma Fletcher:

And that goes back to what you said earlier about is this a dream? This is the perfect dream. You know, we are trying really hard to think about what customers might want in the future and make that a reality, and I think actually developers need to think a bit like that as well in terms of what they're creating. But again, maybe we need some AI, we need some gamers that have been designing some really futuristic things to come in and disrupt the construction industry now as well.

Darren Evans:

We need disruptors for sure. We do need those for sure. But good, emma, it's been great speaking to you. Thanks very much for having me. I love your energy and I love your passion and the journey that you've been on, and I really 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, just make sure that you've commented and liked below and also that you've subscribed.