Ep. 93 Straw, Circularity and the One Question Nobody’s Asking

How do we make circular construction scalable and healthy homes the new normal?

In this episode of the Thrive in Construction Podcast, Darren Evans brings together three leading voices shaping the future of sustainable building:
- Chaline Church (540 World & Cradle to Cradle Partner)
- Oliver Novakovic (Technical & Innovation Director, Barratt Redrow)
- Paul Lynch (EcoCocon, Finland-based natural building pioneer).

Together they explore the real-world barriers and opportunities to embedding circularity, regenerative design, and healthy materials into mainstream construction. It’s a dynamic, honest, and solutions-driven conversation that cuts across design, development, manufacturing, and human health.

Key Highlights
• Cradle to Cradle Thinking – Chaline Church explains how material health, social fairness, and full circularity can transform both people and the planet.
• From Concept to Construction – Paul Lynch shares how EcoCocon builds large-scale modular homes from straw and timber — fast, healthy, and fully certified.
• Innovation at Scale – Oliver Novakovic discusses how Barratt Redrow is tackling net zero, supply chains, and real-world testing through 52 innovation projects.
• Bridging the Gap – The guests tackle the disconnect between ambition and delivery and why storytelling, trust, and collaboration are key to real change.
• Healthy Buildings = Healthy People – Why offgassing, acoustics, light, and authentic materials directly affect wellbeing, focus, and long-term health.
• Regenerative Farming & Circular Supply Chains – How straw, hemp, and bio-based materials can feed both housing and soil health, reducing carbon while improving ecosystems.
• Reframing ‘Sustainability’ – Why the word itself may be losing trust and why ‘health’, ‘quality’, and ‘legacy’ might be the language that moves people to act.

This conversation is essential for developers, architects, manufacturers, and sustainability leaders who believe the next revolution in construction won’t just be about carbon, it’ll be about people, materials, and mindset.

Chapters 
• 00:00 – Introduction & meeting the guests
• 02:00 – How design, health, and circularity connect
• 05:00 – From Disney to Cradle to Cradle: Chaline’s journey into healthy materials
• 09:00 – Paul’s story: building natural homes in Finland & launching EcoCocon
• 13:00 – Oliver’s path from marine engineering to sustainable innovation at Barratt Redrow
• 16:00 – The business case for sustainability and scalability
• 20:00 – Straw, timber & regenerative farming: how circular construction works in practice
• 23:00 – Can circular materials meet volume demand?
• 27:00 – Cost, scalability & the JLL study on consumer demand for healthy homes
• 33:00 – Why health sells better than “sustainability”
• 37:00 – Collaboration, testing & breaking down supply chain fear
• 41:00 – Offgassing, acoustics & materials that impact wellbeing
• 46:00 – Design psychology: why interiors and materials affect healing and focus
• 51:00 – How large developers can adopt circularity step by step
• 56:00 – Lessons from regenerative farming & natural building supply chains
• 1:01:00 – Circularity, culture & how to make change stick
• 1:05:00 – The myth of “low-quality sustainable materials”
• 1:10:00 – Unlocking brownfield sites with circular thinking
• 1:15:00 – Myth-busting, mindset, and making sustainability easy
• 1:20:00 – Final reflections: collaboration over competition in building a better industry


Find us on:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dDkxLWZ25nT0krYWaTiIT
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast

Chapters

• 0:00 What Makes Circularity Go Mainstream
• 0:37 Commercial Sense Beats Regulation
• 0:42 Moving To Timber Frame At Scale
• 2:12 Science Targets And Financial Drivers
• 3:35 Scaling Realities: Sheep’s Wool Vs Mineral
• 5:25 Innovation Pipeline And Adoption
• 6:53 Straw Systems At Industrial Scale
• 8:13 High-Rise Case Studies And Certification
• 10:59 Factory Automation And Capacity
• 13:57 Cost, Localisation, And UK Entry
• 16:28 Proving Value: Premiums And Lifecycle
• 20:51 Selling Health Not Sustainability
• 24:08 Customer Priorities And Zero-Bills
• 27:36 Supply Diversity And Risk
• 30:34 Trust, Language, And Quality
• 35:11 Material Supply, Timber Tensions
• 40:20 Circular Inputs And Secondary Wood
• 44:06 Design First: Energy And Airtightness
• 48:28 Net Zero, EPDs, And Trials
• 53:30 Testbeds, Risk, And Rollout
• 57:02 Foundations, Concrete, And Wood Systems
• 1:01:01 Interiors, Haptics, And Wellbeing
• 1:06:28 Acoustics, Light, And Learning
• 1:09:42 Final Reflections And Next Steps
• 1:18:42 Like, Comment, And Subscribe

Transcript

Darren Evans: 0:12

What do you think would need to happen in order for circularity and for alternative materials like straw to be in the mainstream?

Oliver Novakovic: 0:23

The reality of it is got it's got to make um for a period of time it's got to make commercial sense right now. Because the react we aren't running out of material sufficiently and there isn't enough power within the regulation to force it. So it's got to make commercial sense. And the reality of it is that but we're keen to do it. So we've moved to timber frame because in our simple br and our view love hearing your views, guys, but from our simple point, timber grows, it naturally grows, it gets reused. So for us, you know, and it has a low embodied carbon, it's got sequestration and other things to it. So what we've been able to do is combine what we we believe is something good for the environment with actually making business sense because it's and it's readily available, because that is a key point. Now, part of that is that we are we have got science-based targets to hear as a you know a corporate in the FTSE 100. So there is our group sustainability director, uh Bookie, has been able to bring in that you know all these embodied things are going to affect us, and we need to start moving. So there's a financial incentive that's there. There's but it that it there's starting to be one, plus actually we can timber frame is there or there about on cost, and it's making so you've got all these things aligning, which means actually we're just we're doing it now, and we've you know we're over 4,000 timber frame homes built, you know, over 30% of our homes are timber frame, and that's only going to go one way. We bought a timber frame company. Uh the other extreme is a fantastic company trying to sell me sheep's wool out of Wales for Cosmoston. So, and it's more expensive, not readily available. So, if I did even say to them, actually, do you know what? I've I do 16,000 homes, give me the sheep's wool, they can't do it. And actually, thermally, they're worse than a mineral and a stone fibre. So I I will look to use them at Cosmos on an innovative flagship project. But for me, I don't like doing that because I think it's false hope. I like doing it if I there's an endpoint that we can help that the Sheep's War Company become a true company that supports us going forward. So we we'll do it because I think there is an opportunity there. Um, but I suppose those are the two extremes for us of where where it when it we and and our my team's job, our job is to align us, and we work hard to m enable the business to see the alignment to make those choices. Because when I joined 10 years ago, we weren't doing timber frame, so we aligned it or now, you know, everybody's like, right, we are gonna be doing a lot of timber frame because it makes completes. Now I have to do that. We've got 52 different innovations in my pipeline. We have to, and many of them are sustainability-based or driven, as well as labour shortages and other things. We've got to line all those up. So I don't know if that helps answer the question.

Darren Evans: 3:24

Yeah, I I I think definitely the the supply. I I totally, totally see that. Um what do what do you see, Paul, on that side?

Paul Lynch: 3:33

Um, there are certain products, because it's my background as well as is as a builder, in design, in technical. Um and from our from our point of view, we have no problem supplying you with all all the material you want.

Oliver Novakovic: 3:49

Okay.

Paul Lynch: 3:50

Um as in for every ten hectares of forest that grows in Scandinavia, you have a hundred hectare and that takes sixty years to grow. You have a hundred hectare a hundred hectares of straw that grows every year. And it's pretty much the same ingredients as wood. So you have the same insulation actually higher insulation values, less less small space needed. We're completely um, and I'm not just doing this as a sales pitch, but we are completely um modular. So you can actually build a house really, really quick. Yeah. Um and it's all delivered to you, training, education, everything's there. One of our factories can supply about 60,000 square meters of walls a year on two shifts. So that part we've taken out of the equation that it's not really legal. You can't get it. We're at scale already. We've just we're just finishing a 12-story apartment building in Sweden, and uh the biggest wooden logistics centre in the world has been built in Holland at the moment, which is 155,000 square meters. They're putting up seven to eight hundred square meters a week.

Oliver Novakovic: 4:55

Is that with a steel portal frame or is that all wooden straw? Nothing wooden straw.

Paul Lynch: 4:59

So is the double load double load-bearing timber frame? No, it's not even Clue Lump, it's just C24 2x4s. All all certified fire. 12-story apartment, did you say? 12-story apartment building. That the core of the apartment building is is uh CLT and ours is Infill. But we can do up to six stories load-bearing. Fully certified EPDs, LCAs, everything. And we're actually rolling already. Housing estates in in uh Holland being built with 89 houses, another 14-story building going up in Holland soon. Um developments in Sweden, Denmark, everywhere. And it's basically, you know, you you you say you have X amount of innovation projects with 53 innovations projects, 52, yeah. Yeah, then you know that's what we do now. We're working with uh developers like yourselves in Ireland at the moment. We're building an innovation center with them. We're doing one of the houses so that they can show showcase that they're also doing like thousands of homes every year. And that's where we are. We're in the B2B world, we're dealing with developers, uh we have systems, R D, we have the whole lot. So we work with you to design your houses and and and make sure that they're optimized for you. And with that optimization, the key, and it's part of what you just asked, was how do we get this into a bigger scene? We're the we're the leading company in the world at doing this at the moment. All of our factories are fully automated. So we just opened a new factory in uh September last year in Slovakia, where we it's all robotic, three three people per shift.

Darren Evans: 6:42

Um what's the output of that of that factory? What's the output of that factory with those?

Paul Lynch: 6:47

60,000 square meters a year. Uh two shifts of walls. Full area. Yeah, so you're looking at maybe six hundred houses a year. Square meters. Square meters of walls, yeah. Um and then we've for our aim is now by 2035 to be producing one million square meters a year of walls.

Oliver Novakovic: 7:07

60,000 would be about 600 high.

Paul Lynch: 7:10

Six hundred five to six hundred homes, depending on the size of the houses. Um, but that's in Slovakia. That's feeding the rest of Europe. We're in now feeding thirty countries worldwide. We have two factories. We're opening two more in 28, 29 in France and US. And our goal is to have maybe 16 to 20 factories by by 2040 or so. So we want to be local. We want to be cycling from factory to factory. Um, because it's still only about one or two percent of the whole total building square meters of of what's been built in Europe at the moment. Um it's a tiny piece, but it makes a huge impact. Because it does all the things that you said. It's passive house certified, it's you know carbon neutral, it's and there's no upscaling. So your your building team are basically carpenters putting timber frame together.

Darren Evans: 8:01

Yep.

Chaline Church: 8:02

And it's very healthy.

Paul Lynch: 8:03

And it's super healthy. You can then add your different layers to it, whatever suits your house needs. So the company in Ireland are gonna do what they regularly do on the inside of the buildings. So they don't have anything different there. But now they're getting and there's a bunch of preus pre-assembled companies now in the UK, Ireland, France, and they're all getting on board. Timber frame companies actually, who see this as an extra thing for them or that they can offer to their customers and they can pre-assemble all the walls and deliver them to the site. So the upscaling part, I think, not just with us, but with many of okay, the sheep's wool is a difficult one. There's only so many sheep.

Oliver Novakovic: 8:41

But you have hemp, you have you have reed, you have strawberry too.

Paul Lynch: 8:46

Exactly. Well, that's cellulose, um, and which is what I used in my house 25 years ago, infinite.

Oliver Novakovic: 8:52

Yeah, which is what I built in Corm. Yeah.

Paul Lynch: 8:54

25 years with fiber, so does it the whole biobase, biobased world is there and it's growing very fast.

Chaline Church: 9:01

I think that I'd like to echo that is that the scalability, you know, as consultants, we get asked these questions, is scalable, can you provide XYZ at scale? And so the answer is yes. There are there are some dependents, you know, that that are not quite there. But if you think of companies like Shaw Contract, yourselves, EcocoCon, Okoya Wood, they are really growing. And um, you have to look at the individual cases. Some of them are um more refined to quantity in a local area because they want to keep their carbon down. Some, you know, there's and especially if they're certified through cradle to cradle certified, but you get so many complications with with wool and with some of these materials. For example, wool is it's affected by what is sprayed on the on the ground. We've worked with a company like that already on the textile side. And if you've got um pesticides and things sprayed, that actually gets into the wool. So you can actually bring toxicities into the home. So there's everything, there's a lot more to the material than just the material itself. You actually have to look at the processing where it's based. And you can get even in soil, you can get some places that the soil is absolutely fine, the clay is fine, but if it comes from a particular country, that one has got lead content in it. So the geography, the processing, there's so many things that impact it. We were looking also at a uh biobased newspaper material and the print, the ink, uh, the ink dyes, and um some of the binders in newspapers are horrendous. So it actually disqualifies. There's a particular product that is unable to go forward for circulation because of those inks. So there's a lot more to material health and circularity than just it's uh you know, a wool or a or this like that.

Paul Lynch: 10:37

So you'll find with with us, we're just doing uh we've done research with our partner in the US, where now we use regenerative farmers where possible. Which means if you're talking about the carbon alone, then without using a regenerative farmer, a hundred square meter house, you'd save about 10 tons of carbon stored. With a regenerative farmer, you go up to 22 tons. So actually one factory producing from a regenerative farmer 60,000 square meters a year is actually probably most what most countries have down as their target for the whole year in carbon store, in carbon saving. And you're so therefore you're now building healthier homes with a a byproduct of farming that's otherwise plowed back into the earth or used for some something else, and you're growing, you're doing that while working with a regenerative farmer who you can return the straw to at the end, make biochar from, and are producing healthier food. That's now because it's no pesticides, no chemicals. So you're starting to feed the health of the the society as well. And I mean, if you take 60 years ago in the US, the budget for health in the US was zero. Now it's 431 billion every year.

Darren Evans: 11:56

Paul, can you just explain what the regenerative farmer is, just for those people watching and listening?

Paul Lynch: 12:00

A regenerative farmer is actually going back to the old ways of farming. So you're you're basically taking there's lots of documentaries about this now on Netflix, even and in other places. So um many, many years ago, like 60 years ago, uh the you subsidies came for farmers. So they were subsidized by the governments in America. They were then said you have to plant X amount of produce that's going to feed so maize and other things. And and every year they till the farm. They broke up the soil, you had the sand uh storm, what's it called? The sand areas in in central sand plains. Um, and they took away the regenta farmer. Before that, farmers used to move the farming around the farm to different areas, and you would move the cattle with it, and the cattle would fertilize the fields, and you're not tilling. So the roots of the topsoil was quite deep. Now we have very little topsoil left. There's like 60 years of top of farming left if we keep going the way we're going. We will lose the topsoil. So the thing with regenerative farming is to not turn the roots. And when you don't turn the roots, you're you're holding 58% of the nutrients and the uh carbon in the roots themselves.

Darren Evans: 13:12

So the topsoil, just to be clear here, the topsoil is where all the nutrients are. Yes. That being lost comes from the turning.

Paul Lynch: 13:19

Yes, and when you when you lose the topsoil, you lose the strength in the soil as well. So the protection of it when the storms come or the floods come, then that you don't lose the earth on top of that. Now, when you're doing that with farming, whether it's wheat or oats or anything, your roots become stronger, your your stems become stronger, your plant is stronger always, and you're not having to destroy the field. So they're always strong, they're always green, and even when the storms come in, they're not turning. When you turn this topsoil, which is what happened in central plains in the States, when the sun when the storms came in, it was just this sand, earth blown away, and they lost all the crops year on year. Farmers were going bus, the government was buying up their land, they had too much loans, they couldn't, so they were gone. You know, that's what's happened in a lot of America. Now you have a re regenerate regeneration of regenerative farming. It's becoming huge again. Okay. And if you work with these farmers, they're really, really happy to work with you. They have the same principles and the same goals, and they want to create a healthier society as well. So there is that. We're now looking to work with more regenerative farmers ourselves, um, which then obviously suits us. Um, you can you can call your EPDs, your LCAs like a lot stronger because you also have full circularity. You're taking directly from them, and it after 50 years of hundred years of the house's life, if it goes to the earth, it's gone, you can redo the straw back onto the farmers again. Um and they will fertilize the fields with that again. Um, plus, you know, everything that we've we've done, we haven't even tried to do this, but we're even designed naturally for disassembly. So you can come along to our walls after 50 years and just lift them out and use them somewhere else or redesign them, or they can be all screwed apart and reused. So you have yeah, it's just a lot of companies are thinking like this. And and I think what you what you said about having all these innovative products, I think it's fantastic that you're going down this route and everything you've talked about how you're trying to tackle things is is really good. I think there's just a world of materials out there that need to be tested. And from my experience of dealing worldwide now with developers, they're waiting for someone else to do it. We've found quite a few in the Nordics and in Holland who have taken the chance and gone, yeah, we're gonna do it. We're gonna be the first ones to go out there and do it. And so what we do is we test with them, we do a pilot house with them, we see how fast you can do it, what the prices are, how compatible it is, how energy efficient it is. After a while, Lego, yeah, do you know what this is an all-blanner? It's too easy to do. It's Lego.

Darren Evans: 16:05

So one of the things I'm just thinking there is I wonder if you know you've had anything similar to House.1 and House 2.0 with a university where you've constructed a uh an Echo Cocoon home, put it under the stresses and strains of however many years that can be done within a a week in in that in that environment. Um, because you've got the snow machines and wind and all different uh different types of things there. Have you done anything like that at all with your acquisition?

Paul Lynch: 16:37

Done multiple. We're constantly doing tests. I mean, we're spending ridiculous amounts of money on certifications. It's it's a never never-ending story, actually.

Darren Evans: 16:45

It's uh in every country going to it's a different thing. But but in this country, but anything in this country?

Paul Lynch: 16:49

Oh, we've done very similar to what you said in Finland, which then we have all four seasons. Okay. Like super cold, minus thirty degrees to plus thirty in the summer to wet winter wet autumns and and uh and then stress testing the moisture inside the house to far higher than what it would be in a normal home. And pushing that through the walls. So it's uh it's in in Tampere University we've done that.

Darren Evans: 17:16

In Tampa. Oh Tampere.

Paul Lynch: 17:18

Yeah, Tampere. It's uh city, third biggest city in Britain.

Darren Evans: 17:22

Okay, okay. Good. Yeah. And what about the cost side of things?

Paul Lynch: 17:28

How does that how does it stack up from Timberframe to Well as Ulver said, you know, there's there's always the cost thing in here economically. So at present, if we were to ship it to the U to the UK, yeah, we'd probably be in the middle s middle section of costs. Not the highest, not the lowest, but you're never going to compete with some of the low ones, it's just they're too. But you know, in the way that you get past that is you get a developer like Barrett who you do all the testing with and they're happy with the product and they start to come with amounts of houses where you can then justify having your factory here. And then you're on a different scale altogether. Then the costs are like completely different. But we're not silly either that we know that if a project like that comes along that we're we're kind of going, okay, we're in, if you're in, and then we start to work together on how we can make these things happen. Because we're very close to factories everywhere now. We want to, but it's it's down to how many square meters you can get into it. And then you any any you need to feed a factory.

Oliver Novakovic: 18:33

Yeah.

Paul Lynch: 18:34

You need to feed we need 10,000, 15,000 square meters to do that. So it's like it's not much, it's a hundred to one hundred and fifty houses. And we could justify rolling a factory out. But G would be one partner, there's multiple. Yeah, yeah. So um, and you see when with the with the projects we've done already. I'm sorry, should be for talking, but with the projects we've done already, you can see them taking traction now. These big projects, a lot of developers starting to look at it and go, okay, well, this is tested. This is actually going places and it's scalable and yeah.

Chaline Church: 19:08

I think I'd just like to comment on the cost thing because that's a very real question that everybody asks, and you spoke about it earlier. Cost is one of those sort of, if you like, three pillars that has to be justified in your board. And there are a couple of ways of looking at that. So one of the things that we I mentioned this a few times, and I might have even mentioned this on your previous podcast. So forgive me if I did. I think it was JLL, did a really interesting case study for us at FutureBuild. Funny enough, I think it was around 2020. And they were looking at multiple apartments, and they gave the buyers the choice, the prospective buyers the choice of this is a cradle to cradle certified multimaterial type home. And this is your normal linear, you know, linear material type scenario. And they actually explain what those products were and that this is, you know, particular paint, and that's sort of going to have no off-gassing, you know, this and that, and this is good, this, and and your walls are filled with that particular insulation and not this insulation. And at the end of the day, it was a cost premium, but I think it was about, I say 3,000, but I'm I'm terrible at remembering figures. So let's call it 3,000 for now. But that actually built in more of a premium with that option than the other option. So there were people that took the cheaper option, but it was actually 80%, I thought it was 83% or something, or 87%, that actually went for the slightly more expensive home. They made more money on those homes. They had less comeback. And when that when the owner, potential owners knew that they were going to buy this and their potential sell-on was going to be at that rate as opposed to that rate, the health implications, it was a no-brainer. So most of them went for that. There was only the others that literally couldn't afford. Um, so as a differentiation, these are the kind of things that we're hoping to see both social homes and the likes of Barrett start looking at adopting because they can give their potential buyers the choice. And, you know, they've got a very good model. You know, the reviews are very good. You're not sitting at the bottom of these homes. People understand what they're going to get. So they don't really need to be doing this to get reviews and move themselves up. There's, you know, a whole lot of other reasons for doing it. But as a cost scenario, that that is a really real, you can actually make more money on it. So that is one thing that we wanted to just bring to the table. And the other scenario is that a lot of people look at the price at point of purchase. And that's not really the ideal way of looking at these materials because you don't have to have the same operational issues where you have to go back, your material is going to last ad nauseum. Um, and this is what we're seeing as well on the operational side. There's huge um benefits. So you can actually quantify those also to your buyers. Like it might cost you 3,000 more, but actually, you're not going to need to paint this every two years. You're going to only need to paint it every five. And you can quantify that. I think it was KPMG, you quantified that for a cradle-to-cradle case. And again, it actually costs less in the long term. So on the operational side as well as the um the other benefits, it's really uh, we like to say it's a no-brainer. And Paul and them have spent, and I appreciate because we we only focus on cradle-to-cradle certified materials because they are the best and they deliver both scalable, scalability, durability, longevity, they deliver on performance. Um, so all of those things, it's it's it's helpful for someone like Oliver who's wanting to do these tests if he's choosing from a group of cradles-cradle certified products. I mean, I would love to personally see you go, let's do a cradles-cradle certified house, let's use this product, let's use this paint, and and let's see how that performs and what those cost implications are and how the market actually responds to that. Because I think it would be absolutely a brilliant um project to do. And I think you would, I think the profits would speak for themselves at the end of the day.

Darren Evans: 22:36

So if I'm in Barrett Red Row Marketing Department and you'll know far better than I do what it's like to be in there, how will I be able to tell the story of things like off-gassing? I know that if I spoke to my wife about off-gassing, she would not have a clue. Uh not because she's daft, but because it's not, it's not her world, right? So, how can how can the benefits of off-gassing as an example be explained to someone where they're like, I want that? That's something that's important in my life because I understand what it means to me.

Oliver Novakovic: 23:07

Yeah, you gotta remember that uh we do a lot of customer research. A lot. And you know, still the top three things are how many bedrooms, location, and what's the school like. Okay. Um interestingly enough, uh energy has moved right up the and it's come in sort of like fifth and sixth, and that's because people are paying two, three thousand pounds for their bills. So it's about what affects their back pocket. So if you want sustainability in the in the way we speak, because if you say to someone do you want to save the earth, I don't think many will say no. Yeah, yeah. You know, I hope not, anyway. Depends what the cost is. Well, that's that's a different question.

Darren Evans: 23:56

If I'm if I'm feeling it right now, then I'm I'm desperate to do it.

Oliver Novakovic: 24:00

I always say how much so how important is it? There's a level of importance to me, is it it's it's you know, it's a bit like um Maslow's rules a bit, you know. Yeah, yeah. Is it is it a survival thing for me, or as I would call it, or is it something that I like to talk about in the pub? Is it I want to say, you know, I've got a really environmentally friendly house and are I great? Or do you believe it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm willing to pay for it. So I I think the reality as we stand today from our research um is sustainability at that level of material. So that's the other thing.

Paul Lynch: 24:36

Most customers do not want to know what their homes are built from, which is what I was just about to say that actually that's what we're doing. Yeah, so most actually if you're what with some of the projects that we're involved in. Uh, actually, if you walk into them, you won't know any difference then. No, you'll feel the difference in the house, but you don't even have to tell them what it is. The difference is it's not just about what the call you you will have a uh cohort of customers who actually are looking for that type of house. Yeah. We'll ask with it, they'd be like they'd be down the pub going, I'm living in a timber or storehouse.

Oliver Novakovic: 25:12

But I'm full of it'll be like uh two percent.

Paul Lynch: 25:17

But as yeah, but as Darren said, it it's like it's a conscious thing too. Some people are just not at that conscious level that they're doing that, they're looking for a quality home that they don't have to do so much to any energy bills are low. I totally agree with you. But that's what you can offer now at scale. You can you can get you can throw in you can throw in the extra the extra thing for them that this is a stain sustainable home. So we look at everything. Yeah.

Oliver Novakovic: 25:40

So if I answer the first question, which is so so our customers don't see sustainability as critical right now, rightly or wrongly. Um our part of our job is to help in that journey. So we we've we built um a house, the Zed House, uh, where we looked at everything from we and you know, recycle plastic bottles in curtains and in carpets through to paints that you know took in the nasties and let out the goodies, as I call it. So we did all of that, yeah. Um we we have over six, seven hundred show homes, and many instances the guy the guys that are coming in to do out those show homes, one of the things they're told to do is look at sustainable materials and the usage of it. But it isn't strong enough that it's making us move yet. So therefore we have to lead it. And I think that's right for us to predict. So yeah.

Darren Evans: 26:36

And any change that I've seen, so significant change has not come from people saying, hey, we want change, this is what we're after. So I'm thinking of the internet. No one was crying for the internet, but someone came up with, I know, let's put these computers together and they can talk. No one came up with uh an iPhone uh and an iPad. I actually criticized the iPad when they first brought it out. I'm like, why does someone just want a bigger version of an iPhone? It doesn't make any sense. I've got one. So is that that is the innovative companies that shape and change society, at least from from what I see?

Oliver Novakovic: 27:13

Yeah, I mean they they they they they it's the why. I always go back to the why, it's being led. So, you know, when petrol went up to whatever two pound a litre, they had the biggest sale of 1.1 litre cars ever. So customers do help you change your mindset, and then all the car manufacturers started developing 1.1, 1 litre, or 1.4, 1.6 really low petrol usage. Same for us, you know. Um you know, we can we're quite clear the cost of running one of our new homes because of its energy efficiency compared to a Victorian home is very different. So um we we we know a lot of customers now are when they move to new homes, bills will be an important component. Um, because and there's loads of reasons. You're two family, you need two people to be earning now to buy a home. So anything where you can save to help. And everyone wants, you know, the the in well, the I think the world, but the definitely the United Kingdom view is you still want to own your castle, you still want to own your home. It's very different in Germany and Holland, where renting is a much bigger thing. So there's a different model in that renting step.

Paul Lynch: 28:21

So there's a little bit then you're dealing with the developers who are building buildings. That's who you're selling to, because they want to build the buildings and they're they rent them out.

Oliver Novakovic: 28:31

So then the maintenance becomes critical. Exactly. So so if I'm talking to all that we've got good relationships and growing relationships now with PRS, private rented sector guys like Lloyd's and all these. They are much more about so some the big things they're pushing off are zero bills. Yeah, interestingly enough. So they're they're a big push for that, and they want low maintenance, you know, they because they're the ones that have to fix it.

Darren Evans: 28:55

So Octopus are doing well with that, aren't they? They are talking about zero bills quite quite frequently.

Oliver Novakovic: 29:00

And we just launched our first with British Gas low to zero bill project to give a bit of I didn't I didn't realise that British Gas were doing the same. We've done the first one. Okay. So I think Octopus is fantastic do some work with them. They did their some of their original testing was on our Z house at Salford University. Yeah. Um, we're doing some work with them. But we it's important that you know one of the things that's important, uh linked to your volume, is that there's a number of people that come in. So you'll you you know, all success, and and I'll be interested to look at you know, building houses out of straw. Um, but we would want others to be coming in, you know, want other suppliers. With every other product, well, you know, you're you're my consultant. I've two others doing the same role. Yeah. Because I can't, when I build sixteen, eighteen thousand homes, just have one. Yeah. Just can't do that. It's not business sense. So you lead the way and then you hope that others will come in behind you.

Paul Lynch: 29:54

Well, it's it's quite a hard position to be in as well, because we you know, when you are the one leading the way, then you're the one doing all the groundwork. Yeah. For the others who come behind you. And that's where we're at at the moment. I mean, that's why it's we we are building our teams. We're we're getting out there. We have professional salespeople in each area to try and work with with companies like this. And we build what we call success teams with each developer. So you come with a product and you say, okay, I want a hundred of these typehouses. It's great for us if it's a typehouse because you're designing one or two different types and you're mass producing them. It's much easier. It's much easier to deal with, and you can do the pilot one and see where the mistakes are and fine-tune it for the next one, etc. And it becomes production. It becomes an easy way to do things. But it goes back to the goal that we have from the very beginning, which is to build healthier, more quality homes, so that the person eventually who's living there, whether they're on that conscious level or not, whether they know it's a straw home or not, eventually they're proud of I have look, I bought this, I didn't know it was this. But thank you to companies like Barrett for taking the time and the effort to put these houses on the market and take the chance. So that's that's where we're at. That's where the only way you're going to make change. And then you're helping the environment. And then you're bringing down everything else. And then you're so the product has to be right. It's like any product you buy on the market, should he?

Chaline Church: 31:18

I think it's quite important also to ask the questions in different ways because a lot of people actually mistrust the use of the word sustainability now. There's such uh you know, there was a piece of research, I don't know if you were aware of that, but Feach Build also did it with ummilation. And it came out that I think it was 47% actually mistrust the word. So if somebody slaps a sustainable word on in a sentence, they actually immediately think, oh, these people are just trying to make it, it's it's a greenwash case. So even asking that question sometimes has to be asked differently to in within the market. So we we tend to speak about things like health because people understand health. They can relate to that, they can relate to that for their family and their kids. So we'll say things like, so I'm not gonna necessarily say you have to buy this particular paint because of blah, blah, blah, blah. I'll say to you, look, you you've got children. Um, how do you feel about having an unhealthy paint in your home that's making your air quality very low and can make them sick and asthmatic? Oh no, I definitely don't want that. So then they that that's what they're looking for. If you say to them, like, you can get a certified paint, you can get a, they won't know what you're talking about. If you say sustainable paint, they'll go, maybe not, what does that even mean? So there, my business partner, I always quote him, he looked up, there were 144 plus definitions of sustainability alone. People don't know what it means. It's actually part of a degenerative system if we just sustain things. And uh so it's it's not good to have that as a benchmark. And um, some of the people who actually work in this ambition levels for development and things like that, they won't even use those words because it's it's confusing, it's quite meaningless. So I would love to potentially see your research um teams re-ask questions in different ways and sort of because I think that if people started having health and a few other things, there might be a they creep a little bit higher.

Oliver Novakovic: 33:03

It's a bit of a meaning question, though. It is a do you want your kids to live in a healthy home?

Chaline Church: 33:09

Who's that it's like Well, I think they're going to be putting it maybe even above their cost. No, seriously, because I think that is you were speaking about that. I think it's a really poignant point. It's like, are you do you want to talk about it in the pub? And do you want to actually go to bed at night, sleep? You know, the and you can answer yes to both those questions, really, if you're actually having these things as the so for you guys, so you hear where we come from sometimes.

Oliver Novakovic: 33:30

So you you said, Do you want to build quality homes? I do build quality homes, and I've been building them since the 60s. So, you know, you you it's just language sometimes. You think you know how proud we are as proud as you are of your company and what you're doing, I am of my company. So when you say I can see that you say, Oh, I'm gonna build quality homes. Well, I build quality homes already. I've got five stars and I've had it for 18 years. 95% of my customers would have would support buying another Barrett Redro home. When you say, um, for example, so classic you say, would you like paints that are gonna put in the home that are healthy? So does that mean that in the last 20 years I haven't been using paints that are healthy because they're low VOCs and other things?

Chaline Church: 34:19

I don't know what paints you've been using. Yeah.

Oliver Novakovic: 34:20

I could answer the question. But we have looked at those things in paints. So that's why I say you just we just because I could and and and not to please see this as a positive for this podcast, I've had to move sectors that don't want to move, right? And what you can't do is tell them you're not doing what's right. Yeah, you're doing it right. You need to move. 100%. I'm not happy with how you do things. You all need to move. You don't understand. I agree with you. Culturally, right? All you get is what do you know? Are you a house builder? No. Do you build 18,000 homes? What are you telling us? So what we've uh you asked me a very important question right at the beginning is how of do I I don't look I don't lead it. What we do is say what you're doing is good, but you could do better. Exactly. And in doing better, actually you could be saving the earth, you could be using less material, you could be living in a healthier home. And making more money. And actually, what you do is you get like you guys, you say the where the extremes not extremes, that's the wrong word, but but if it was the best practice of where you guys are would be here, and we're still sort of here, we're still doing good, you know, especially as Barrett Redro. But what takes us to this point? Exactly. What's that journey? And that and that the important bit I want to highlight is that's a lot of and I hate to say this, everybody's a salesman. My father once told me that because I got really annoyed as an engineer charted. Someone called me a salesman, and but I am a really good salesman because I'm passionate for it, right? I believe in it, yeah? Yeah, everyone's a salesman. So therefore, and everyone that's listening wants to be sold. So when I'm trying to move, like if I if you came to me and said I want to use healthy paint, I'd say, okay, explain it to me. Why is the paint I'm currently using not healthy? Well, actually, if you said to me, Well, it's not that it's not healthy, but actually for a little bit of investment, it could be so much better. Okay, well, what's the angle there? There's definitely a health angle, there might be an embodied carbon angle, what's the cost of it? If you said it's it's twice as expensive, I'd say, that's not going to happen. Not right now. But could I move my current guys to 10% more and get 30% of the benefit? You know, and that's part of the the RD we do. So I might not be able to use straw in my homes, but I might be able to use parts of straw in certain parts of my I don't know yes, until we have a company, which we will after this, don't you worry. So part of my request would be. So it's interesting because I I tried to get a DEFRA project to build straw homes. I said, you know, let's let's have a look at this. Come on. And and in that journey, I there was ish warranty, people weren't the NHBC at the time, you know, and they might be better now, weren't as supportive, there weren't many homes. I'd built the first one of the first ones with Prince Charles, the king there. Um and I so I think you know this is where government plays an important role because I I think for for straw homes, if I use that as an example, although I I will obviously look at this because I'm interested now. Um I think the current jump is so big. So we sometimes those ones need a bit of help, and that's the one where so my issue is not building homes. I I build 16 to 18,000. You know, we do loads of research and we're happy to put it into our homes, or we'll do it, we'll do it like with Salford University. Um, sometimes the issue is we it's in its nicest possible way. I've got 30 or 40 things that are probably more critical for me to sort out as a problem today than looking at that. I'm not saying it is, but I'm just saying, so I have to sometimes speak with people and say, look, I'm really sorry if it was my own company and I I was doing it and I didn't have a load of bosses that told me all the things they need doing, I'd be doing what you're telling me because I I love what you're doing, but right now, but I can try and help. So I don't know I've gone around circles with that.

Darren Evans: 38:26

No, but I agree. I think that's right though, because everything has got a hierarchy of importance, hasn't it? So and and I really love the point that you've made as well with reference to doing things by margins and and increasing um over time. And I think that that principle works for good or for bad, right? I um you know you get you get good things out of your life, bad things out of your life by turning the dial up ever so ever so slowly. But one of the things I've noticed is sometimes that when it comes to people that feel so passionately about a topic, they can evangelize and put people off because you need to take people with you. How can you talk about something just in a language that they understand, that's just bit by bit, that says, I want to come with you because this is exciting.

Oliver Novakovic: 39:13

And that's why people sometimes think I'm a bit straight because I I will say, Well, what you're gonna say that I don't build quality house or help.

Paul Lynch: 39:21

No, no, no.

Oliver Novakovic: 39:22

I think because that then some of people think, no, actually, that's not what I was saying. And and but I can now see how you see it. And I do a lot of that. I'm like, if I say something, I need to be careful because I want to know how they'll take it.

Chaline Church: 39:36

And I think what's really important, I just want to comment on that because this is a real myth that we like to bust. And I I know where you're coming from, and I know where you're coming from. And typically people think that sustainable materials are low quality. And so you come into a room and you often have to say, does this or does this all the sort of minimum technical requirements, it stack up, it stack up. And that's that's kind of where typical materials are coming from if they're sustainable. And from an asset owner perspective, absolutely overleaning. So I think these that's why I think this conversation is brilliant, because it would be marvelous to actually have those 30 goals set. So I can go, this is my hierarchy, guys. It might have nothing to do with sustainability on the surface of it. It might have everything to do with good soil, maybe working on brown land or something like that. And then we could say, well, actually, Paul's material has been cradles cradle certified. They've looked at soil stewardship, they looked at water. And that might actually be, oh yeah, I've got water right at the top of my list. Who knows? So this is why it's so critical to have these conversations because it is about language, it's about understanding, it's about aligning those hierarchies. And for me, that's why Paul and I, my business partner, love cradles, cradle certified, because it's the only one that looks at a wide range of robust topics from clean air towards and soil stewardship to social fairness to material health to 100 parts per million. And so even the comments about the paint, there's a whole conversation you can have around that because in this country you can't say no VOCs. It's illegal. But there are paints that have no VOCs, but on their turn, it says low VOCs. So when you're buying the paint, you go, I'm buying a low VOC. And you go, Yeah, yeah. Great. That that's much better than buying something with a high VOC. But they're actually materials that have no VOCs, which are existence, but you wouldn't you wouldn't even necessarily know that. So these are the kind of things exactly. So these are the kind of things that the there's so much to know about with materials. And you might be going, well, actually, I I want to really if I can do an OVOC, let's do an OVSC. If it's pretty much in the same price bracket and it performs the same or better, tick that one's done. So these are the kind of things you want to sit down and go, you know what?

Oliver Novakovic: 41:44

I'd love to know what your top five So the interesting thing is, I assume you've got all the certification. Because if you haven't, we ain't doing any work any. Absolutely. I mean it's like it's like a no-brainer to me. I mean, you know, I'd probably that's who I get annoyed with when they sell me the we're twice as quick, we're da-da-da-da-da, we're all fully certified, Oliver. I feel like it's waste of my time's guy, my guy's time. When they come back and say, Well, Ollie, they haven't got a certification. I just ring them back and say, we won't be using you till you're certified. Absolutely. I assume. So that's why you don't have to tell me about your quality. I assume it. Why would you sell a bad quality thing? I'll and I'll be the tester of that. Because when I've built it, many times we say that might be. I've been to so many places where they say this is a high quality. When you are a homeowner and you walk around home, trust me, you have got a spyglass out. Yeah, so you do. Right. It's your home. Yeah. Right? I know, okay. So I've walked around factories and said that's not acceptable, but that's high quality. It no. You know, you've got a you've got a bit of shading here, you've got a crack there, you've got really? I'm like, well, yeah. If I if that if it was your home, would you be happy?

Paul Lynch: 42:51

And the other thing is as a builder, because I I had a building company, we had like 50 people working for us at one stage. Um, the last thing you want to be doing is going back and repairing. So no, yeah, yeah. You don't want to be going back to you're that's where you're losing. Exactly.

Oliver Novakovic: 43:04

That's that's that's where the part is is And you lose the customer.

Paul Lynch: 43:07

And you lose the customer.

Oliver Novakovic: 43:08

Because the customer's now all of a sudden, well and the customer's becoming more and more like in the automotive sector. They want the perfect home. Yeah. They don't want paying top money, you know, much water.

Paul Lynch: 43:18

All the money they have. Yeah, all the money they have in the world to to to buy this home.

Oliver Novakovic: 43:23

So it has to be quality-wise very good. The other thing I thought I'd really touch on is so as an example, and I'm just you know throwing on. So there is a big push now around water scarcity and other things to get land. So if you think for Barrett, and I always say this, what what's important for me is that I keep my business building. So if bricks run out, I have solutions. Yes. Yeah. If brick letters run out, I have solutions. In those 50 ideas I've got, there are things that if I run out of roofers, tiles, bricks, I have solutions. The other thing that's important is I get land. Because I without land, I don't build. That's my critical component. So if your healthier homes and circular economy allows me to get land, because local authorities and planners say, not for all land, because I'm not going to build your system on all houses. But if they said, look, there are certain sites that are in Brownfield, that's what sparked me where we've we've really been terrible. You know, it's an ex petrol station, it's poisoned the land. So what we really want to do is bring great environmental, healthy products on. So we will help release planning where we wouldn't have before. If you so there are ways of doing this sort of stuff that makes us sort of say, okay, we'll engage. You know, we did Cosmoston net zero carbon because the Welsh government said if you want to deliver 576 units, you need to deliver it net zero carbon. We would have never gone anywhere near that previously, but now we're like 576 homes. That's a lot of homes. Exactly.

Paul Lynch: 44:52

But the and and I I totally agree on on the point, you know, when you say we know that other people are building quality homes. Um, and what what we're doing is we're trying to show them the next that the options that are there with materials that are in abundancy. So you're not going to have to look around for other materials because they're always there and eventually they will be British straw and British timber and British. So and that's why we want to get into each country as well. So you're you know, you you're cutting down on the wood. There's a myth in the UK and Ireland that wood is a really good product and it's low carbon. Actually, we're running out of wood. The Scandinavian countries, everything has been drawn away from them. And there's only so much they can do. The forests in Sweden and Finland are depleting, they're they're not they're growing too fast. You used to have forests that grow a hundred and twenty years before you cut them, and that was quality wood. It was dense and it was hard and it was used. Now it's like 40 to 60 years, and you have you have really soft wood, and it's and the the the um forest cutting is is is really bad. It's not healthy, they're planting forest that's not good, so it was not as good as it used to be. There's a lot of sick forest as well there. So we're actually depleting that. So if you can take products that are now using 10% less or 10% of the wood that would normally be used, but you're still using the cellulose-based materials and there's abundancy of them, then why not? They're there and they've been used for thousands of years already. So you know, we can go to concrete, for instance, which is a hundred basically 100-120 years old. Modern concrete. And we're still saying that it's you know the most safe material and strongest material and everything, but it's still not really test that much tested. You know, straw, clays, all these biobased materials, they've been around for thousands of years already. Lyme, I mean and their their energy is is really, really good. I mean, I'm not just talking about the energy that they embody, but the energy when you're in one of these homes. The people who actually are in there, they're calmer, there's less diseases, less you know, less health problems. And this is a huge thing that we haven't even tapped into. So that's something we you can come to with a company like yours and say, okay, we're gonna take a step. We're not gonna take away from all of our quality homes. We're still building, right? Still want to build to the same quality, but we're gonna give you an extra choice. And here's an area that's built with these types of materials, and we're then your name goes into a different pool as well. That you know, we're testing, we're really pushing the boundaries here and testing this. That's what we want to try and do with with companies, is try and influence this, you know.

Darren Evans: 47:40

Paul, can you just explain and just go through in a little bit more detail about the the the quality timber thing that you've just brought up there?

Oliver Novakovic: 47:46

Because that's that's that's really quite significant. Okay, I'm just gonna say, can we just uh because I there's a different view on that. Yeah, just so we're clear. Because I speak to the Swedish Farm uh Timber Association who've taken me over to their country and show me the farming in Sweden, it's very different to what Paul you just said. And that's and that's how I'm interested in. So so I think I think um I'm just wary that's a very important thing.

Paul Lynch: 48:10

Well, living there in Finland. In living in the in actually the top uh three countries in the world per capita producing producing wood at the moment. First is Canada, then it's Russia, and then it's Finland per capita. Sweden is behind that again. Um per capita or volume? What's volume like? Per capita. The volume is well, it's uh if I remember correctly, the statistic was uh six. And Sweden comes a little bit down the line again. Stat uh research done in both Finland and Sweden in the last five years or so shows that the forest in Sweden is actually.

Oliver Novakovic: 49:01

Yeah, it's it's interesting. So I speak to the Swedish association and they're very I'm living and working there.

Paul Lynch: 49:07

Yeah, yeah.

Oliver Novakovic: 49:07

So um I'll have to look into it.

Paul Lynch: 49:09

Yeah, it's it's it's what you you should actually because it's the same in Finland, it the idea is that we're we're as I said, take taking down so much forest. And it's the clearing of the forest and the cutting of the forest that there's actually a new, you know, you have FSC mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're all all our timbers, FSC marked is taken from Sweden, and then we look for a system.

Oliver Novakovic: 49:31

Well they farm it, don't they? Which I mean, if you go over there, they you know they every tree that they put in, they have machines that go around, they don't have many human beings that are taking trees, stripping everything, the bark, everything using it, as you know, and then but they when I talk in sessions, I haven't been over there, I've seen some videos when they came and spoke to me. They they came across as they really care about their lands. They do.

Paul Lynch: 49:56

But you see, the f the forest is owned by by the people.

Oliver Novakovic: 49:59

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Lynch: 50:00

I mean, you you have you have Metsa, you have all the big forest uh people there, but it like community, yeah. Well my wife's family have forest. You you have your own forest, you look after your own forest, you're supposed to clean your own forest and take care of it, and and then you sell the forest when you want money. So you can sell it after 40 years, they'll come and cut it. The thing is, a majority of the forest is not planted, it's just regrowth because there's so much forest. Everything is forest. I mean, you come to Finland, there's five and a half million people, it's it's bigger than the UK inland. And you could fit like 70, 80 million people there, and you still wouldn't be crowded. And it's just forest. It's forest and lakes. That's it. So everywhere everywhere you step, there's a saying that the Finns have one foot in the forest all the time because they're so close to it all the time. So, you know, we live in the we see the forest every day, but there is bad practices and how it's cut. And there are certifications like FSC, even cradle to cradle, and now there's a new certification after being after coming out, which is even better again, and it's showing how uh even the cutting of the forest, how you're taking regrowing forest it there's so much history about it. You can talk to a Finn about this for a lifetime.

Chaline Church: 51:12

I also want to make a comment though that and I'm going to just disagree with you a little bit here. Um, for example, a coya wood is a cradle to cradle certified wood. It's a fast-growing wood, but because it's modified in a particular way, it actually acts like a dense, it acts like a tropical hardwood, but it's not a tropical hardwood. And it's absolutely brilliant for things like doors and windows because it doesn't warp and twist, because it doesn't absorb moisture the way it's actually um is satellated. So there are products that are out there that are brilliant. So I'm very pro-timber, but it's not just all timbers. So I just wanted to clarify that because I know that's I know you love that material as well. So I just wanted to say that it's one of my favorite materials.

Paul Lynch: 51:49

I'm I'm just one I'm just very conscious that we don't uh there there was a movement there for a while saying we should use more CLT and everything. But actually, you know, one CLT panel, you you would use maybe a third of the trees to make that you've cut down to make that one CLT panel because it's just and it was supposed to be from the the the really bad wood that they could make it, but then they ended up they ending up making it from quite good wood. And so you've all the bark and all the outside layers of the trees all stripped away, and it's just brought down to this. So we don't have enough trees to supply the whole of Europe with wood. I mean, most part part of Central Europe doesn't have any forest left. They they're taking everything from from Finland and Sweden, and that's not sustainable either. So finding my my point being is finding other materials and using the pulp from the the trees that are cut and making wood fiber insulations and OSB boards, and you know, you there is an abundance of other things that can be used. There's even I mean, straw has developed so much now in hemp. Um, you have straw boards, you have instead of OSB, you have straw fiber boards, you have straw interior boards.

Oliver Novakovic: 53:02

Obviously, hemp studs.

Paul Lynch: 53:04

And studs, I mean, there's a company in Sweden now who are a lot of composite in them.

Oliver Novakovic: 53:09

That's the only thing that we have.

Paul Lynch: 53:10

There's a company in Sweden called uh wood tube. And it's it's uh instead of using studs in your walls, you're using cardboard. But it's hardened cardboard and it comes in the same same dimensions as as uh wood like a two by four, uh two by two. It's incredible. And you're using this for your studs instead, and you're able to screw into it and do you know what's important so much stuff.

Oliver Novakovic: 53:34

Yeah, it's um five years ago, three years ago, maybe even two years ago, we wouldn't have had this conversation.

Paul Lynch: 53:43

I agree.

Oliver Novakovic: 53:43

We wouldn't talk about embodied carbon and health, we were just dealing with operational. Yeah, what excites me is that there are definitely pressures and drivers for large organizations to be strongly reviewing embodied and health. And that's coming more and more on the on the raid. And materials. Yeah, just yeah, the options and materials. Yeah, well, I see that for me as embodied because the reality of is the materials we've standard use, there's they've got high embodied carbon, you know. If you look at cement, steel, you know, which are substantially the products that we use, you know, bricks, tiles.

Chaline Church: 54:21

I also wanted to ask you, sorry. Yeah, sorry to interrupt. Um the other thing that we haven't really spoken about a lot today is circular, circularity and circular materials. So there's a huge amount of wood that is available actually in this country that is secondary use that could be made for CLT panels. We know we worked with UCL and we worked with a group. And so there's a lot of materials that also could be unlocked, especially if you are doing innovations, which is music to my ears. I have to say, the fact that you're doing 52 innovations is is really, and I commend you for that, that is really amazing. There's not many that we know of that are doing that and are prepared to even have further conversations and say, well, maybe we can test this, even if it's a small part. We are all up for pilots. So we did that with the Environment Agency. And when they tested a coya wood in the fender, uh first world first fender, I've spoken to you about this before, and it's got a little hobbit homes, it's got crenulations and undulations under the water, you can have all little crabs and little fish, you know, little fish hidey holes and above for seedlings and things like that. So these are the other things, and we were speaking about regenerative a little bit earlier. It's it's it's also about looking at your materials and going, okay, this is kind of our standard home. How can you improve that? Bearing in mind these are my top 10 of my hierarchy. Those kind of conversations would be absolutely brilliant. We go, okay, well, we could actually do a living wall here, we could do this here, we could do that there, and it wouldn't cost you any more. And it's going to give you this and this and this and this and that, and it's going to and at the end of the project of the project, you actually end up getting such extra goodwill for your company. And that's quantifiable. That is really quantifiable when you can say we are doing this, we're delivering, and we've got extra, you know, everyone's happy now or happier, and we've moved our, you know, how whatever 95% people are happy with your homes. Let's get it to 98%. Maybe that's maybe that's one of your criteria objectives. I don't know. We had a company recently saying we want to double our X, Y, and Z. Like, okay, well, let's work out how to do that. And that's incremental. That's not going to happen overnight. But what are those ones? Let's let's see how we can unlock your land for you. If unlocking land is one of your top criteria, fantastic. We had a conversation with Barclay Holmes about this a while back about how do we actually unlock the brown fields? What are the conversations? What's the language? So it's sometimes those small little tweaks that need to happen, and then it then you can go in with that research and say, X, Y, Z, ready to go.

Paul Lynch: 56:43

Exactly. And it's it's in it's in the design then. I mean, to keep to keep economies at scale, you know, have have um all the factors in one thing. So materials, economies, uh, you know, the what you get back from it, so what what's quantifiable for you? Everything should be done in in that design stage, in the research and design stage. All the way down to like energy, airtightness, you know, um, these are really key factors in in keeping a house warm and energy free and you know, almost off-grid. You could you can run these houses really, really cheaply afterwards. So there's a long-term economy for you. I'm gonna build this really, really healthy, and I will say still quality home, but you're getting now a long-term kind of payback from it. Um, and you know, working with the there's as you said, the you you were working with one company, I can't remember you said that you know, a wide range of natural materials that they offered. N DT, I want to say. Yeah, and um and we're working, we're we're we're now connected with ecological building systems who are doing the same. So they have um they're now like our sales uh distributors in in in the UK and Ireland. And they're that's that's why we connected with them because they're pushing the same way. It's all about like how to get the right materials into the buildings from the beginning. And the training, the technical, so everything comes with it. And this, you know, success teams working with you. And I think um this is something that we need to push as you as a company needs to push that this is what we want to work with because we want that quality and we need the the teams behind us to do it, and that will make other companies also wake up and go, okay, so we can't just say we have sheep's wool and we'd like you to use it. We need we need to show the quality if we want a company like you to take it on. Um, and and it all starts to come together, and that's something that cradle to cradle does as well as they make you gain the quality. So every company you work with, are they cradle to cradle? How are they connected? How you know, where's their background coming from? So all of a sudden the chain grows, and it's you've got quality across the board, which you can then offer to companies like yourself, so you know.

Oliver Novakovic: 58:58

I mean, there's three things, just sorry, just really quickly. Um I think one uh see so one of the biggest drivers is our uh target to be net zero carbon by 2040. So that's what we said as a company. Um I think si I think circularity is not well understood. Absolutely. Okay. So and it's not high on the agenda right now because it's not well understood. Um but embodied carbon was like that five years ago. Is that honest with you? And now everybody knows.

Chaline Church: 59:26

It is an emerging market.

Oliver Novakovic: 59:27

And we've we've you know, all our suppliers have to have uh are we're starting to push to say you have to have um basically environmental um declarations, EPDs, or you in the future you won't do business with us. So so I think um that that's that's a key key key component for me, is also that I think it's important, like we did with embodied carbon. So we did quite a lot of sessions with our supply chain with embodied carbon, brought experts in so they could we even help them introduce them to. Consultants that could do EPDs for them. Um and so because some of the smaller to median companies they just don't have the capability or people to to think the big, like a you know, like a Sanger Ban or a um Keystone or whoever the big companies you think oh, you know, or Ibstock, they'll have people that are all over that, and that's great. But the smaller, and we that's part of our our role is is to help them. And I I think you know, for me that the the key thing that moves the dial for people is if we can get whether it's us doing trials or supporting trials, seeing's believing. So we do a lot of that. Um and as you know, we've done that on a number of projects. So, you know, I will be very, you know, and and and and half the time we people get more as much benefit from us not doing a project, they succeed as much from the failures as they do from successes. The lessons are right because you know we are really upfront with them and we'll say, look, right now our customer research says that uh someone would not um 30% of our customers would not live in this type of a home with this type of natural material. Right, why is that? What can we do about it? Yeah, you know, whatever it be, that's part of the journey is and obviously the classic one is they come and say it's it's oh Oliver, it's to do this, it'll be £100 a square metre, and I say, that's great, but I'm currently at 50. They're like, oh right. I said, yeah. So explain to me your hundred and if it's about supply chain size, I say, well, that don't worry about that. I'm I'll bring 18,000 homes to you. So if I bring 18,000, is it still 100 pounds? No, it's not. So I'm like, okay, so let's work at that. Because if we like an idea, we want it to succeed. Yeah, that makes sense, and that and we're very competitive. So we're like, right, how can we put this in front of a board and they sign it off? Um so and that's you know, all those 52 technologies, they're at different levels of need. I've got one that I know if we run out of bricklays, it will just go boom, and it will be the solution. I know that.

Paul Lynch: 1:02:08

Um, so yeah, I I would be of the the the same thing. I mean, for us that that's we're we're not either blind to this. We we don't, you know, we dealt with a couple of developers in the last few years, and as we said, like two years ago, we it was like still a bit of a hoodoo to go in and sit with a developer and go, here's a straw block. Would you build with this? Now they're coming to us. Yeah, yeah, we should. We want to see the straw block. But it's we're still conscious, even though they're coming to us, that we're like, we need to take a baby step first. Let's build a little typehouse. Let's, you know, we'll we'll do an innovation house with you, we'll bring it up. That's what we're doing in Dublin now in January. We'll bring an innovation house to you, you work with it, you see how fast it is, we can do the calculations, you know, see and and do your testing over six months or whatever, and then come back and say, okay, we want 18,000. How are you good?

Oliver Novakovic: 1:03:00

Big thing to that is getting people on board. Because sometimes we do trials, like we did a lot, we there's a load of technology I couldn't put into a customer's home. Yeah. In the Z house? Yeah. So we put in the Z house, which is on the university, and I get students to live in it because they don't care, do they? Um They're grippable for a home. And they're gripping for a home, aren't they? So um then we did the energy home too. So we've got the biggest environmental chamber in they say the world, they say the American military might have something bigger, but no one knows. But which goes to minus 20 and plus 40 in 24 hours. Oh wow. And we have absolutely, as you know, in the nice possible world, beat the hell out of the technologies. And it's mainly air source heat pumps and stuff like that, because we're like, well, what's going to happen now? Because it's a big change. But like you said, like for me, I say, well, most of Sweden has air source heat pumps. Yeah. You know, that that's like eight in every eight. Geoderminal is everywhere. So so for me, uh, you know, part of the thing I think is right, where can I put this technology? Yeah, sometimes I can't put it in a customer's home, sadly. Or I sometimes I've I've done quite a few where I've put it in and then taken it out.

Darren Evans: 1:04:06

Yeah.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:04:07

Because my board, rightly so, it's it can't be left for a customer, or NHBC is saying we're not comfortable warrantying. So I said, Do you know what? I'll put it in and then I'll take it out and putting it at what was there before. And what you get is say, well, actually, that's great. I'm doing it with robot robots building houses or or sustainable concrete, which I know will be a a bit of an interesting conversation, but right, sustainable concrete is where you might be able to reduce the embodied carbon by half. I can't put that into my foundations right now for customers, so I'm putting it under um I put it in my under the concrete um silos. Okay. You know, that's the doing the car. So I've I'll do the foundations there, the marketing suite. So we try and find ways to leak leak it into the business. You say, well, we've done it there and nothing happened, and we've done it there, a bit bigger, nothing happened, and we've done it here. Because of course you can imagine going and saying, right, we're going to put it in 18,000 homes, if it didn't work. And we just blowed it. Yeah, yeah. Just a real diligence.

Paul Lynch: 1:05:07

The company we worked with in Sweden put it under a 12-story building.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:05:10

Yeah.

Paul Lynch: 1:05:10

With basalt sustainable country. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what they made themselves with a German company decorated?

Oliver Novakovic: 1:05:16

I did it in the Olympics. So in the Olympics, we used 30 to 40%. The London Olympics, we used 30 to 40 percent. But to do that, basically the ODA, the Olympic Deloitte, said, okay, we'll go for it. But they wanted to be the most sustainable Olympics. I think it still is the most sustainable Olympics. Yeah, because everything was taken down. Yeah, exactly. So that's what they said. But that's and you can do that on the Olympics, you know. You can't do that on your home. That's like, I'm not the Olympics, I just want the home. You know, so you know it's coming down afterwards. Yeah, it's dozen. Yeah, so it's a bit of interesting.

Paul Lynch: 1:05:47

But they used um basalt instead of rebar, metal rebar.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:05:51

In in Sweden, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's quite a lot of materials. Yeah. Yeah, there's quite a lot of material. Um, it's not uh we've got a lot of chat who's really into sustainable concrete, and there's a lot coming on uh cement and all those sort of things.

Paul Lynch: 1:06:02

So uh in Sweden now you have two companies who do foundations from wood, some CLT, so they still have the same build-up as if you would have concrete. Yeah, yeah. But they're all modular, so they can do 800 square meters a day.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:06:15

Well you're all in all DC, so and they're putting um uh what's it called?

Paul Lynch: 1:06:21

Uh like a uh the word I'm looking for. It's the black um membrane around the wood, so you can actually sit it into the soil.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:06:31

Like a uh DPC or like not a well, it's not a DPC, it's a uh M what's it called membrane.

Paul Lynch: 1:06:38

Yeah, it's it's like a membrane you put under the roads or under wet system.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:06:41

Oh, okay, like a VPN. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Lynch: 1:06:43

And this is going around the wood, and then you're able to put that on the soil. It doesn't rot. And they're using it for like marine, marine set setting poles into the sea and everything. So there's a lot of technologies going on actually. It's really interesting.

Darren Evans: 1:06:57

I just want to change Girls' gears just for the last five or so minutes. Uh Shailen, when we were talking last, one of the things that did really, really well is when you were talking about plastic, plastic being in the brain. We had a conversation about plastics and about the way that our neurosystem works when we're touching something that appears to be one thing but it's not. So I'm looking at this table here that clearly is not wood, but it's pretending to be wood. So there's a a change that goes on. Just wanted to talk about interiors in terms of homes, finishing curtains, all of those types of things. Can you just share some of your thoughts, observations, research around that incongruence that exists with what is appearing to be natural materials but isn't?

Chaline Church: 1:07:43

So a lot of the research that I looked at was actually when I was looking at um times that people take to repair in hospitals and also impacts in prisons and things like that, where you actually have a lot of um mental instability and things like that. So it was looking at how materials optimize human health from um lots of different angles. So some of it we spoke about earlier about things like off-gassing, what have you. A lot of it is around um other natural landscaping is particularly important. You guys do that really well. So there are there's those kind of aspects. But that one that we were, that I mentioned to you was actually it's it's it's one of those ones that they don't really know why. So it's kind of like a wired-in type instinct. They they don't really have kind of more details than that. But if you are in a space, you ex your you are expectant to touch something that looks like wood, it should have that right temperature, it should have that right feel. So it's all things like hapticity and temperature and what have you. And in hospitals and in homes, it's very important for mostly for well-being. It's the kind of main area that I was looking at. So if you look at a material that um you're looking at a stone counter, for example, in a kitchen, and you touch that, you expect that to feel icy cold, maybe smooth, or maybe it's a bit granular, that kind of thing. And if you feel that, and it's and it's definitely a plastic, it has an incongruency and it's a we have this instant dislike. It's a bit like touching a thorn or touching something that feels funny, you know, it just feels uncomfortable. And that uncomfortability has a neural effect on us. So it can it can do one of two things. It can either speed up our healing, our physiological healing. So that's why in hospitals, depending on which way you face, how you've actually arranged, what the materials are, there's a whole combination of things that actually will can amount up to a three-day faster healing, for example. And equally, if you have certain incongruencies in the design and the materials that you choose and how you actually arrange that. So it's all quite a combination of things that can equally make your give you a sort of an uncomfortable feeling. You're all it can be the simplest things. You walk in the hospital if there's very high ceilings that can make us uncomfortable. If it's too low, it can make us uncomfortable. We have these kind of space relationships with space that are intrinsic to us. It's not a learned thing. So it's it's a yeah, it's a it's a combination, it's a science, really. There's quite a lot of um information about it. So they are bringing that into things like prisons and actually then quantifying how fast the people are able to rehabilitate and then not re-offend. And there's the the actual metrics that speak about that.

Paul Lynch: 1:10:17

And may I ask, is um isn't acoustics part of that too?

Chaline Church: 1:10:20

Yes.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:10:21

Acoustics is harder the materials and colours. And we've paints, paints, and colours. That that doesn't matter.

Paul Lynch: 1:10:27

Well they've noticed in the passive house now that the colours, the actual colour scheme of a house. A lot of research into the can can um can adjust the temperature in the house. And materials and the energy of the head.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:10:41

Because it's it's natural.

Paul Lynch: 1:10:45

The one I the one I've heard about the acoustics is we've become so used to echoing materials because they're all hard chip rocks and you know, hard ceilings and concretes and that we've actually lost the touch with nature because of it. We're not in in the old days in old nature, you would have had very softer materials and stuff. So again, leading back to woods and clays and lime plasters and things that would have been in houses before, you wouldn't have had this loudness. And that's why people are getting louder or more more nervous or tension and in schools and stuff, they've noticed that this is a huge effect on the kids with the lighting and the So is that connected to things like anxiety, yes, depression, absolutely.

Chaline Church: 1:11:30

It affects your health massively, and also it affects certain population groups more than others. So neurodivergence. I am a neurodivergent, so it affects me particularly. So if this was a very loud space or very, you know, everything was pinging very I I can't go to certain restaurants, it's a I'm like, I'm not going to that restaurant at all. Okay, because it's just too loud. So um acoustics and hapticity and all these things come together light, it's very, very important. And it's it's people are they they can't quantify it. They'll walk into a place like, I like this place. And if you sit down with them, you go, okay, look at the soft furnishing. There's a high level of soft furnishing, there's good acoustics, there's good lighting, it's low level. And when you start pointing it out to them, they can go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And equally they can go into another space and go, this is hard, this is uncomfortable. And they can't necessarily articulate why. But people who are in that space will be able to explain it. It's really important.

Paul Lynch: 1:12:20

There was you uh many years ago in Germany, they they actually did a research on this and they ended up going to a lot of schools and redoing the acoustics and the lighting. And they noticed that a huge just just with that clays came later, they started putting clays on the walls in the schools, etc. Um, and they noticed that the children's uh concentration levels went right up. They were not as tired, they were not as uh you know loud or messy or running around or cra going crazy, and they were able to concentrate a lot more, and they're in therefore their their scores were going up and the the teachers were having a much easier time with them. So it it really, really affected a lot.

Darren Evans: 1:13:00

So I've loved this conversation. We need to come to an end though because our time has run out. I'm just conscious here of the people that have listened and have watched to the end, that you can have an opportunity just to give them a passing invitation, something that stood out to you maybe from this conversation, or something that you would want the industry to know or to to pay greater attention to. If we go clockwise, Oliver, I'll start with you and Shalina we'll we'll we'll finish with you.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:13:28

Yeah, so I uh so of course the interest to me has been very much about learning about the new materials and products that are out there and and the work that you're doing, and to l and probably the challenge of learning more on circularity. Because I I I I hear it a lot. You know, it's it's in my job I get it said a lot to me, and I probably know the basic principles of it, but it was interesting with some of the stuff and health. I found that interesting. So I think if you're listening to this, it should push you towards doing more looking into that kind of stuff. And I hope what they learn from our side is a bit of how, as a big developer, you know, that we have very clear directions of travel, things that drive us, and challenges um and how we're looking at things, and hopefully it's an insight into a little bit of how we do research and innovation as to how we approach things in a very open and honest way. Thanks, Oliver.

Paul Lynch: 1:14:19

Which is what I what I would say I have taken from this is listening to Oliver. I mean, um just how they're doing things, it's it's actually given me as a as a sales manager the confidence more to go out there and speak with companies like yourselves. Because if if you are taking these steps, and as you pointed out, we are already doing quality homes, this was very good knowledge and you know, humbling, because sometimes you do as a passionate you know seller of these materials and wanting to push it into areas, you do forget it. So that was I I would thank you for that. That's kind of a good base for us to to work from. But also just you know um what they're doing with fifty different materials on the table looking to do stuff, it's like it's not like they're not trying to do it. It's maybe more innovative companies need to come to them and say, Okay, let's let's try some stuff. Can we get in? Because if they're as humble and welcoming as Oliver has been in in accepting that, then it then it's an easier door to get through. And I think a lot of companies don't know that. They're still afraid to actually knock on those doors and find find the things. So I would for me, anybody that's listening, I would say, you know, knock on Oliver's door.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:15:30

There we go. You're gonna be even more confident that you want it's always out.

Paul Lynch: 1:15:34

I would say that was always and that's what I got, and and I think that's very important to message to get out there to people that that you know we can you can make a change, and you know, it's just actually sitting and talking with the right people and getting in there.

Oliver Novakovic: 1:15:48

I don't know where then when the next iPad's coming from. Yeah. You're right. So and I don't know whose knock on that door it will be. You know, you said where these things come. I I don't know where it comes from. So I that's why I always say I will listen to everyone for half an hour. And sadly, after 25 years of doing this, within half an hour I can sort of get a feel for yeah, there's something in this and and and my team, not just me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chaline Church: 1:16:14

We we lifted your question earlier about what would be the the final takeout. And I think that I'm gonna quote somebody who actually works as an economist who um we were at Google Tech doing a presentation, and he said, make it easy. And so I think that the likes of ourselves as consultants, and um, I just want to say I work for 540 worlds, I don't work for Cradle's Cradle certified just because there are legals in place and we are a knowledge partner of theirs in this territory and they are of ours internationally. Um so I just wanted to say that. But the most important thing is to make it easy, and we understand people need to work incrementally, you know, especially big companies like yourselves, they can't turn on a dime. There's a lot of operations, a lot of people, and a lot, like you said, a lot of departments and different people that you know, the groups that you need to get um have buy-in. And I wanted, I know you've got a book coming out, um, and I know it's not my job to say anything about it, but there is also lots of extra things that need to happen. Um, it's not just about motivation. We actually need to enable people, we have to give them the ability to do these changes. And also, I think today I think was really powerful for myth busting because you know, um hearing you going quality homes and you going quality homes, we're actually both speaking about quality homes, but you you kind of might have come from the and I'm not saying you did, but you might have said some of these things straw homes, maybe, you know, maybe not now, maybe later. And I think we've I think we've bridged a bit of a gap, potentially. That's what I feel. I feel like actually this could be something that we could continue the conversation with. And I think that's really powerful. So I yeah, I like the fact that there's multiple dimensions and that we can actually have further conversations to say how can we align these even better.

Darren Evans: 1:17:46

Good. Thanks. I just in conclusion just want to summarize you had to set the company up in 2007. The idea for me setting the company up was to try and help organizations get from where they are to where they want to be, not to try and force anything on anybody. I don't have a history of construction. Um, but what I have is a desire and a passion to help people. And it's wonderful for me to see the massive change that's happened since 2007 to where we're at now, and then even just the change that's happened within the last few years, which gives me hope that there will be continuous change moving forward. But the change isn't the materials, it's not about the calculations, it's about the people, it's about the people having the discussions. And so I'm grateful for all of your time coming onto this podcast and uh hope that others will be inspired by the discussions that that we've had to uh increase and encourage that change. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for watching to the end. I think that you'll like this, but before you do that, just make sure that you've commented and liked below and also that you subscribed.