The Future We Build

The Future We Build is a podcast about sustainability in real estate when it is shaped by innovation, investment, and real commercial decision making.Hosted by Alex Edds, a corporate sustainability innovator with over 20 years inside the industry, this podcast looks at sustainability through the lens of value creation, resilience, and human outcomes, not just carbon metrics. This is a show for people building, backing, and buying the next generation of solutions for the built environment, offering rare insight into how sustainability, innovation, and capital intersect in practice.

The Future We Build is a business podcast hosted by Alex Edds, with 19 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Alex Edds hosts The Future We Build, a business show with 19 episodes published.

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  Episode #8

  The One With… the Aerospace Engineer who spotted Real Estate's broken system — and built a firm to fix it

  Aug 18, 202649 minS2

  This episode is sponsored by MapMortar - the capital planning management tool that turns portfolio risk from a spreadsheet headache into a boardroom-ready capital plan in around 50% of the time and cost. Check out ⁠⁠https://mapmortar.io⁠ Basil Demeroutis founded FORE Partnership in 2012 with one conviction: sustainability and financial performance aren't in tension — the industry just built a system that treats them as if they are. Trained as an aerospace engineer at Cornell and shaped by years managing the real estate portfolio of Jeff Skoll's family office, Basil thinks in systems. And the system, he argues, is broken — not just the buildings, but the procurement, the capital allocation, and the culture that produced them. This episode goes deep on what innovation in real estate actually looks like in practice. At TBC.London, FORE tracked 2 million components from 565 suppliers. At One Poultry, they partnered with Breakthrough Energy and UKGBC to build a Commercial Retrofit Innovation Map — 160 points of intervention, 100+ products evaluated, 16 adopted — to stop good ideas dying at RIBA Stage 3. And at CADWorks Glasgow, switching to all-electric mid-build didn't cost more. It saved £200,000. Key timestamps [00:04:00] - From Cornell aerospace engineering to Jeff Skoll's family office to founding FORE [00:09:00] - What surprised Basil most when moving from advisor to principal investor [00:12:00] - TBC.London: 2 million components, 565 suppliers — the supply chain reality of a single retrofit [00:17:00] - "No one's ever asked me that" — the leadership failure slowing real estate innovation [00:19:30] - Introducing the Innovation Map: 160 points of intervention [00:21:30] - How the FORE, Breakthrough Energy and UKGBC partnership at One Poultry came about [00:25:00] - Bacteria-fired tiles from a North Carolina cave — backing early-stage material science [00:32:00] - The 3% problem: climate VC targeting 38% of global emissions [00:37:30] - How going all-electric mid-build saved £200,000 at CADWorks Glasgow [00:34:00] - Innovation for innovation's sake is just theatre [00:44:30] - What problem Basil is trying to solve right now [00:46:00] - Policy asks: VAT harmonisation for retrofit and the case for carbon pricing Organisations mentioned: FORE Partnership, MORE, Breakthrough Energy, UKGBC, Capricorn Investment Group, Skoll Foundation, 2150, MapMortar, Q Flow, KKR, Sage Group, Stiff + Trevillion Architects, McKinsey, Gallup What you'll learn about Retrofit-first investment strategy, Commercial Retrofit Innovation Map, procurement and innovation adoption, supply chain complexity in deep retrofit, climate capital misallocation, the green premium myth, VAT and carbon pricing policy The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Podcast RoomsProduced by Atalor. Follow the show LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-we-build/id1877617346 Connect with Alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds More about our guests Connect with Basil Demeroutis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/basil-demeroutis FORE Partnership: https://www.forepartnership.com

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  Episode #7

  The One With... the Engineer Turned AI Innovator and the 300-Year-Old Estate — Ranjeet Bhalerao & Simon Tranter

  Aug 11, 20261h 5mS2

  This episode is sponsored by MapMortar - the capital planning management tool that turns portfolio risk from a spreadsheet headache into a boardroom-ready capital plan in around 50% of the time and cost. Check out ⁠https://mapmortar.io He built a measurement platform — and says measurement was never the point. Ranjeet Bhalerao left his consultancy job after a £100k study could model just 5 of 300 buildings. He founded MapMortar.io to fix that. Simon Tranter has to decarbonise nearly 900 mostly-listed buildings across Marylebone by 2040 — and he's the one actually using the tool. One sells the fix. The other tests it in the real world. Alex has never used it, so he asks the awkward question: does AI-led retrofit planning change what actually gets built — or just produce a better-looking version of the problem? In this episode: → Why "stop counting, start cutting" is the whole argument → The £100k study that modelled 5 of 300 buildings — and started a company → Why no landlord wants another dashboard: "outcomes, not software" → Modelling a building from just its address: maps, LIDAR, EPC data → The head-to-head — AI model vs on-site consultant survey. How close? → EPCs as a milestone, not a destination → Sequencing retrofit to tenancy and refinancing — when sustainability is just asset management Timestamps: [00:02:00] The decision dies in the meeting, not the modelling [00:03:00] "I've never used it — but Simon has." Why this isn't a pitch [00:09:00] From the Battersea Power Station retrofit to founder [00:11:30] The £100k study that could model only 5 of 300 buildings [00:16:30] "No landlord wants another software" — outcomes over dashboards [00:20:30] 14 prized assets surveyed — and why it won't scale to 900 [00:39:30] Building a model from just an address: maps, LIDAR, EPC, GIS [00:42:30] AI vs the on-site consultant: results "came out very comparably" [01:00:00] Timing a boiler to a lease — and winning better refinancing rates [01:02:30] Buildings as products, and the one thing each would change Organisations mentioned: MapMortar, The Howard de Walden Estate, Arup, BuroHappold, Battersea Power Station, British Land, Imperial College London, Carbon13, University of Cambridge, UCL, IES, WSP, Max Fordham, CBRE, Climate Change Committee, Property Week, Yardi, CQuel. More about our guests: Ranjeet Bhalerao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjeet-bhalerao-5a549617 MapMortar: https://mapmortar.io Simon Tranter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-tranter-25814439 Howard de Walden Estate: https://www.hdwe.co.uk Follow the show: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build Connect with Alex: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds Recorded at Podcast Rooms, 17 Hanover Square, London. Edited by Atalor. New episodes weekly.

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  Episode #6

  The One With... the Team Who Mapped Every Barrier to Scaling Sustainability in Real Estate — UKGBC

  Aug 4, 20261h 5mS2

  This episode is sponsored by MapMortar - the capital planning management tool that turns portfolio risk from a spreadsheet headache into a boardroom-ready capital plan in around 50% of the time and cost. Check out https://mapmortar.io — The built environment doesn't have an innovation problem. It has a scaling problem. Emily-Rose Garnett and Philippa Birch-Wood of the UK Green Building Council authored the report mapping why sustainable solutions in real estate keep dying in pilot. Alex — who once ran innovation inside a major property firm — recognised every barrier in it. The solutions we need mostly already exist. The problem is systemic, not technical: risk-averse cultures, a certification catch-22 that starves materials innovators, and pilots never designed to scale. In this episode: → Why the sector's problem is scaling and adoption, not a lack of ideas → The certification catch-22 blocking low-carbon materials → The funding gap that kills hardware innovators between pilot and manufacture → Demand aggregation, collaborative pilots and collective insetting as fixes → Who should lead — developers, the big advisory firms, or networks → Whether the AI budget scramble is slowing everything else down Timestamps: [00:05:00] Not short of solutions — short of scaling [00:07:00] The seven barrier categories [00:11:00] The vicious circle blocking materials innovation [00:16:00] Demand aggregation and low-carbon concrete [00:18:00] The real pace of change in real estate [00:22:00] 20 years in real estate and never meeting [00:33:00] Where do JLL and CBRE actually sit? [00:41:00] Dropping "positive disruptors" into design teams [00:52:00] How AI budgets slow every other decision [01:01:00] Magic wand: consistency and sharing what fails Organisations Mentioned UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) Innovate UK ESBEM — Emergent Sustainable Built Environment Materials innovation network Accelerating Concrete Decarbonisation Group FORE Partnership Breakthrough Energy 2150 JLL CBRE Cushman & Wakefield LaSalle Investment Management MapMortar (episode sponsor) Reports & Tools Mentioned Scaling Sustainable Solutions for the Built Environment: Barriers & Enablers (UKGBC) Commercial Retrofit Innovation Map (UKGBC) UKGBC Solutions & Innovation Advisory Group Innovate UK ESBEM UKGBC Solutions Library The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Recorded at Podcast Rooms. With thanks to the production team at Atalor. Follow the Show and connect with Alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds More About Our Guests Emily-Rose Garnett — Senior Advisor, Solutions & Innovation, UKGBC. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/emily-rose-garnett-381943109 Philippa Birch-Wood — Head of Climate Action, UKGBC. Profile: ukgbc.org/our-team Organisation: UK Green Building Council — ukgbc.org

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  Episode #5

  The One With... the QS Who Went All In On AI

  Jul 28, 20261h 5mS2

  If AI has only made us 20% faster in five years, James Garner calls that abject failure. Everyone in the built environment is talking about AI. Very little of that conversation is about what people are actually doing with it today. James Garner has spent 20 years as a quantity surveyor and now leads AI and data at Gleeds. He sits on the RICS panel that wrote the profession's new AI standard, and hosts Project Flux. This conversation is about practice, not projection — where AI is genuinely changing decisions, and where the industry is quietly kidding itself. In this episode: → Why the real picture of AI adoption is "jagged" — brilliant and broken inside the same firm → The capability gap: everyone has the tools, almost nobody has the skill → Why shaving 20% off a process misses the point entirely → Cutting 10% off a building's carbon vs asking whether you need the building at all → The RICS AI standard, broken into four plain-English parts → Where your agency actually sits when frontier labs are becoming empires → A half-hour exercise anyone can do today to make better decisions Timestamps: [00:01:00] Twenty years a QS — and a 1990s dissertation on digitising construction [00:05:00] How a friendship at Imperial College produced his first machine learning model [00:09:00] Where AI is genuinely working right now — and why there is no gold standard [00:17:00] The capability gap, and the risk of a two-tier industry [00:26:00] Susskind's question, the drill and the hole in the wall [00:28:00] Procurement, beauty parades, and buying car insurance before the internet [00:37:00] Why technology was never the bottleneck — culture was [00:41:00] Wrong decisions made early, then defended for a decade [00:45:00] Build your own AI board of advisors — the half-hour exercise [00:47:00] The RICS AI standard: literacy, governance, use, and bias [00:55:00] Closing questions: education, and ripping up the curriculum The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes released weekly. Filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. Produced by the team at Atalor FOLLOW THE SHOW Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-we-build/id1877617346 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build CONNECT WITH ALEX LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST James Garner, Senior Director and Global Head of AI and Data, Gleeds LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesgarner1976 Gleeds: https://www.gleeds.com Project Flux: https://projectflux.ai

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  Episode #4

  The one with... the Housebuilder Seeking To Decarbonise 8500 Homes A Year

  Jul 21, 202653 minS2

  Bellway builds around 8,500 homes a year — and a large share of its carbon footprint comes not from construction, but from the homes people live in after they buy them. Jamie Bursnell , Group Head of Technical and Innovation at Bellway Homes, has spent years working out how you actually decarbonise a new home at scale. His conclusions upend a few assumptions. The gas boiler won't be banned — the compliance tool will simply make it impossible to build with. And the hardest problem isn't technology, it's pricing: with electricity roughly three times the cost of gas, the greener home can cost more to run, and no politician wants to move that cost. In this episode: → Why the end product, not the process, is where real estate must innovate → How the Future Homes Standard ends the gas boiler without banning it → The Energy House: testing a full home in a climate chamber → What the heat pump research revealed: more is less → Why electricity at 3x the price of gas is the real barrier → How batteries and smart charging change the maths → Embodied carbon, timber frame, and why bricklayers matter Timestamps: [00:01:00] Why house builders are the closest thing real estate has to a product [00:02:00] Bellway's scale, and its two drivers for innovation [00:03:00] The Future Homes Standard and the end of the gas boiler [00:11:00] Why not build somewhere to test and iterate the product [00:12:00] The Energy House opportunity — a home you can experiment on [00:16:00] The heat pump lesson: fewer pumps, simpler controls, more is less [00:21:00] Electricity at three times the cost of gas — the core problem [00:26:00] Smart charging, batteries and running cycles on free solar [00:34:00] Embodied carbon: 35 tonnes in a typical home, and timber frame [00:43:00] Why bricklayers didn't enjoy the low-carbon bricks [00:45:00] The magic-wand fix: invert the cost of gas and electricity The Future We Build is a podcast exploring sustainability, innovation and systemic change in the built environment, hosted by Alex Edds. New episodes weekly, filmed at Mute showroom, Great Sutton Street, London. Show LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-future-we-build Connect with Alex ✉️ alex@thefuturewebuildpodcast.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexedds

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