Glasgow’s Housing Retrofit Event Opens Next Week

Next week, Tuesday 20th October, the online retrofit conference Low Carbon Homes Glasgow,
supported by MCS, goes live for three days of knowledge-sharing to consider how Glasgow can rapidly
scale up the retrofitting of housing across the city to meet its 2030 net-zero target.

Set against the backdrop of hosting COP26 next year, city leaders are determined to lead the way on
decarbonising housing. Seventy thousand residents live in Glasgow’s renowned pre-1919 tenement
blocks, many of which are constructed from solid wall sandstone and are of high architectural heritage
value – an area of focus for the Low Carbon Homes event next week.

Presenters from across Scotland and the rest of the UK have been assembled to tackle this challenge,
offering the city solutions and choices by drawing on the experience of others, while also highlighting
the opportunities ahead for bold leaders, as the city grapples with the societal and economic impacts of
the current pandemic and climate change.

Three mornings of presentations and debate have been specifically curated with the assistance of
Glasgow City Council and an Advisory Board of local stakeholders:

Day 1 (Tuesday 20th October) – What have we got to do and how are we doing?
Cllr Susan Aitken - Leader, Glasgow City Council (opening the event)
Dr Duncan Booker - COP26 Stakeholder Manager, Glasgow City Council
Ian Rippin – CEO & Alex Hughes - Operations Analyst, MCS
Patrick Flynn - Head of Housing and Regeneration Services, Glasgow City Council

Day 2 (Wednesday 21st October) – What else could we be doing?
Prof. Ken Gibb – Director, Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, University of Glasgow
Chris Morgan – Director, John Gilbert Architects
Annie Flint – Founder, Under One Roof
Ian Smith – Head of Consultancy, Changeworks
Jonathan Atkinson - Project Manager, Carbon Coop
Lucy Pedler - Founder, The Green Register

Day 3 (Thursday 22nd October) – What’s holding us back?
Emma Harvey – Programme Director, Green Finance Institute
Bean Beanland – Chairman, Heat Pump Federation
Gordon Nelson – Scotland Director, Federation of Master Builders
Alastair Raitt – MD, HM Raitt & Sons
Peter Archibald – MD, Haldane Construction Services
CITB – presenter TBC

Low Carbon Homes Founder, Graham Lock comments:
“We’ve been working with Glasgow City Council for over a year now to deliver this event. Originally planned to
be a conventional in-person conference, we’ve now successfully transitioned to online, making the event freely
accessible to all those concerned with the challenge of scaling up retrofit in Glasgow and across Scotland.

It’s been clear from the outset that the city council wants to take a leading role in housing decarbonisation,
recognising the importance of learning from others, while also sharing its own experiences . This event’s
programme reflects that ambition and collaborative approach, so we are really proud to be able to support
Glasgow in taking the next steps towards its bold 2030 vision”

Low Carbon Homes on 20-22 October, hosted by Glasgow City Council, is a free-to-attend online
event bringing professionals from inter-related sectors together to collaborate and consider the scale of
the challenge, the solutions available and the barriers to overcome.

After Glasgow, Low Carbon Homes will be staging further events across the UK. Next is Liverpool
(December 8-10), followed by Kent, Oxfordshire and Manchester in the new year.