Category: partnerships

Who Is in Control? Reflections from UWE Bristol’s Digital Construction and AI Conference 2026

Author Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research | Posted on

By Ahmed Hagras
Senior Lecturer in BIM; Programme Leader, MSc Building Information Modelling

On Friday 19 June 2026, UWE Bristol hosted Digital Construction and AI: Who’s in Control? at UWE Bristol Business School, Frenchay Campus. The event was organised through the MSc Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Design, Construction and Operations programme, and funded by the Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research (CABER).

This was the third edition of a growing annual conference series that brings together industry, academia, professional bodies, students and researchers to explore the future direction of the built environment. This year’s theme focused on one of the most important questions now facing digital construction: as artificial intelligence becomes more embedded in professional practice, who remains in control?

The event generated strong engagement and very positive feedback, with 110+ attendees taking part on the day. A surface-level analysis of the attendee demographics indicated that approximately 64% were from industry and external organisations, around 34% were from UWE Bristol, and approximately 2% were from other academic institutions. This shows the event’s strong industry focus and the breadth of engagement across professional practice and academia.

Moving beyond AI hype

A key message from the day was that industry is not looking for AI for its own sake. The discussion moved quickly beyond excitement about tools to more grounded questions about value, responsibility, implementation, and risk. The central message was clear: AI should not take control away from professionals. Instead, it should help project teams better manage complexity. This was strongly reflected in the Morgan Sindall Construction contribution, which framed AI around practical value, responsible deployment and human oversight. The presentation asked whether AI is being used to take control away from project teams, or whether it can give teams better control over complexity. It also stressed that construction decisions affect safety, quality, cost, carbon, and building users.

For BIM and digital construction education, this lesson is crucial. Students need to learn not only what AI tools can do. They need to understand when those tools are useful, how they should be governed, and where human judgement must remain central.

Human judgement remains central

Across the conference, a consistent message emerged: AI should support professional judgement, not replace it.

Industry contributors recognised AI’s value in summarising information, identifying patterns, improving access to project data, flagging risks, and reducing repetitive work. However, they also stressed that AI does not understand the full project context in the way experienced professionals do.

Design, construction and asset management decisions are not purely technical. They involve buildability, safety, commercial judgement, client priorities, regulatory requirements, carbon impact and long-term responsibility. This means that professional judgement remains essential.

The future graduate therefore needs to be more than a software user. They need to question outputs, understand uncertainty, communicate risk, and make informed decisions.

Data as the foundation of responsible AI

Another major theme was data. The conference highlighted that AI is only as useful as the data, assumptions and context behind it.

One of the strongest messages came from Isabella Bhoan’s presentation, Data as Tether, which reminded us that AI is only as good as the patterns it sees. But the more important question is: who decides which patterns matter?

This raised important issues around data bias, language, local context, governance and equity. Poor data quality and poor data governance were presented not simply as technical limitations, but as risks that can shape how AI interprets the world.

For BIM education, this matters greatly. Data is not neutral. People and organisations produce, select, structure, and interpret it. Future BIM graduates must therefore be data-critical, not simply digitally competent. They need to understand data quality, provenance, bias, interoperability and local context.

Information management before artificial intelligence

The event also reinforced a core BIM principle: good information management comes before effective AI.

The nima presentation on AI considerations for information managers made this point very clearly. Adding AI to a well-planned and well-implemented information management approach is likely to be beneficial. Adding AI to a chaotic, poorly defined or unstable process is unlikely to be beneficial.

This is an important message for the built environment. AI does not fix poor information management. In many cases, it exposes it.

For the BIM subject area, this means AI should not be treated as a separate or isolated topic. It needs to be embedded within information management, data quality, standards, governance, explainability, accountability and decision-making.

Accountability does not disappear

One of the most important questions raised during the event was accountability. If AI influences a decision, who is responsible for the outcome?

The industry message was direct: using AI tools does not remove accountability. People and organisations remain responsible for the decisions made, the outputs produced and the outcomes delivered.

This is a major issue for education. Future professionals need to understand that digital tools may support decision-making, but responsibility cannot simply be delegated to software. Graduates must be able to justify decisions, explain the basis of recommendations and understand the risks of relying uncritically on AI-generated outputs.

AI, BIM and whole-life carbon

The conference also connected AI and digital construction to one of the built environment’s most urgent challenges: carbon reduction.

Catherine Sinclair’s presentation on early-stage design decisions and whole-life carbon showed that many of the decisions that shape carbon outcomes are made very early in the design process. Life cycle assessment is often treated as a late-stage reporting task, but the real opportunity is to bring carbon thinking into earlier design decisions, when change is still possible.

This has direct relevance to BIM, AI and digital construction education. Digital tools should not only help students model, coordinate or automate. They should help future professionals understand consequences, compare options and make better decisions about carbon, resources and long-term performance.

Academia and industry: a productive tension

The live debate between academia and industry brought the event theme into sharp focus.

The academic side raised wider questions around ethics, responsibility, professional judgement, learning, automation bias and the role of universities in preparing students for an AI-enabled sector.

The industry side focused on implementation: what problem are we solving, what value does AI create, how do we scale responsibly, how do we manage risk, and how do project teams remain in control?

This was not a disagreement. It was a productive tension.

Academia asked what should be questioned, safeguarded and taught. Industry asked what can be implemented, governed and used effectively in real project environments. The future of BIM and digital construction education sits between these two positions.

Questions for BIM and digital construction education

The event raised several important questions for our subject area:

  • Are we teaching students to question AI outputs, not just use AI tools?
  • Are data quality, provenance and information management embedded deeply enough in the curriculum?
  • Do students understand accountability when digital tools influence professional decisions?
  • Are business case, rollout, ownership and proof of value part of digital construction education?
  • Are we connecting AI and BIM with early-stage design, whole-life carbon and sustainability?
  • Are we developing responsible digital decision-makers, not only software users?

These questions are no longer optional. They are becoming central to what it means to prepare graduates for the future of the built environment.

Looking ahead

The strongest message from the conference was that the question “Who is in control?” is not about resisting AI. It is about preparing people to use AI with evidence, judgement and responsibility.

For UWE Bristol, the event created a valuable space for industry and academia to learn from each other, challenge assumptions and reflect on what future professionals will need. It also reinforced the importance of employer engagement in shaping curriculum, assessment and student learning.

The future BIM and digital construction graduate will need data literacy, information management capability, ethical awareness, implementation skills, carbon awareness and confidence in professional judgement.

In that sense, the conference did more than ask who is in control. It reminded us that education plays a vital role in shaping how control, responsibility, and judgement develop for the future of digital construction.

We look forward to continuing the conversation and building on this momentum at next year’s event.

Mark your calendar: 18 June 2027.

Tripartite Stakeholder Engagement for Advancing Design for Occupational Safety and Health in Malaysia

Author Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research | Posted on

By: Patrick Manu [Professor at UWE] and Che Khairil Izam Che Ibrahim [Professor at UiTM]

In many countries, construction is one of the most dangerous sectors [1]. In Malaysia, the sector accounts for about one-third of worker deaths and many occupational injuries [2]. Studies have established that design is one of the key underlying causal factors in construction accidents and worker fatalities [3]. This has led to the prominence of the practice of Design for occupational safety and health (DfOSH) which entails designers ‘designing out’ occupational safety and health (OSH) risks at the early design stages of construction projects to protect workers.

In the UK, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) have been introduced since 1995 to mandate DfOSH implementation. In Malaysia, the Occupational Safety and Health (Construction Work) (Design and Management) (CWDM) Regulations 2024, which have been adapted from the UK CDM, have just recently been passed, as a measure to improve OSH performance of the construction sector. Currently, Malaysia is still at the initial stage of implementing DfOSH, while the UK has garnered many years of experience in DfOSH. The experience and lessons learnt in the UK with regards to challenges in DfOSH implementation and their solutions would serve as a useful resource for construction stakeholders (academia, industry, and government) in Malaysia in building strong DfOSH implementation capacity.

Against this backdrop, the University of the West of England (UWE) in collaboration with academic institutions in Malaysia and UK (Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), The University of Manchester (UoM), and University College London (UCL)) are delivering an international project to advance DfOSH implementation in Malaysia via tripartite engagement of Academia-Industry-Government stakeholders to strengthen stakeholder capacity and co-create solutions to address DfOSH implementation challenges. The project entails a series of activities including stakeholder engagement and capacity strengthening workshops, knowledge exchange, and on-going dissemination. This blog offers excerpts of activities undertaken (in 2025), and preliminary outcomes.

Activities

Industry–government engagement and capacity strengthening

Two hybrid workshops were organised in Malaysia to bring together a wide range of stakeholders from the construction sector and government agencies. The first was held in Selangor in June 2025, followed by a second in Johor in July 2025. Together, these sessions engaged over 60 participants from industry (including contractors, consultants, architects, engineers, and safety and health professionals) and government agencies (including Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), Public Works Department, and Construction Industry Development Board). The workshops created valuable dialogue on challenges and practical solutions (from the perspective of industry and government) for improving the integration of occupational safety and health in construction design practices.

Figure 1: July 2025 Workshop

Knowledge exchange – UK visit

A Malaysian delegation (comprising members of the academic team and a representative of DOSH) visited the United Kingdom from August to September 2025 to strengthen international collaboration and exchange knowledge on DfOSH best practices. The delegation participated in the Association of Researchers in Construction Management (ARCOM) 2025 conference held in Dundee, where they shared the project’s initial findings with an international academic audience. The team visited Jacobs’ (a multinational engineering professional services (including design) firm) office in Manchester. During the visit, they learnt about Jacobs’ approach to DfOSH, which is encapsulated by their award-winning “de5ign” (pronounced ‘five in design’). To obtain DfOSH implementation insights from a regulator’s perspective, the team visited the Health and Safety Executive office in Buxton, where they received useful insights regarding UK’s DfOSH journey, challenges, and improvements over the years, as well as suggestions for Malaysia’s context. The delegation also visited academic partners at the UoM and the UWE. Overall, these activities provided significant opportunities for learning and for building lasting academic–industry–government linkages between Malaysia and the UK.

Figure 2: Members of the project team at ARCOM 2025 Conference (left) and during a visit to Jacobs (right)

Knowledge exchange – Guest lectures

Guest lecture sessions on the Master of Construction Engineering course at UiTM (Construction Site & Safety Management) were delivered in May 2025. The sessions were delivered by project team members from UWE, UCL, UoM and a USA-based renowned academic in DfOSH. The lectures were attended by over 80 students who are also working professionals.

Figure 3: Line up of 2025 guest lecture series

Project Dissemination

To raise awareness of the project’s activities among stakeholders locally and beyond, several media posts have been made including use of social media and an article in a local news outlet.  Furthermore, academic outputs (comprising a conference article [4]) and a journal article [5]) disseminating preliminary insights from the project have been produced. Overall, the dissemination has ensured wide reach of among academic, industry and government stakeholders.

Preliminary Outcomes

The project has yielded a tripartite co-creation framework that aligns the roles of academia, industry, and government to institutionalise DfOSH as a key mechanism for improving occupational safety and health in Malaysia. The framework is guiding stakeholder dialogue to identify and prioritise DfOSH implementation challenges and solutions. Additional outcomes include: 1) insights from the workshops are being used by DOSH to inform revision of a code of practice and training modules for trained persons under Malaysia’s CWDM 2024 regulations; 2) improved stakeholder awareness of CWDM 2024 regulations and early-stage design risk management; 3) enhanced practitioner and postgraduate competencies and shared understanding of DfOSH practices; and 4) a UK-Malaysia-Indonesia collaboration (funded by UK’s International Science Partnership Fund) which seeks to drive OSH improvement in construction beyond the implementation of DfOSH.

Acknowledgement

  • Members of UK team: Patrick Manu, Abhinesh Prabhakaran, and Pablo Perez (of UWE), Abdul-Majeed Mahamadu (of UCL), Clara Cheung and Akilu Yunusa-Kaltungo (of UoM), and representatives of partner organisation.
  • Members of Malaysia team: Che Khairil Izam Che Ibrahim, Sheila Belayutham, Mazlina Zaira Mohammad, Shafienaz Ismail, and Nor Syamimi Samsudin (of UiTM), Azman Hussain (of DOSH), and representatives of partner organisations.

References

1. Eurostat (2025) Accidents at work statistics. Available online at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-xplained/index.php?title=Accidents_at_work_statistics

2. Department for Occupational Safety and Health (2021) Occupational Accidents Statistics by Sector January to December 2021 (investigated). Available online at https://intranet.dosh.gov.my/statistic-v/occupational-accident-statistics/occupational-accident-statistic-2021

3. Manu, P., Poghosyan, A., Mahamadu, A.-M., Mahdjoubi, L., Gibb, A., Behm, M. and and Akinade, O. (2019) Design for Occupational Safety and Health: Key Attributes for Organisational Capability. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 26 (11), pp. 2614–2636.

4. Che Ibrahim, C. K. I., Manu, P., Belayutham, S., Cheung, C.M., Mohamad, M.Z., Yunusa-Kaltungo, A., Ismail, S., Samsudin, N. S., Prabhakaran, A., Perez, P., Mahamadu, A.-M. and Hussain, A. (2025a) Building a Safer Tomorrow: Tripartite Engagement and Co-Creation for Enhanced Design for Occupational Safety and Health in Malaysia. In: Thomson, C (Ed.) and Neilson, C J (Ed.), Proceedings 41st Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2025, Abertay University, Dundee, UK. Association of Researchers in Construction Management, pp. 409-418.

5. Che Ibrahim, C. K. I., Manu, P., Belayutham, S., Cheung, C.M., Mohamad, M.Z., Yunusa-Kaltungo, A., Ismail, S., Samsudin, N. S., Prabhakaran, A., Perez, P., Mahamadu, A.-M. and Hussain, A. (2025b) Tripartite collaboration for design for safety in construction: A co-creation framework integrating academia, industry, and government. Safety Science, Article 107040.

Event on the sustainability of natural materials for construction to mark COP30

Author Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research | Posted on

By Freya Wise, Alice Moncaster, Hector Archila and Tavs Jorgensen

On the 3rd of December Caber ran an action-packed hybrid event to mark COP30. After a short introduction reflecting on the COP30 outcomes we then had excellent presentations on three natural building materials which UWE researchers are involved with: bamboo, cob and timber. This blog reports the highlights of the session for a wider audience.

Reflection on COP30 by Dr Freya Wise

The reflection on COP30 by Freya highlighted that the overall outcomes were felt to be disappointing and lacked ambition but were not as bad as they could have been and that a range of useful things were achieved. It will be interesting to see if taking forward the fossil fuel and deforestation roadmaps outside the official COP process will actually allow them to be more ambitious and progress more quickly with willing countries.

Concerns were highlighted around a lack of acknowledgement of the latest climate science from the IPCC in the final document and the dropping of language on the need to fight misinformation. From a positive perspective however this was the first COP for several years in a countries where mass protests are possible and had strong civil society and cultural engagement around the city of Belem, including from high numbers of indigenous people.  

Specifically on the built environment, Freya identified a number of initiatives, guides and standards were launched at COP which have positive relevance. These included the Belém health action plan, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), ‘Beat the Heat’ initiative, and the Bélem ‘call for action for sustainable and affordable housing’ as well as initiatives on circularity and low carbon materials. If these are enacted, they will have positive implications for decarbonising the built environment and links to all can be seen at the end of the article.

Following on from some of the initiatives at COP around low carbon and biobased materials, we then had three engaging short talks on three different natural materials.

The benefits of Bamboo by Dr Hector Archila

Hector took inspiration for his talk from the ‘BambooBoost Initiative’ from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR).

Hector explained that bamboo is a very sustainable material with rapid biomass production which translates to a high yield and excellent CO2 sequestration in both the biomass and the soil. Bamboo, which is actually a grass, is one of the fastest-growing ‘woody’ plants and thrives on degraded land. Over fifty years a tropical bamboo species produces between 5 and 8 times more biomass than Scots Pine and Oak, resulting in 5 to 8 times as much carbon sequestration as those trees over the same period.

Figure 1: Carbon yield for bamboo and selected wood

Hector highlighted that, according to UNFCC, if bamboo were cultivated on around 70-174 million hectares of degraded forestland it could sequester roughly 2 Gt of CO2 annually (for reference Spain and Portugal combined are cover about 68 million hectares). This would equate to 2% of current global greenhouse gas emissions and would also deliver significant net economic benefits. In terms of climate action, it therefore makes a lot of sense to plant bamboo forests which will produce carbon and fibre rich biomass in 4–6-year periods which can then be used in long-lived products to act as carbon stores.

In terms of biodiversity enhancements, Hector suggested that if more bamboo was planted less wood forest would need to be used thus reducing deforestation and providing ecosystem services. Bamboo forests themselves also have good biodiversity with a plethora of animal species. Bamboo can provide ecosystem and community resilience for the many people who rely on solid biomass for cooking such as charcoal or briquettes, with fast growing highly renewable biomass. Bamboo can also be converted to gas or pellets to provide a source of electricity and heating, thus reducing deforestation and use of fossil fuels

Finally, research at UWE by Hector on the project SmartBioC has shown how Biobased Building Systems for UK housing using engineered bamboo as the main structural component can provide better Natural, Human and Social benefits than traditional building systems used in the UK.

Figure 2: One of the biobased systems Hector has developed

Innovative earth building research at UWE by Dr Tavs Jorgensen

Tavs provided an introduction to cob or earth as a local, low carbon building material with a long history of use and increased research interest in recent decades. However, challenges were also highlighted with traditional cob construction around the thicknesses required to meet insulation levels in modern building regulations and the length of time that building traditional cob walls requires.

Tavs then discussed the research that he has been leading at UWE to investigate how to use 3D printing processes to make dies to extrude cob bricks in different shapes, which has the potential to substantially speed up the production process while allowing creativity in the creation of different brick shapes and forms.

Figure 3: Extrusion equipment and extruded cob bricks

Work has taken place to engage students in this research through competitions and a ‘Cob Club’ as well as a number of wider hands-on workshops exploring the qualities of different earth and the potential of the material. A ‘Cob Comp’ (cob competition) in 2024 enabled UWE students to explore extruded cob block technology and the winners’ ideas were used to successfully build a shelter on the University grounds.

Figure 4: The bricks and the shelter created by Cob-Comp in 2025

Tavs also took the opportunity to launch this year’s iteration of the competition, Cob Comp 2: Earthly Enquiries. This is an ideas competition to design a structure built from pressed earth brick units of students’ own ingenious designs and from materials found only within the boundaries of UWE’s Frenchay Campus. The competition aims to explore the structural capacities and concepts of making and building with compressed earth. There are plans to build the winning design in summer 2026.

Tavs therefore highlighted both the benefits of innovative methods for cob and the importance of engaging students in hands-on research and creativity.

Sustainable timber and biogenic carbon standards by Professor Alice Moncaster

Alice highlighted the new principles for Sustainable Timber Construction and which were officially launched at COP30 (see link below). Alice then went on to give a quick introduction to lifecycle assessment (LCA) which measures the carbon emissions associated with the whole life of a material including its extraction, manufacture, transport, installation, maintenance and end of life disposal.

Figure 5: Lifecycle stages

She then discussed how the biogenic carbon stored in natural materials (and then released back into the atmosphere at the end of the of the material’s lifespan), is treated in a range of national and international standards on whole life carbon reporting. Biogenic carbon storage is one of the key benefits of natural materials and is particularly valuable in buildings as they theoretically last a long time, thus storing carbon for many decades (but not permanently). For a full LCA, the biogenic storage in phases A1-A3 is then reemitted in phase C, while most standards currently require that if only upfront carbon is assessed, biogenic carbon is reported separately.

Alice discussed multiple standards and reported on discussions at a recent meeting of International Energy Agency (IEA) Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) Annex 89, ‘Ways to implement net-zero whole life carbon buildings’. Climate science says that biogenic carbon is not equivalent to fossil carbon and cannot be added together. The discussions therefore focussed on whether biogenic carbon should be reported separately throughout all LCAs. This does not mean that the biogenic storage of natural materials is not useful and positive but does highlight that it is not a simple silver bullet and cautions against some of the evangelical calls for over-building with timber as a form of carbon removal from the atmosphere.

Alice therefore opened the discussion and posed some questions on how we should be reporting sustainable timber use for everyone to consider. 

Summary

The session was well received the main concern seemed to be that we would all have enjoyed more time for discussion! During the questions Hector made a very good point that no natural material is ‘The Solution’ on its own and what is actually needed is a balanced diet or menu of the most appropriate materials for different scenarios and locations. We look forward to continuing the discussion.

Links to further information from all the presentations

COP30 reflections and initiatives

Bamboo

 Earth Buildings

Sustainable Timber and biogenic carbon

CABER members can view the recording of the event on Teams

CoolScapes: Co-Learning across Cultures in a Warming City

Author Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research | Posted on

Author: Ghada Karaki

CoolScapes is an experiment in co-producing solutions to questions of thermal comfort by leveraging the social and vernacular knowledge of migrant communities.

Context

Climate projections for the UK show higher temperatures and changing precipitation patterns that will lead to hotter and drier summers (SWM, 2021). Increased temperatures are expected to cause thermal discomfort and contribute to health problems, depending on the communities and their cultural heritage. Bristol is an increasingly diverse city, with 28.4% of its residents from ethnic minority groups and speaking 90 languages (Bristol City Council, 2023), and is increasingly attracting migrants from warmer parts of the world. Many new migrant communities have the knowledge and practices needed to adapt to a warming climate, drawing on local traditional vernacular knowledge and practices. 

The current practice to retrofit in the UK is based on a step-by-step and incremental approach of increasing insulation, improving airtightness, and installing renewable energy technologies (Killip & Fawcett, 2022). While this approach effectively reduces winter heating demand, it can have unintended consequences, such as excessive heat in summer or inadequate ventilation (Godefroy & Baeli, 2024, Wingfield et al. 2011). In addition, there is little innovation in building retrofit design and a lack of understanding of buildings and their occupants as a socio-technical system. 

We will address in this pilot study the challenges of thermal comfort, working with migrant communities from warmer climatic zones (e.g. the Middle East and East Africa). By understanding their thermal comfort perceptions, cooling behavioural adaptations, and vernacular practices, we aim to co-develop culturally informed responses to the climate crisis.

Our Approach

We used a Social Practice Framework (SPF) to map how migrant communities adapt to heat and cooling. Alongside creative storytelling, we integrated live scribing, a visual note-taking process that captured participants’ words, examples, and sketches in real-time. Storytelling and live scribing encouraged participants to share knowledge, experiences, and needs. Because comfort is felt emotionally as well as physically, live scribing made discussions visible: participants could point, edit, and build on what was drawn, turning comments into co-developed output.

What’s been done so far

Building on the view that practices are continually reperformed (Shove & Southerton, 2000), we used storytelling and live scribing as inquiry tools.

  • We ran multiple workshops with first-generation migrants from warmer climatic zones, across different ages and genders.
  • Sessions centred on perceptions of thermal comfort and documented cooling practices (architectural forms, materials, window and door configurations, courtyard use, natural ventilation, communal routines, clothing, use of shade/space, hydration).
  • Live scribing captured narratives and examples in the moment; participants edited and extended the drawings to clarify meanings (e.g., how to make shared spaces work better and how to get cross-breezes flowing).
  • The resulting visuals act as shared artefacts that we can transform into digital posts and a finding brief.

CoolScape Workshop I – 23rd June 2025, live scribing by Jasmine Thompson. Funded by CABER-UWE​

Big thank you!

Thank you to all our wonderful participants, Stacey-Ann, Gofaone, Nijood, Nkoane, and Emmanuel-Ian, for your time and stories. We also appreciate the collaboration with ACH, especially Jah Caballero, for the great work in facilitating the workshops with the participants, and Watershed for their support. Many thanks to Jasemine Thompson for the great work live scribing the workshops.

We gratefully appreciate CABER-UWE for funding the pilot study.

What’s next

We are analysing scribed boards, notes and recordings. A summary and next steps will follow in the coming months.

Contact us: Ghada Karaki (email: ghada.karaki@uwe.ac.uk)

Glyn Evertt (email: glyn.evertt@uwe.ac.uk)

References

Bristol City Council. (2023). Bristol Key Facts 2023. https://www.bristol.gov.uk/files/documents/1840-bristol-key-facts-2023/file

Godefroy, J. and Baeli, M. (2024) Retrofit Revisit: 10 Case Studies. London: Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE). ISBN 978-914543-92-0. https://www.cibse.org/knowledge-research/knowledge-portal/retrofit-revisit-2024

Killip, G., Fawcett, T. (2022). Expert views of building retrofit in the UK: Residential, non-residential, and heritage building renovations. In ECEEE Summer Study Proceedings – Efficiency and beyond: innovative energy demand policies. European Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Shove, E., Southerton, D. (2000). Defrosting the Freezer: From Novelty to Convenience: A Narrative of Normalisation. Journal of Material Culture. 5(3): 301-319. https://doi.org/10.1177/135918350000500303

Sustainability West Midlands (2021). Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3) Technical Report: Summary for England. Climate Change Committee. https://www.ukclimaterisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/CCRA-Evidence-Report-England-Summary-Final.pdf

Wingfield, J., Bell, M., Miles-Shenton, D., South, T., and Lowe, R.J. (2011). Evaluating the impact of an enhanced energy performance standard on load-bearing masonry domestic construction: Understanding the gap between designed and real performance: lessons from Stamford Brook. Project Report. London: Department for Communities and Local Government. ISBN 978-1-4098-2891-4.

Gaining inspiration at EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) 2025

Author Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research | Posted on

By Freya Wise, Research Fellow

The annual EUSEW is the biggest conference dedicated to renewable and energy efficiency in Europe with over 60 parallel policy sessions over three days and more than 2,000 online and in person attendees each day including local and national policy makers, industry experts, researchers and academics.

This year it was held on the 10-12 of June and was probably the 4th or 5th year that I had attended. Sometimes doing research on carbon reduction can feel a bit disheartening. For example reading latest update suggesting that urgent action is needed in the next three years to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5ºC [1] and yet this urgency seems far from international and domestic political agendas.

I like EUSEW because its focus on policy means that you hear about real actions that are being taken on local, national and regional levels in locations around Europe and I always go away feeling a bit more positive because there are lots of good things happening out there locally and indeed, at an EU level.

This year’s theme was ‘powering a fair and competitive green transition’ so there was a lot of discussion about the cost of electricity in Europe being higher than in other parts of the world. There was also a lot of talk about disadvantaged communities, what that looks like in different parts of Europe and not leaving anyone behind.

In this blog post I wanted to touch on some highlights of the sessions that I attended at this year’s EUSEW.

Highlight 1: Retrofit advice actually works!

One of the first sessions I attended explored policy tools, local initiative and financing models to encourage decarbonised housing and reduce energy poverty in European Cities. There were speakers from Belgium, Greece, Spain and the EU commission amongst others.

Two of the speakers were from the city of Ghent and spoke about a project where they provided free retrofit advice and one stop shop services* to any citizen in Ghent as part of their ‘Ghent, Climate City’ initiative [2]. Through part of a Horizon Europe funded project they were able to evaluate the effect of this advice and found that every €1 invested in providing the advice service led to €7 of actual retrofit work carried out. And this €7 was of course invested in local businesses, led to carbon reductions and had the potential to reduce fuel poverty.

Having recently written a paper on informational barriers to retrofit in the UK [3], I thought that this was a great statistic on the effectiveness of providing tailored, contextual and free advice to encourage retrofit.

A further presentation on the Thursday emphasised the need to take information to citizens and go to them to get their opinions and involvement rather than waiting for them to come to you. This was also something that we advocated in our recent paper and another speaker from Spain showed this great example of a mobile ‘one stop retrofit advice shop’ which was used to encourage fuel poor households to take up government supported retrofit and provides a good example of ‘taking advice to people’.

Highlight 2: ‘Talking to Ginger’ and actions not words

On Tuesday evening was what proved to be my favourite session of the conference, a keynote by Dr Kris de Meyer, a neuroscientist and director of the Climate Action Unit [4] at UCL, discussing how we, the ‘experts’ communicate climate change.

He first introduced a comic of a man explaining something to reasonably to his dog, Ginger, but what Ginger heard was: Ginger, blah, blah, blah, blah… Ginger! Blah blah, blah…’ because Ginger didn’t understand the man’s ‘jargon’. He then went on to say that different people also mean different things with the same words and further that we as people are very reluctant to acknowledge this and deeply feel that our interpretation is the most widely held one even in the face of evidence that it is not.

There were lots of other interesting points and the presentation itself was apparently based on a recent TED talk, How to get unstuck on climate action. The other point that stuck with me however was that he explained that in sustainability research there is generally an assumption that if we educate people about the importance of climate action, they will act. However (and linking back to the insight 1!), people learn about climate change and then want to take action but don’t know how to overcome barriers. Instead, he was explaining that neuroscience has shown that it is action, not knowledge that inspires further action, and that action also leads to agency i.e. knowing how to act. 

So, instead of trying to change peoples’ beliefs and convincing them to care, then expecting them to act, we should instead help people to start taking action and this will:

  1. help to persuade them to care
  2. inspire them to take further actions
  3. help them develop their ability to act

I think that operationalising this concept in practice may be challenging but I can see the logic. When we want people to start a sport, we offer them the opportunity to try it, we don’t just talk about it. This feels harder to do with something like building retrofit but is still definitely worthy of consideration.

The only sad thing about this talk was that it wasn’t longer and that the questions weren’t online as the onsite organisers, speaker and participants went off for cocktails!

Highlight 3: Control is key and the solution is energy boxes

The third highlight came from two talks on the Thursday. The first was about balancing energy performance with indoor environmental quality and one of the speakers highlighted the importance of personal control in increasing indoor comfort and reducing energy use through three examples:

  1. Studies showed that offering options for individual control over lighting in office buildings paired with occupancy sensors reduced energy consumption compared with standard lighting practices and boosted visual comfort and productivity.
  2. The use of personal environmental control systems (PECS) such as heated chairs and foot warmers could maintain thermal comfort at ambient temperatures 3-4ºC higher or lower than those recommended by current standards, and reduce energy use by 15-60%
  3. Ceiling fans can create air movement which can make 28ºC temperatures feel like 25ºC while using <5% of the energy required by an air conditioning system used to achieve the same effect.

This was a nice summary of a range of literature that I’ve read in this field in the past and it was pleasing to know that simple solutions like this can have such positive effects.

Another presentation meanwhile talked about a living lab in Genk [5], Belgium, where they were experimenting with prefabricated façade retrofit of social housing to create positive energy districts. There were lots of interesting things about this project but I was particularly interested in the ‘plug and play’ energy boxes which contained a heat pump and hot water provision and other energy systems without having to alter internal systems in the house.

This is an interesting approach in itself as it is can help reduce some of the disruption barriers to heat pump uptake [6]. But what was particularly interesting was that because it was a living lab they were able to try having one combined technology box for 2-5 homes in a ‘microgrid’ and found that the price of the retrofit drops by 50% per dwelling at an optimum number of five dwellings in the grid. There are challenges with this approach around distributing the costs to the separate houses which still need more working through but it’s a very promising innovation.

Conclusion

Of course, not all of the sessions are about retrofit, there are also sessions on transport and industrial decarbonisation as well as policy developments, financing and grid infrastructure so there really is a lot of interest going on. EUSEW is over for this year now, although recordings of the presentations are still available on the platform if you’ve registered.

The next EUSEW will be in June 2026, registrations open around January and online attendance is free. I can heartily recommend attendance if you are interested in sustainability activities across Europe and would like to go away with a bit of positivity that good things are happening!

Find out more about EUSEW

Author: Dr Freya Wise, ESRC Research Fellow (UWE Bristol)

* One stops shops offer retrofit information,  building specific plans for retrofit and offering support with sourcing finance and tradespeople, and often have a service to project manage the retrofit process for households and to conduct quality checks after the work has been completed. They are have been written into the recent recast of the EU’s Energy and Buildings Directive as something that all EU governments should implement

Reference list

 [1]        Forster PM, Smith C, Walsh T, Lamb WF, Lamboll R, Cassou C, et al. Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence. Earth System Science Data 2025;17:2641–80. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2641-2025.

[2]         Ghent’s climate actions | Stad Gent 2025. https://stad.gent/en/city-governance-organisation/city-policy/ghents-climate-actions (accessed June 25, 2025).

[3]         Wise F, Gillich A, Palmer P. Retrofit information challenges and potential solutions: Perspectives of households, retrofit professionals and local policy makers in the United Kingdom. Energy Research & Social Science 2025;119:103866. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103866 .

[4]         UCL. UCL Climate Action Unit. Climate Action Unit 2021. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/climate-action-unit (accessed June 25, 2025).

[5]         oPEN Lab – Leading the Transition to Positive Energy Neighbourhoods. EnergyVille n.d. https://energyville.be/en/project/open-lab-leading-the-transition-to-positive-energy-neighbourhoods/ (accessed June 25, 2025).

[6]         Wise F, Cooper A, Eckert C. A Transdisciplinary Engineering and Systems Approach for Decarbonizing UK Home Heating. Engineering For Social Change, vol. 60, Online: IOS Press; 2024, p. 359–68. https://doi.org/10.3233/ATDE240880.

CABER partners with international academics to address societal challenges

Author Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research | Posted on

By Patrick Manu, Professor of Innovative Construction and Project Management

The UK International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF) is designed to enable UK researchers and innovators to collaborate with international partners (in academia and industry) to tackle some of the pressing societal challenges. Since its inception, members of the Centre for Advanced Built Environment Research (CABER) at UWE Bristol have jointly secured this funding with collaborators in UK and several countries including Japan, Canada, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia to undertake exciting and innovative projects. These projects cover topics such as occupational safety and health, energy, immersive technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, and Industry 4.0. The projects include:

  • Developing a BIM-based Immersive Learning Environment for enhanced Construction Management Education and Training using VR technology (DOMINEERING)

    [Participating CABER members and visiting scholar: Abhinesh Prabhakaran, Patrick Manu, and Abdul Majeed-Mahamadu| Collaborating with partners in Vietnam].  

    This project develops a BIM-based immersive learning platform for construction training and education in Vietnam, with a focus on safety and quality management. The platform gives training and education providers a disruptive learning solution, which can also be adopted by businesses for upskilling their human resource.
  • Improving Design for Occupational Safety and Health in Malaysia via Tripartite Academic-Industry-Government Engagement, Capacity Strengthening and Knowledge Exchange

    [Participating CABER members & visiting scholar: Pablo Perez, Abhinesh Prabhakaran, Patrick Manu, Abdul Majeed-Mahamadu, and Che Khairil Izam Che Ibrahim | Collaborating with partners in UK, and Malaysia]. 

    The project brings together (through a series of engagement and capacity building workshops) key stakeholders from academia, industry and government agencies to explore and co-create solutions to address the challenges affecting effective implementation of design for occupational safety and health (DfOSH) in Malaysia.
  • UK-Japan-Switzerland-Germany-Netherlands Transnational Network for Safer and Healthier Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) in Construction

    [Participating CABER member: Patrick Manu | Collaborating with partners in UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, and Netherlands]. 

    This project establishes an international interdisciplinary network of experts, including industry professionals, researchers, policymakers, and technology providers from the UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands to assess the current state of HRC in construction, develop roadmaps, and create a long-term interdisciplinary partnership to ensure continuous improvement in safe HRC.
  • UK-Indonesia-Malaysia Alliance for Occupational Safety and Health Advancement in Construction (OSH-Advance)

    [Participating CABER member & visiting scholar: Patrick Manu, and Che Khairil Izam Che Ibrahim | Collaborating with partners in UK, Malaysia and Indonesia]. 

    This project establishes a transnational network of stakeholders from academia, industry and government in UK, Malaysia, and Indonesia to identify the opportunities, challenges, and potential solutions for improving OSH management in Malaysia and Indonesia.
  • Pathways to Sustainability: Transforming Battery Wastes into High-Performance Carbon materials for Cleaner Energy Generation

    [Participating CABER member: Patrick Manu | Collaborating with partners in UK and Vietnam]. 

    This project aligns with circular economy principles by developing, implementing, and testing a framework for converting battery waste into low-cost energy storage systems in Vietnam.
  • Improving Construction Safety through AI-enabled Visual Attention Monitoring: An Immersive Approach

    [Participating CABER members & visiting scholar: Abhinesh Prabhakaran, Colin Booth, Patrick Manu, and Abdul Majeed-Mahamadu | Collaborating with partners in Japan]. 

    This project aims to develop a novel virtual reality (VR) based application that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) for assessing visual behaviour of construction workers, thereby providing pathways for enhanced worker safety training.
  • Digital Occupational Safety and Health (D-OSH) Network: Connecting Research, Policy and Practice in Construction Across Continents

    [Participating CABER member: Patrick Manu | Collaborating with partners in UK, Canada and South Korea] 

    This project establishes a network with the objective of identifying the opportunities, challenges, and potential solutions to the implementation of digital technologies for occupational safety and health (OSH) management in construction. Through knowledge sharing and industry engagement, the network aspires to make contributions towards lowering the prevalence of construction-related injuries and illnesses.


If you would like to partner with our members in tackling some of society’s biggest challenges in the built environment via the ISPF or other funding schemes, do reach out to us.

Visit our CABER website for more information about our research themes, members, and their areas of expertise.

Collaborate with us to transform our built environment!

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