Social Housing and Retrofit: Impacting Net Zero
Transitioning careers isn't always a straight path. It often involves a nuanced blending of one's existing skill set, personal passions, and the identification of opportunities where one can make a significant impact. As a professional with a decade's worth of experience in construction supply chains and innovation, I recently found myself on such a transitional journey, navigating towards a role that would not only leverage my expertise but also accelerate collaborative activity within my sector. A key focus of my transition was to support the net zero agenda, a global imperative that offers significant opportunities for innovation and investment.
Choosing the Path: Social Housing and Retrofit
The reasons for my interest in the Social Housing and Retrofit sector were twofold. Firstly, I recognised the substantial investment capital earmarked for impact investment by pension funds and the government. Secondly, I saw the potential to yield commercial returns for stakeholders while delivering verifiable social and environmental impact.
With this vision, my initial approach was to connect with retrofit professionals who could provide insight into the sector's key challenges. Leveraging LinkedIn Sales Navigator, I sent 144 connection invitations. This simple outreach yielded a strong response with 101 professionals accepting my invitation.
Engaging in Market Discovery
During this time, I engaged in a series of discussions with a soon-to-be-retiring colleague from UCL Bartlett. These discussions were incredibly valuable, allowing me to explore the potential for introducing services and potentially products into the retrofit market. It was his recommendation that led me to meet with the CEO of a Social Housing Association.
The meeting was enlightening, though it challenged my initial assumptions. While I envisaged the introduction of new innovations into the retrofit supply chain, the sector's reality was different. Social Housing Associations and Social Landlords were more focused on the pressing challenge of decarbonising their housing stock by 2030. Despite numerous projects underway, the key hurdle was the delivery of retrofit programmes at scale and establishing the necessary knowledge base, particularly for smaller housing associations.
Though these insights didn't align with my initial ideas, they forced me to adjust my approach - a critical aspect of market discovery. After much consideration, a promising avenue emerged: sourcing necessary expertise from within academia and encouraging academics to support Social Housing Associations in developing retrofit programmes.
Refining the Proposition
Feeling confident about this new direction, I reached out to 31 professionals from my initial LinkedIn connections. I explained my idea of assembling a team of consulting academics to provide support where needed and sought their views on the potential for such a proposition in the retrofit market.
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with several responses indicating interest in exploring this idea further. Here are a few of the encouraging responses:
"I think it sounds very interesting & would like to have a chat about this."
"Sounds like an amazing idea, if you message me your number and email address we can schedule a meeting next week."
"I don't see any major hurdles other than the consultancy cost... But the demand is certainly there!"
"Sounds an interesting idea. I'm free on the 26th if that's any good with you?"
The Journey Continues
These conversations have offered me a clearer understanding of the sector's needs and the lack of access to expertise to address them. I am energised and cautiously optimistic about the potential of my proposition to address these challenges and support the net zero agenda.
This journey has reaffirmed the importance of being open to new insights, being flexible, and using our unique skills and experiences to forge new paths. Stay tuned for my next article, ".AI Tools to cut through the mist" where I will explain how I am using the latest AI tools to build a GPT4 Chatbot and expertise map from the conversations I’m having. The aim being to develop greater insights into the approach I should take moving forward.
Onwards and upwards!
