Sara Edmonds announced as Co-Director of the National Retrofit Hub

We are excited to announce that our Head of Citizen Engagement, Sara Edmonds, has been named as Co-Director of the UK’s burgeoning National Retrofit Hub. She will be embarking on this journey alongside Rachael Owens, Head of Sustainability at Buckley Gray Yeoman.

Retrofit has the potential to be the biggest lever we have to create resilient and thriving neighbourhoods within planetary boundaries. To achieve this, we need deep engagement, broad collaboration, and unfettered imagination about the possibilities of the future. The Hub exists to respond to these needs and to enable the delivery of the National Retrofit Strategy that will enable scaleup of retrofit for decarbonisation across the UK. 

The Hub has ambitious goals, from the convening and hosting of multi-stakeholder working groups and an advisory panel, to building a retrofit Knowledge Hub to facilitate access to the immense volume of best practice guidance and support, creating a practical, usable resource for anyone involved in retrofit. Fundamentally this is about bringing all the pieces of the puzzle together, to accelerate the good work of many organisations, communities, and individuals, so that we can address the need to deliver retrofit locally at scale.  

Sara and Rachael will both take on the role of Co-Directors alongside their current roles with BE-ST and Buckley Gray Yeoman respectively. This kind of job share is made possible by all three organisations having embraced flexible working which in turn, allows both Sara and Rachael to work in these spaces with passion and commitment in a way that is mutually beneficial. 

There is huge alignment between BE-ST and the National Retrofit Hub, and Sara’s work with the Hub will naturally complement her work with BE-ST and support us on our mission to accelerate the built environment’s journey to net zero, particularly around cultivating a culture of innovation and research, and empowering the sector to transition to retrofit through upskilling and reskilling.  

Later this year, on the 2nd November, BE-ST will be delivering the International Retrofit Conference, so save the date! In the meantime, if you want to find out more about the National Retrofit Hub, visit: https://nationalretrofithub.org.uk/about/Stephen Good, CEO at BE-ST said: 

“I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Nicola as she joins us at this exciting stage. It goes without saying that we wouldn’t be where we are now, without the hard work, passion, and guidance of our outgoing Chair Andy Outram. Nicola truly shares our vision for the future of the built environment when it comes to decarbonisation, the just transition and the culture shift needed to transform the sector for the benefit of our environment and citizens.”