Power & Place - Edinburgh roundtable event

Soaring energy bills are driving millions into fuel poverty, while cold, damp homes cost the NHS well over £1.5 billion a year and harm health across generations. Energy inequality isn’t just a policy challenge, it’s a public health emergency. How do we achieve energy equality across the UK, where fuel poverty, regeneration, and climate targets intersect?

Our recent roundtable discussion, an event in our Progressive Places programme, brought together architects, engineers, health experts, policymakers, academics, and industry leaders to explore how design can drive social justice and tackle energy inequality. 

Some key themes emerged from the discussion:

• Fabric-first retrofit: Fabric First-led strategies should ideally be prioritised for social housing settings; heat pumps alone without prior fabric improvements won’t solve fuel poverty, especially in social housing. Reducing energy demand should be the first step.
• Data as infrastructure: High-quality, interoperable, anonymised and open-source data provide critical tools to understand vulnerable households and communities, design fair interventions, and prepare all UK councils for investment.
• Health and housing: Make a clearer case for the social value impact of retrofit, for instance, studies have shown that every £1 spent on retrofit saves £0.43p on the NHS.
• Procurement and affordability: Address electricity pricing and develop community-based procurement models and public private partnerships. We must develop holistic solutions that can be rolled out to suit budgets and funding availability.
• Governance and integrity: Consumers, building owners and tenants need protecting. There needs to be greater professional engagement, more upskilling and greater government and professional body oversight on quality and service.
• Standards and delivery: EPCs alone don’t close the performance gap. Standards like AECB, EnerPHit, UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard, and guidance from LETI and the National Retrofit Hub set the benchmark. Success depends on education, smooth handover, and early contractor engagement.
• Communication and trust: Tell the fuel-cost reduction story, involve residents’ associations, and maintain trust through shifting political agendas. We need to get better at relating to building users as well as clients, asset managers, clients, and financiers – to build trust and win hearts and minds.

At Collective Energy, we’re exploring bold collaboration across sectors, data-led strategies and place-based solutions that work for Scotland, as well as the rest of the UK. If you’re working on retrofit, health, energy justice, or community-led change, let’s connect.

Thank you to all those that contributed: Clare MacRae, Ryan Ferrier, Sophie Simpson, Jack Mooney, Elliot Higgins, Sean Smith, Irem Serefoglu, Catherine Palmer, Lucie Murray, Gerry Hogan, Eugenia Mompó, James York and Stuart Hay.