Copy This: How Carbon Copy’s Quiet Revolution Could Change Retrofit
I came across Carbon Copy the way I come across most useful things in this sector, by accident, and a little bit late.
I was tracing the digital footprints of community retrofit projects, trying to understand why certain ones take root and others quietly dissolve. Somewhere between a spreadsheet on Oxfordshire’s “Cozy Homes” network and a rabbit hole about remuneration in community interest companies, a name popped up: Carbon Copy. Something was different.
At first glance, it looked like another climate comms outfit. A well-meaning charity publishing upbeat case studies into the void. But a few minutes on their site, and something about the tone stopped me scrolling. It wasn’t selling solutions. It was showing them, in plain, human language. No jargon. No moral superiority. Just the sense that someone, somewhere, had done something that worked and that you could too.
So I called them.
The Carbon Copy Podcast
The name that explains itself
When I ask Isabelle Sparrow, Carbon Copy’s communications lead, to explain what they do, she doesn’t reach for policy terms or funding cycles. She just smiles and says:
“Everything Carbon Copy is about really is about sharing other people’s stories.”
That, as it turns out, is the whole point.
The charity was founded in the first lockdown, May 2020 - an odd moment for optimism. Its founding trustees believed that the solutions to the climate and nature crises already existed in local communities; they just weren’t visible enough for others to copy.
“There are people already implementing them… what we need is more people doing it, that’s why we’re called Carbon Copy.” Isabelle Sparrow
In an era obsessed with innovation, the idea that copying is a virtue feels almost radical. Yet that’s the genius of it. Retrofit doesn’t need more pilot projects or visionary rebrands. It needs replication - clear, repeatable stories about what works.
And unlike many sustainability organisations, Carbon Copy isn’t claiming ownership of the ideas. Their role is to amplify what’s already happening. To turn scattered successes into social proof.
Small team, big reach
Sparrow laughs when I ask how big the team is.
“Technically three employees and a freelancer,” she says. “And some trustees.”
That’s it. Four people, a podcast, a website, and a growing audience on LinkedIn.
Their focus is deceptively simple: reach people who are already inclined to act, and give them examples worth acting on. The charity doesn’t chase hard-to-convert cynics. It looks for the “low-hanging fruit” mid-career professionals, local organisers, parents, and mentors who already volunteer or lead in some way.
“They’re the people who coach football, lead a Brownie group… we just want to guide them toward doing that in a way that’s climate-positive.”
It’s a quietly strategic demographic. These are the same people who, in retrofit terms, could champion local bulk-buying schemes, start community retrofit hubs, or sit on parish councils making decisions about heat networks and housing stock.
They already have credibility. Carbon Copy gives them narratives, not instructions.
The Carbon Copy Impact Report
25 actions, one philosophy
Every two weeks this year, Carbon Copy has been publishing new stories around what it calls the 25 Big Local Actions in 2025. Each one highlights a different way of taking meaningful climate or nature action — from renewable energy to food systems, transport, and local powers.
“We’ve had the whole year planned out,” says Isabelle.
“Every fortnight we release a podcast episode, social media materials, and PR that focuses on one of those actions. We’re showing that whatever your background or interest, there’s a constructive way to get involved.”
It’s not just storytelling for its own sake. The team has also commissioned independent research into twelve grassroots initiatives across the UK, looking for the ingredients that make projects genuinely high-impact.
“We’re looking for projects that haven’t necessarily had big budgets,” Sparrow explains. “We know there are some immensely successful projects that have done it with very little at all.”
That’s an important point. In retrofit, money is often the limiting factor cited for inaction, whether it’s a council short of funds or a homeowner daunted by costs. Carbon Copy’s case studies challenge that narrative. They show what happens when you replace cash with collaboration, bureaucracy with belief.
It’s a reminder that evidence doesn’t have to come from million-pound demonstrators. It can come from the allotment down the road, the housing co-op on your estate, or the small CIC that decided to try something new.
The art of staying human
If you spend long enough around public-sector sustainability projects, you learn how easily language becomes a barrier. Words like “net zero,” “decarbonisation,” or “scope three” act as passwords, useful for insiders, alienating for everyone else.
Carbon Copy learned that lesson early. Net Zero is a hard sell.
So they shifted the frame. Less “net zero,” more quality of life. Less guilt, more imagination.
“It’s about helping people envisage a better way of living, show them that life can be thriving and healthy - oh, and by the way, also low-carbon.”
That single sentence could be retrofit’s new strap line.
Because as anyone who’s tried to explain insulation to a sceptical neighbour knows: nobody rejects a warmer, cheaper, healthier home. They just reject being preached at.
Sparrow’s team navigates that nuance with patience. Their stories aren’t about “saving the planet”, they’re about living better in the places we already call home.
25 Big Local Actions in 2025
How to build trust
When I ask what Carbon Copy has learned about building trust, Isabelle doesn’t talk about metrics. She talks about honesty.
“People who are delivering the messages need to be authentic and have had some lived experience… honesty about challenges builds trust.”
It sounds simple, but in a sector that prizes success stories, it’s rare to hear organisations talk about what went wrong. Carbon Copy deliberately includes that texture. Their case studies include advice sections, moments where communities share what didn’t work, what they’d change next time, and the practical roadblocks they faced.
It’s the opposite of greenwash. Instead of perfection, it offers process.
Sparrow calls it “honesty with a happy ending.” Not failure, not propaganda, more like realism that leaves room for hope.
That, she says, is what keeps people engaged:
“We don’t need to share stories of complete failure, but we do share ones where there have been hurdles that had to be overcome. The story is that they were overcome.”
And that ethos might be exactly what retrofit needs right now.
Because behind the insulation grants and the PAS frameworks sits a deeper crisis of confidence. Homeowners and councils alike don’t just need proof that retrofit works, they need to believe the people telling them. That belief is built from honesty, not marketing copy.
Lessons for retrofit
Talking to Carbon Copy feels like peering into a mirror of the retrofit industry, same mission, different toolkit.
We collect kilowatt-hours and EPC scores. They collect stories. We quantify; they humanise.
Their approach could solve one of retrofit’s hardest communication problems: scale without spin. Every installer, coordinator, or housing officer who shares a case study with integrity adds another node in the Carbon Copy network of trust.
If local retrofit projects began feeding their stories into Carbon Copy’s open library with shared metadata, LLM-friendly transcripts, and consistent structure — we could build a national social proof engine. A live map of “what’s already working” across the UK.
It’s not far-fetched. Carbon Copy’s existing partnerships already bridge sectors from nature recovery to transport. Retrofit is the next branch.
The power of copying
There’s an irony here worth celebrating. For years, sustainability has marketed itself as innovation: shiny new products, endless pilots, and expensive demonstrators. But what Carbon Copy proves is that replication is the true accelerator.
If something works - copy it. If someone has solved a problem - share it.
The future isn’t waiting to be invented. It’s waiting to be noticed.
And maybe that’s the bigger story.
Retrofit, at its heart, is about repetition. Every successful install, every warm home, every resident testimonial creates a model someone else can follow. Carbon Copy just gives that instinct a name and a platform.
So yes, copy this. Copy the courage, the honesty, the proof points. Copy the people who’ve already done it. Because sometimes, the most original thing you can do is repeat what works.
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