Who Can We Trust on Retrofit?
Lessons from RICS’ Evening at the Labour Party Conference
At Liverpool’s Museum of Liverpool, during the bustle of the Labour Party Conference, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) hosted a reception dedicated to the UK’s retrofit challenge.
The evening brought together parliamentarians, professional bodies, academics, and delivery agencies to discuss not only how to accelerate retrofit, but also who the public can trust to guide the nation through a complex energy-efficiency transition.
Keynote speaker Bill Esterson MP, Chair of Parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Select Committee, made the political and economic stakes clear: retrofit is about climate action, household bills, and jobs.
RICS’ Emma Fletcher, speaking as Low Carbon Homes Director at Octopus Energy and as chair of RICS’ Residential Professional Panel, framed retrofit as a matter of trust and standards.
Professor Richard Fitton of the University of Salford, who has spent years shaping retrofit testing and standards, argued for removing the technical and financial barriers that still slow innovation.
What emerged was a strikingly joined-up message: retrofit will only scale if it is credible, affordable, evidence-based, and explained in language that ordinary homeowners trust.
Climate Emergency Meets Household Economics
“If we don’t take climate action, we’re all in really bad trouble… our children and grandchildren won’t survive unless we take action now.”
- Bill Esterson
Esterson emphasised that retrofit is one of the most tangible ways to act on climate science while improving people’s lives.
“The evidence shows most people understand the climate science, but there’s an increasing number listening to misinformation… we’ve got to convince them. Retrofit is a prime example of how we can take people with us.”
- Bill Esterson
He cited the government’s Warm Homes Plan as a critical driver:
“£500 a year off bills on average… that’s significant. It’ll help with fuel poverty… and with health too. Our committee heard how damp homes affect people’s health and air quality.”
- Bill Esterson
Esterson stressed the ‘triple dividend’ of retrofit:
- lower household bills,
- healthier homes,
- and decentralised green jobs.
“Retrofitting older properties… will create jobs in every community because it’s decentralised.”
- Bill Esterson
He also framed retrofit as an issue of energy security and social consent:
“We have to convince people… we’ve got to win this fight… it’s in everybody’s interest - not only to save the planet but because it saves money and creates jobs.”
- Bill Esterson
Building Public Trust
For Emma Fletcher, the central theme was trust in professional advice.
“We were set up to act in the best interest of the public. We have a Royal Charter… people need to know who they can trust to make sure the work being done to their homes is correct.”
- Emma Fletcher
She underlined that retrofit must be personalised and evidence-based:
“It has to be correct for them and their lifestyle, and fundamentally will also ensure that their home is a happy, healthy place to live in with lower bills.”
- Emma Fletcher
Fletcher explained the professional backbone of that trust:
“Surveyors ensure they continue their professional development and understand all the latest regulations… acting in the best interest of their customer.”
- Emma Fletcher
She stressed that retrofit is about resilience and future-proofing:
“This is about resilience - making sure your home is future-proofed well into the next two or three decades, warm, comfortable, and healthy.”
- Emma Fletcher
RICS’ new Retrofit Standard and Retrofit Pathway were presented as critical tools:
“We launched our retrofit standard… and our retrofit pathway pilot is already oversubscribed. We know demand is there from professionals who want accreditation so they can advise customers accordingly.”
- Emma Fletcher
Evidence, Standards and the Cost of Knowledge
Professor Richard Fitton has been at the heart of developing retrofit assessment standards.
“The most recent standard I’ve worked on has been the retrofit assessment standard… all about taking a building before we retrofit and having a really good work-around it first - a survey, an assessment - so we make sure disasters don’t happen by putting the wrong measures into a building.”
- Richard Fitton
Fitton highlighted the role of surveyors as independent custodians of quality:
“Any professional sector brings independence… our role is to make sure it’s right from start to end.”
- Richard Fitton
But he also pointed to a systemic barrier - the paywalls around technical standards:
“There should be zero barriers to retrofit… we can all talk about how retrofit should be done, but if someone has to pay to read the standards that fills me with woe… every single document we need to get retrofit right should be 100% free, easy to find, kept up to date, searchable, downloadable.”
- Richard Fitton
Fitton also addressed the innovation vs regulation dilemma:
“We need to test in the same way… do lab tests, field trials, good data analytics… to bring innovations through. If we don’t innovate, we’re in a messy place… but we also need to stop quick fixes that don’t work and base it on proper evidence.”
- Richard Fitton
Lessons from the Field – The Devolved Retrofit Story
A valuable counterpoint came from James Johnson, leading the North-West Net-Zero Hub.
“Local government has done a lot of learning about retrofit delivery… the northwest delivered nearly half a billion pounds of retrofit in the last five years.”
- James Johnson
He stressed the importance of local delivery agencies and community-level trust:
“A virtuous way of doing this might involve local agencies… calling it ‘Warm Homes’ rather than ‘retrofit’ is a good step because only half the people you interview know what retrofit means.”
- James Johnson
The message: place-based delivery backed by trusted intermediaries and consistent standards is key.
The Politics of Warm Homes
Esterson returned to the theme of policy certainty:
“A five-year programme allows businesses to upskill their workforce, safe in the knowledge there is a long-term commitment, continuity of policy - something we didn’t see in previous ECO schemes.”
- Bill Esterson
He argued that fair access to finance - not just grants - is essential:
“For those who don’t get the grant, what can you do to ensure the upfront costs are manageable so everyone can play their part?”
- Bill Esterson
He also acknowledged the importance of tariff reform and technology adoption:
“By shifting policy costs off electricity and onto gas we can bring down electricity prices and make retrofit more attractive.”
- Bill Esterson
From Fringe to Mainstream
Fitton reflected on how retrofit has moved from the margins of the construction sector to the mainstream:
“For a long time we called it refurbishment or renovation… now we have this phrase retrofit - and it’s drawing in people who are more interested in improving how we do it.”
- Richard Fitton
This shift, combined with RICS’ training pathway and regional experience, suggests that retrofit is becoming a core competency rather than a niche concern.
Who Should Homeowners Trust?
The Liverpool reception underscored a clear hierarchy of trusted guidance:
- Parliamentary leadership to frame the economic and social case (Esterson)
- Professional standards and accredited surveyors to guarantee quality and independence (Fletcher & Fitton)
- Devolved and community-level delivery agencies to make retrofit relatable and local (Johnson)
- Transparent, accessible knowledge and fair finance to remove practical barriers (Fitton & Esterson)
“It can’t be a policy just for the fuel-poor and the affluent - it’s got to be for everyone.”
- Bill Esterson
“We have to remove barriers… bring fresh faces into the sector… and make guidance free and accessible.”
- Richard Fitton
In the run-up to the Warm Homes Plan and amid growing public scepticism about net zero, the core message from Liverpool was that credibility, accessibility, and fairness in retrofit are inseparable.
This weeks articles are sponsored by the accreditation and energy specialists Flexi-Orb - they are making the world of accreditation easier and more competitive. Find out what they are doing to make that happen here;
