Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick from the webinar vet. Very fortunate to have on our latest episode of that chat, Chris Copeman, who's a real inspiration for me in the area of sustainability, particularly in sustainable buildings. Chris has a couple of practises in the sort of Cheshire, Wigan, Warrington area of, the UK qualified from London and, Has always had a love of the outdoors, was a great walker and climber, and actually did a very big trip in about 10 years ago, which I think we should hear a little bit about because I think there was a bit of an epiphany that happened during the trip, wasn't there, Chris?

Hi, hi, Antony. Yeah, thanks, thanks for that. yeah, I sort of did an overland trip across Asia through sort of China and Tibet and India and, and, .

Russia, by, by train, and just seeing, you know, things that are going on in the rest of the world made me sort of, you know, really start to think about sustainability in the environment and, you know, from seeing logging trucks rolling out of the, the jungle in Laos. But then also on the other hand, seeing quite positive things like in China, lots of sort of, you know, renewable energy, wind turbines, solar panels, and, and. People zipping around Beijing in electric vehicles, you know, even, even 10 years ago.

Yeah. So it, it, it made me think when I came back that I wanted to do some, you know, really positive, things for sustainability and the environment. Now, I know you're a consultant on Passive house and I obviously want to talk about that and maybe, you know, you can fill us in on the history.

Of it. But we, we unfortunately didn't cross paths, but we were both up in Glasgow a few weeks ago for a, for a little climate conference that people might have heard of called COP 26. So tell me, what, what did you make of that, the few days you were up in Glasgow?

Oh, there was a, there was a great atmosphere up there. All the people that had sort of come up, come up there from, you know, from, from around the world, and I think you were, you were in this sort of march on Saturday that, that, that I was in with sort of. Thousands of people with all sorts of things that banners that they've made and sort of huge models that they'd taken there and it was sort of really nice to see all those people there because they, they, they're so keen to see some.

Change is happening and just talking to those people and that march was amazing and we even had to have a, had a polar bear to stay with us a few weeks ago that was walking all the way with its creator to, to, to Glasgow. So he, he walked 300 miles from, Shropshire with this, 10 ft polar bear. This, this, this guy stayed the night at our house on the, on the way up, which is, I didn't bump into the polar bear again up there though, unfortunately.

It was, yeah, it was really excellent. I believe there was obviously marches going on all over the country, but the Glasgow march had over 100,000 people in it and . Yeah, it was, it was really, really good.

I know the day before they'd also had a more of a youth march with Greta Thunberg and I think there's 3 constituents, isn't there? There's government, there's individuals, there's business. Actually, the more noise that the government has, often populist, you know, they go where they think the votes will be, don't they?

So the, the protesting is definitely a part of the mix of hopefully making a better world over the next 10 years because it's such a crucial decade we're now Entering, isn't it, Chris? Yeah, I think it's starting to change public opinion a bit as well with, you know, all of this is just raising these issues to public attention. So, XR and the others, a lot of the other charities and people from around the world that work in Glasgow, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's raised awareness for everybody and everybody's, you know, thinking about, thinking about these things now.

And also I think, you know, both as individuals but also as business owners. Businesses, big and small can make a big difference, and I was really impressed with some of the things I saw in the green zone, you know, companies like Sainsbury's trying to be more sustainable, you know, in their use of light and heating. So it's definitely a company you maybe should approach with your passive housing.

And then of course Scottish Power that is now completely 100% renewables, which I thought was, you know, was fabulous. Yeah. Yeah, definitely, yeah.

Is that Scottish and Southern Energy, is it? Yeah, SSE, yeah, they, they're very impressive. I had a chat with, with them as well and and they've got all sorts of tidal projects and energy storage projects going, it's amazing, isn't it?

Very very impressive, yeah. And it's impressive because we still have this system which is governmental which gives more subsidy to oil still than it gives you know I I saw a programme and the, The really cool stuff we're doing on tidal, where we're leading the world, you know, we really are world beaters. I know it's a word that we've bandied around quite a lot over the last two years, sometimes erroneously, but I think we really are world leaders.

But then there isn't the investment being put into that, which means that we kind of lose that knowledge and that ability. Obviously we've, we've got quite a lot of sea around us, haven't we, Chris? Yeah, yeah, it's, and we're, we're building all of this, but it's all foreign companies building the, the wind turbines and things, but it's, yeah, but, I went up to Shetland a couple of years ago and it's incredible the number of winter.

I think they're a net net exporter of energy, now they're exporting it back to the mainland. I think Scotland is almost a sort of, exporter of energy, isn't it? I think, well, I think again on the Scottish.

So the energy stand on some days, wind makes up 50% of the energy mix and obviously that's on a very windy day, but you know, consistently is now well over a quarter, so it's it's massive and I think even now with globally or in the UK, the amount of oil and, and coal that we're using is, is, you know, low single digits now in, in production. So there's definitely progress. Being made, you know, at business level as well, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah, I I think I think that's, that's right, . Yeah, there's, there's, there's a lot of companies doing some, some, some good work. I slightly worry about some of the push for hydrogen that we're getting in the Northwest, and I'm, I'm not convinced that sort of, the push from hydrogen made from fossil fuels is a, is a, is the right direction to go personally.

Yeah, no, that's interesting. I mean, obviously, you know, I know you obviously first as used to locum with for me as well when I had my practise, so we go back a long way, but obviously then I started seeing your name in the, in the press as the as a passive house consultant. Builder, I think of the only passive house veterinary practise in the country there unless another one has sprung up.

I think you were definitely the first anyway, weren't you? Yeah, I'm, I'm the first in the UK. There's one in Dublin as well.

They were, they were ahead of me. Yeah, I think it is the first passive house that. It's been open about, 2, 18 months, 2 years now, so we're.

We're starting to see, you know, how much energy it takes to run this, this, this building. I'm, I'm sitting in it, at, at the moment. So, yeah, and it's sort of, it's, it's, running on, you know, quite, quite a low amount of energy overall, I, I would say it's .

It, it, it produces sort of about 8500 kilowatt hours of energy on its roof, and uses 5000 kilowatt hours of energy. and that's for heating and sort of running sort of all, all the veterinary equipment and, yeah, fridges, lights and analyzers and, and, . So, and if you think that you export quite a lot of that solar energy, it means that, you know, we're, we're possibly only using about 1000 kilowatt hours of.

Of, of energy in, in, you know, to run this, this building which annually, yeah, an annually, yeah, so, and if you can, you know, think that the average house in this country probably uses about 15,000 kilowatt hours of energy for for heating and electricity. And, and that, you know, there's no figures for vet surgeries, of course, but, but, you know, that, that would be much higher for, for vet surgeries, I would have thought. So you probably, you know, we're probably running on a, you know, about the 20th, the amount of energy that most vet surgeries do, I, I guess.

Which is, you know, just phenomenal, that sort, because I remember, you know, obviously a lot more devices coming out now and I remember at a time, 11 person I saw a report which said, you know, we need to build. So many more gas fired coal stations and this was a number of years ago and actually one of the concepts then was actually Just by the registration television or the A quality refrigerator because if we can just save energy on devices that will be massive. But this is taking it to the nth degree.

This is where your house is the device, isn't it? Yeah, I think that the International Energy Association has said that the the biggest energy resource that we've got is energy conservation, and I think there is some, some real truth in that, and yeah, all these devices that have . That have reduced their energy use, you know, from, from hover to TVs, that's made a big difference in, in, in, in, in, energy demands in this country.

I just wanted to also go in because I know, you know, within all of that sustainability and practise, yes, of course, you can reduce energy. But of course we, we know that our anaesthetic gases pollute the atmosphere and if they get out into the atmosphere, they're actually much more potent than CO2, albeit they don't stay around for as long. Just tell me a little bit about what you're doing and if there's any interesting developments that we should know about about gaseouss anaesthesia, you know, from your side as a You know, practising veterinary veterinary surgeon.

Right, well, well, firstly, I'm not an expert on this, and, and but I read an excellent article by Ellie West the other day in the vet record and, and, that sort of really made me think further about, about this, but, we, we, we try and use re-breathing circuits as much as possible. So Humphrey ADE and circles and many lack circuits. to try and reduce our anaesthetic gas, and we're starting to use sedative combinations that, that, that mean that there's less anaesthetic required.

And we're thinking about moving to see the fluorraine from isoflurane, which I, I think is, I think there's quite a cost implication to that, but I think her, her article stated that, you know, there's 4 times less global warming potential with Siva fluorine, so, yeah, that's so that seems like quite a good reason to sort of, you know, to, to move over to it, I think. If there was a, a way to capture the waste gases, which I know some hospitals are starting to do now in the UK, that would be something I'd, I'd be keen to sort of investigate because I think the, the, the carbon footprint of, of volatile anaesthetic agents is, is huge, isn't it? So definitely you need to address, yeah.

One of the things we try to do with the podcast is, is obviously send people away with some hope about what they can do. And obviously, not everybody's going to build a passive house. Some people have got a building they've got to work with.

I know as part of the passive house, as you said, you've got the solar panels. I believe you've also, invested in a, in a source heat pump as well. What would your thoughts be around buildings, around making them more energy efficient that people can do in practise that is affordable and obviously this is where government comes in because I know you've, you've fitted an air source heat pump and you've not been given any subsidy for doing that from the government.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, I mean air source heat pumps are a brilliant idea. The, they take one unit of electricity and, and turn that into 4 units of, of, of heat, an air source heat pump. We, we all have them in our house, a fridge is, is, is, is this, is exactly the same technology as an air source heat pump, but it's just used to make something colder and instead of warmer.

So, so, I think that's definitely something that, We could, we, we should, we should be using, to, to heater vet practises. The one that we've fitted here is, is brilliant. It, you, you never sort of have to do anything with it.

It's just there running all the time and, you know, not, not using a great deal, great deal of energy. So, but, there's very good subsidies for domestic installation of these. There's something called a renewable heat incentive.

. Where you, you can get sort of, you know, get your money back, which it, it can cost some sort of 7000 to 10,000 pounds, you get your money back through, through this grant system at the moment, and that's going to change to 5000 pounds a year from next year, but that's still, I think, just for domestic. So, but there are cheaper ways that you can do this.

You can just use an ordinary air conditioning unit and, and you can use that for heating, and that will, that is a heat pump in itself. So that will take 1 unit of electricity and make 4 units of heat. So, incredible, incredible, efficient device.

So even just putting in an air conditioning unit in and using it as a heater. Is useful, but, Passing house is very much about fabric first building, so it's very much about, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's about super insulating a building, making it very airtight, triple glazing, using sort of solar game with, with windows at south facing elevations. And then using heat recovery ventilation, which, which is a ventilation system which recovers the heat from sort of air being taken out, stale air, and then passes that heat through heat exchanger into fresh air coming in.

So, and, and although in a passive house, you've got all of these tech technologies there, that doesn't mean that we can't apply these to sort of, you know, to other buildings and, and. I've, I've retrofitted my house to passive house standard, as, as well, one of the first in the, in the north, north of England. How old is your, your own house that you live in?

Is that an old house? 1940s, yeah, so yeah, it's quite, quite a lot of work to do that, that took a good year to do, but. But, you know, we, we don't, you don't have to go to this, you know, this is sort of the highest building standard in the world, passive house.

We don't have to go that far. And certainly if you use technologies like air source heat pumps, which, you know, such a sort of amazing efficient technology, you know, just a bit of insulation can, can, can, can be enough to really help and. You know, even if you just, if you, if you take a lot of us will be working in buildings that are just sort of solid brick walls, with no insulation, if you, if you just add 5 centimetres of insulation to that wall, so, just on, on the inside or on the outside, you'll reduce your heat loss from that building by 5 times.

So, you, you know, just, just. Putting insulation into a building when you can, if you're doing any, building work, if you, if you, if, if you, if you're refitting a building, if you've got damp walls, you can solve a lot of problems like that by, by insulating, those, those walls. So insulation is one thing I think that we should, we should be trying to do with, with, with, all our buildings and in a passive house, you have 20 to 30 centimetres of insulation, and obviously you can't go quite that far with a, with a lot of houses, .

But, so, so insulation, if you're refitting windows, think about putting triple glazing in rather than double because the sort of energy savings are huge. It's something that's, they're not really very popular in this country yet, but in, in other countries, you can't buy double glazing anymore, such as Sweden. then ventilation systems, I think, is something that aren't fitted a great deal in, in.

Vet surgeries and ones I've, I've worked in generally, and I think they can be really good for health of your patients and people and team as well, yeah, of course, yeah, particularly when you, when you, if you look at sort of viruses proliferate, when you have, you know, high and low humidity, you really want your humidity levels controlled and a and a and a heat recovery ventilation or ventilation systems generally will help control that humidity level, reducing the spread of viruses and also you're, you're exchanging. Yeah, so you can get a heat recovery. Ventilation device that will fit in the in the wall for for about 100 quid from a company like Ventaxia, so you don't have to put a whole building ventilation system in like, like we have in this building which and of course with, with the pandemic and viruses, you know, I was.

Actually at an event and 9 of us were in the room and 4 came out with COVID, so clearly that is a A ventilation problem as well, isn't it? Yeah, I think that's gonna be something that will be thought about a lot, a lot more in the future. And at the moment we rely in the average building, you rely on ventilation is totally dependent.

Open the door and windows. Yeah, it's actually because they're built to be fairly draughty houses in this country and, and it might, if it's windy, you're gonna have a good bit of ventilation. If it's not windy, you you might have no ventilation.

In your building. So with a passive house you seal the building up and test it to make sure it's very airtight, which, stops, bypass of air through, through the insulation. And then you supply just the right amount of ventilation for your building and extract from wet rooms and, and.

Supply to sort of living areas. So, so, you know, very, very useful thing to put in, into, into, into, and you can retrofit, you know, some very sort of small, discrete units to, to, to do this sort of very it's quite a few companies around, supplying these sort of things, . So, yeah, yeah, ventilation, windows insulation, and, and, I think these are all things that, that, that we could be doing to our, our vet practises to make them nicer buildings to work in.

It's thought that you feel, you feel cold in a room if you have cold surfaces around it, so it's not just about cranking the heating up always. You know, actually, if you have a, a cold wall, in front of you, you know, you can actually sense the cold from, from that, from that wall. So if you start to insulate.

Walls and, and put triple glazing and you know that you can actually set your heating a little bit lower because then you won't, you won't feel as cold. No, Chris, this is really interesting and, you know, buildings are obviously a, a huge, I know, I did a climate fre game at COP 26 and You know, building is a huge part of that whole production of carbon as well, so anything that Reduces carbon use in the construction industry, you know, we have to look more seriously at, and I know obviously passive house from Germany. There are many, many houses in Germany built to this really exacting standard, aren't there?

Well, there's a lot, there's a lot all over the world, and there's, you know, there's thousands in this country now as, as, as well. And you're right, the embodied energy when you, when you just build a building is quite a big part of it. And I think at COP there was some talk about, you know, how we need to make more buildings from wood, and I, I think, this building is almost completely made of, wood, .

The insulation in the walls is made out of recycled paper, and it has minimal concrete. It sits on a sort of on a raft of insulation. So yeah, I think we have to look at the embodied energy of, of, you know, when, when we make buildings and, and perhaps move away from the traditional brick building that bricks and mortar.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, Chris, you know, you, you really are inspirational in this area because it, as I say, it's a massive area that we can improve on. Thank you for those useful tips, which hopefully people can have a little think about and and you know, see what they can do.

I know solar panels. As you've said, sometimes we can put them before we do the insulation, but if, if insulation is difficult, which I know in an old house like mine is a bit more tricky, then at least the solar panels are producing. Stuff as well, aren't they?

Oh yeah, definitely, I think, I think, you know, every, every building should have solar panels on it really it seems, you know, like a. Like a really sensible thing to do. Yeah, good, good, good, easy win.

Good on you for putting those on there, Anthony. Yeah, no, Chris, thank you so much. Hope, to hopefully see you soon and thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks, bye.