About The Future We Build

The Future We Build is a podcast about sustainability in real estate when it is shaped by innovation, investment, and real commercial decision making.

Hosted by Alex Edds, a corporate sustainability innovator with over 20 years inside the real estate industry, the show draws on his experience working within large property companies, advising venture capital, and advising PropTech and climate tech disruptors that are bringing new ideas and products to market.

Rather than treating sustainability as a reporting exercise, the podcast explores how innovation actually enters corporate environments, how buying decisions are made, and why so many promising technologies struggle to move beyond pilots. It looks at sustainability through the lens of value creation, resilience, and human outcomes, not just carbon metrics.

Through open, mostly in-person conversations with asset managers, sustainability leaders, PropTech founders, and venture capital investors, The Future We Build examines the realities of scaling innovation inside real estate. It surfaces the internal constraints, commercial pressures, and unspoken objections that shape adoption, as well as the ideas and approaches that successfully break through.

This is a show for people building, backing, and buying the next generation of solutions for the built environment. It is not about hype or headline friendly innovation. It is about what actually works, what doesn't, and why.

For asset managers protecting portfolio value, sustainability leaders driving change, PropTech founders refining go to market strategies, and investors seeking scalable impact, this podcast offers rare insight into how sustainability, innovation, and capital intersect in practice.

Our Episodes

New episodes drop weekly

Season 1 Trailer

The Trailer. What you can expect from Season 1.
Welcome to The Future We Build—a podcast for the people creating fundamental change in how we build, invest in, and inhabit our world.

Episode 001.

The one with.. the $4tn climate coalition transforming real estate.
In this inaugural episode of The Future We Build, Alex sits down with ⁠Vincent Van Bijleveld ⁠from ⁠GREEN ⁠(Global Real Estate Engagement Network) to explore how institutional capital is—or isn't—driving decarbonization in real estate. Vincent offers a rare investor perspective on the tensions between financial returns and climate goals, the limitations of current rating systems, and why real estate might be easier to transform than we think.

The one with...the godmothers of green buildings. Time for creativity, collaboration and leadership
In this special episode, Alex returns to his roots with two remarkable leaders who shaped the beginning of his sustainability journey. Julie Hirigoyen (former CEO of UK GBC, now advisor to investors and property companies) and Sarah Ratcliffe (CEO of Better Buildings Partnership).

Episode 002.

Episode 003.

The one with... the ex-Heads of Sustainability. On burnout, role evolution, and going fractional
In this candid episode of The Future We Build, Alex brings together two former heads of sustainability—Robbie Epsom (ex-CBRE Investment Management) and Emily Hamilton (ex-Savills Investment Management)—for what Alex calls "a therapy session." The three discuss why so many senior sustainability leaders have left their roles, what's changed in the market, and where they're channelling their energy next.

Now securing sponsors and advertisers for Season 2

Click on the links to watch and listen to previous episodes

Episode 004.

The One With... Real Estate's Data Crisis, PropTech Growth, AI Readiness & the New UK Real Estate
In this episode of The Future We Build, host Alex Edds sits down with Sammy Pahal, Managing Director of the UK Proptech Association (UKPA). As the real estate sector undergoes a massive consolidation with the formation of Real Estate UK, Sammy discusses the evolution of the industry over the last decade.

The one with... the marketplace innovator and why nobody wants another dashboard
Commercial real estate has no shortage of decarbonisation plans. What it lacks is the infrastructure to execute them. Pål Hauff Hvattum, CEO of CQuel, knows this from the inside out — and he's spent the last two years building the solution.

Episode 005.

The one with ... the VC investor aiming to remove a gigaton of carbon from the urban environment
What does it actually take to back the companies rebuilding our cities? Rahul Parekh is a Partner at 2150, the venture capital fund created by and for one of the Nordics' largest real estate investors — now under the Urban Partners brand — a €20 billion platform that combines real estate capital with venture capital to accelerate the adoption of climate technologies in the built environment.

Episode 006.

Episode 007.

The one with... the investor on embedding sustainability, managing ESG backlash, and the data problem
Abigail Dean is Head of Strategic Insights at Nuveen, one of the largest real estate investment managers in the world. Her role combines sustainability research and proptech, deliberately designed to give a more unified view of what's actually driving real estate value.

Episode 008.

The one with... Property Management 2.0 — Moving from Data Reporter to Value Creator.
Carl Brooks leads sustainability for CBRE's property management business. With a career spanning 25 years from waste management consultancy to developer-operator roles at Hammerson and MAPP, Carl now oversees sustainability across one of the largest property management platforms on the planet: 19,000 buildings, 3.2 billion square feet, across 41 countries.

Episode 009.

The one with... the AI provocateur. Part 1. The real estate countdown
Antony Slumbers runs the Generative AI for Real Estate People course, now on its 50th cohort, and has become a go-to thinker for anyone trying to understand what artificial intelligence actually means for how this industry operates

Episode 010.

The one with.. The AI provocateur. Part 2. Agency and the Architecture of Change
In this second of a two-part conversation — recorded before the recent stock market turbulence that he references mid-episode — Alex and Antony pick up where they left off and go further: into the future of AI hardware, the geopolitics of energy, the sustainability implications of large language models, and what it will actually take for real estate businesses to transform rather than just tinker.

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Email

alex@thefuturewebuildpodcast.com