#84 - Sarah Daly: Building Better: The Future of Sustainable Housing and Healthy Buildings

Air Quality Matters

Send us a text

The gap between what we know and what we build has never been more troubling. While we have centuries of construction knowledge at our fingertips, today's housing often fails at the most fundamental levels of health, comfort, and efficiency.
Sarah Daly, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Sustainable Communities at Agile Homes, brings a refreshing perspective to this challenge. With her extensive background spanning sustainability, communications, and strategic leadership, Sarah cuts through the noise to address why our approach to sustainable housing needs radical reinvention.
"Words like sustainability and eco have been hijacked and weaponized," Sarah explains, pointing to how terminology has become a barrier rather than a bridge to understanding. The conversation explores how we've reached a critical juncture where the housing crisis pushes quantity over quality, creating homes that actively harm occupants through poor indoor air quality and substandard construction.
The discussion delves into the alarming reality that most new housing fails to meet even basic performance standards, with up to 80% of buildings showing significant non-compliance. Sarah reveals how developers "game the system," knowing they can often evade responsibility once properties change hands. "You've got more consumer rights buying a cheese sandwich in a supermarket than spending hundreds of thousands on a house," she notes pointedly.
What makes this conversation truly powerful is Sarah's pragmatic vision for change. Now working at "the pointy end of the spear" with Agile Homes, she demonstrates how building to Passive House standards should simply be the baseline, not an aspirational goal. Through community-based transformation projects, needs-led design, and a focus on long-term value rather than short-term costs, Sarah illustrates a pathway forward that prioritises human outcomes alongside environmental goals.
Sarah Daly - LinkedIn

Agile Property

Support the show

Check out the Air Quality Matters website for more information, updates and more. And the YouTube Channel
The Air Quality Matters Podcast is brought to you in partnership with.

Eurovent Farmwood Aereco Aico Ultra Protect Zehnder Group

The One Take Podcast is brought to you in partnership with.

SafeTraces & InBiot

All great companies that share the podcast's passion for better air quality in the built environment. Supporting them helps support the show.

Chapters

1. Introduction to Sarah Daly (00:00:00)

2. Challenges in Housing and Sustainability (00:08:44)

3. Lost Knowledge in Building Construction (00:15:30)

4. Race to the Bottom in Housing Standards (00:25:10)

5. Ultra Protect Sponsor Message (00:34:15)

6. Reframing the Sustainability Narrative (00:35:55)

7. Transformative Community-Based Approaches (00:45:54)

8. Agile Homes and Building to Passive House (00:53:28)

9. Construction Skills and Education Gaps (01:04:05)