Steve Cole

Steve Cole graduated in 2019 from our MSc in Sustainability and Adaptation in the Built Environment course. His background before coming to CAT was new build construction, and during his studies he came to understand that it is our current stock of buildings that present the greatest challenge so he decided to concentrate his efforts on improving the health, comfort and thermal performance of existing buildings.

This led him to becoming self-employed, working on the renovation and retrofit of buildings with a particular focus on insulation in traditional buildings. He does this through his company Addasu (Welsh for Adapt), where he combines his academic research with extensive experience in new-build and renovation projects in the UK (and Ghana) to offer informed, practical and appropriate training, advice and construction services.

Steve also recently attended Jump, a European funded train-the-trainer project in the field of ecological building where he learnt about different teaching methods and techniques that could be used to facilitate teaching others about the subject of sustainable construction. In future he hopes to use this experience to establish and grow his business with the hope of taking on apprentices to be able to keep learning, sharing information and teaching others.

“I have gained confidence in what I know and feel that I am a lot more aware of our impacts on the wider environment. Greater appreciation of the inter-connected nature of things. The people made the experience and if I had to sum up my experience and the people I met to anyone I would say: Nice people in an amazing place, all trying to work together to fix a very important complex challenge.”