The NLA Retrofit Summit 2025 brought together senior voices from local government, policy, planning, commercial development and design to examine how adaptive reuse can fundamentally reshape the built environment. Across five sessions, speakers emphasised that retrofit is not only an environmental imperative but increasingly a commercial, cultural and social necessity. Despite encouraging progress, the message was consistent: without coordinated policy, investment, skills and cultural change, the UK will fall short of its climate and resilience ambitions. 

 

1. Policy & Strategy
The opening session underscored the urgency of aligning policy with long-term environmental stewardship. The Crown Estate highlighted its commitment to biodiversity and social impact across its 10 million square feet of West End assets, noting that retrofit enhances resilience and returns but comes with increased safety risk and requires skills the industry still lacks. 

 

The UK Green Building Council pointed to the troubling rise in embodied carbon - up 5% from 2018–2024 against a required 20% reduction - arguing that current national policy is failing to set the pace. Planning reforms were criticised for weakening protections for nature, reinforcing calls for a ‘National Retrofit Strategy’ to balance incentives with robust standards and climate resilience. 

 

Speakers agreed that the UK’s “patchwork” policy landscape is insufficient. Other countries that have balanced VAT regimes and subsidised loans demonstrate that targeted incentives accelerate retrofit uptake. Westminster City Council’s forthcoming Retrofit First policy, requiring a sequential justification for demolition, was highlighted as an exemplar policy approach. 

 

2. Commercial Viability
In the corporate sector, the retrofit of Citigroup’s Canary Wharf headquarters designed by WilkinsonEyre illustrated the real-world challenges and opportunities. With new-build supply tightening later this decade, retrofit will increasingly be the leading viable route for workspace. Despite tendering challenges and added complexity in creating vertical office communities, the panel stressed that existing buildings offer a unique certainty: their limitations are already known. Success relies on leadership, collaboration, and humility – an openness to learn from the building itself. A key takeaway was the sector’s duty to share detailed case studies to de-risk future projects. 

 

3. Heritage & Conservation
Retrofit of historic buildings requires nuance, creativity and rigorous early-stage skills. The launch of the London Retrofit Heritage Homes Guide signalled growing momentum. Nearly half of London boroughs now have or are introducing retrofit policies, but there is a pressing need for consistency to secure the optimum viable use of historic assets. The panel argued that any building can be retrofitted if approached holistically, though there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Maladaptation remains a risk without coordinated guidance, quality assurance and incentives. 

 

4. Skills & Supply Chains
Speakers stressed that retrofit is fundamentally about people. Stop-start funding, inconsistent policy and fragmented supply chains hinder SMEs and deter long-term investment. Existing skills must be redirected and expanded, supported by training and clearer career pathways. A call emerged for standardisation to streamline complexity and for knowledge-sharing technologies, including AI, to accelerate best practice. 

 

5. Innovation in Practice
The final session pushed boundaries, with Civic asking what the industry could achieve if demolition was heavily restricted or even banned. Reclaimed steel, deeper collaboration with demolition contractors and a call for London to become the global reuse capital, showcased how shifting norms of value could unlock transformative environmental gains. The panel urged curiosity, experimentation and open sharing of data and methods. 

 

What next?
The summit made one thing clear: retrofit must move from being applauded to being systematically enabled. This requires government to adopt a coherent strategy with strong incentives and standards; industry to commit to transparent knowledge-sharing; investors to prioritise long-term, ethical finance; and the entire sector to invest in the skills and supply chains that make adaptive reuse predictable, scalable and high-quality. London, and the UK, can lead the world in reuse, but only if everyone across the built environment takes responsibility now.