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Experts in the natural sciences are frequently commissioned by governments to provide scientific input for policy development. But it is impossible to do this without importing scientists’ own values and political commitments into their models and reports, since their advice has to be tailored to interface with a social setting and cultural context. This paper argues that it is not just science that comes with a set of embedded values, but also mathematics. It examines the mathematical model, developed by physicists, which underlies the German government’s claim that the thermal refit measures demanded in its building regulations are ‘economic’. It finds the model is permeated with values and political commitments, not merely in its choice of parameters and the values it assigns them, but also in the way its internal algebra works. It explores the ways in which such models hide political commitments, and proposes an alternative style of modelling, which requires citizens to identify and import their own values and commitments into a model designed to resonate more closely with their actual needs.