Podcasts about leed platinum

LinkedIn has officially opened its new campus at 4 Wilton Park, consolidating its Dublin operations into a modern, sustainable hub. This brings together LinkedIn's teams under one roof across 4 and 5 Wilton Park, with a combined footprint of 290,000 sq ft, making Dublin home to LinkedIn's largest office outside of the United States. The new campus is designed to support LinkedIn's evolving ways of working and foster collaboration among its 2,000+ employees in Ireland, who represent 60% of LinkedIn's EMEA workforce and over 70 nationalities. Speaking at the opening ceremony, An Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD said: "I'm delighted to open LinkedIn's new office at 4 Wilton Park. This expanded EMEA HQ - LinkedIn's largest office outside the US - is a strong endorsement of Ireland as a destination for global investment. "Over the past 15 years, LinkedIn Ireland has grown significantly, now employing over 2,000 people. This is a testament to Ireland's talented workforce and tech expertise." Building on this, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky added: "When we decided to put our EMEA headquarters in Dublin back in 2010, we started with three employees, and now we're more than 2,000 strong. "None of this would be possible without the support of the Irish government and the wider community. We're excited to continue shaping a brighter future of work together." Sustainability is at the core of the campus, which has been designed to operate at net-zero carbon, and is in the process of achieving LEED Platinum and WELL Platinum certifications, among the highest global standards for environmental performance and employee wellbeing. Sustainability is at the core of the campus, which has been designed to operate at net-zero carbon, and is in the process of achieving LEED Platinum and WELL Platinum certifications, among the highest global standards for environmental performance and employee wellbeing. The site features hydroponic gardens producing over 90kg of fresh ingredients per month, rooftop beehives, and a focus on locally sourced food. The project utilised responsibly sourced materials, such as those with recycled content, take-back programs, and bio-based materials Another key feature of the campus is the new LinkedIn Dublin Community Space, a free venue for local nonprofits to host events that help connect underserved communities to economic opportunity. Since launching in the previous building, the Community Space has hosted nearly 200 events for more than 300 organisations in the past year alone, welcoming over 10,000 attendees, with LinkedIn employees also volunteering their time and expertise to support these initiatives. Sue Duke, Head of LinkedIn Ireland, commented: "The opening of 4 Wilton Park, and the significant investment behind it, highlights the pivotal role our office plays in LinkedIn's global growth. "Our team in Dublin is central to delivering LinkedIn's vision of creating economic opportunity for everyone, whether that's developing AI tools to better connect jobseekers and employers or working with policymakers on future skills. " See more stories here.

Vincent Deorio CEO, Mike Davidson Sales and Marketing, and Ben Walker Sr Architectural Manager at RedT homes, share what it's taking to grow their company into a regional production builder that is offering LEED platinum homes. Their unique business model incorporates land acquisition, entitlement and design, architecture, and construction along with real estate-focused marketing and sales. Their focus on integrated design and thoughtful execution is helping them reimagine what sustainable development, construction, and sales means in Colorado.RedT HomesLEED for HomesbuildCAST #9-2022 Sand Adomatis and the Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum

What does it really mean to be a sustainable hotel?In this episode, Ben Webster, General Manager of Hotel Marcel, joins us to break down how his property became the first and only all-electric, solar-powered, LEED Platinum-certified, fossil-fuel-free hotel in the U.S..From historic preservation to cutting-edge energy solutions, Ben shares insights for hoteliers looking to embrace sustainability, the real costs (and savings) of going green, and why so many companies talk the talk but don't walk the walk when it comes to hosting sustainable events.Key Topics:What does it truly mean for a hotel to be sustainable?How does the hotel engage guests in its sustainability efforts?The Challenges and Trends in Sustainable HospitalityWhy do many Fortune 500 companies claim to prioritize sustainability but fail to book sustainable venues?If you're in hospitality, this episode is a wake-up call—because sustainability isn't just a trend; it's the future.Watch the FULL episode here: https://youtu.be/s5wShlHrLAcJoin the conversation on today's episode on The Modern Hotelier LinkedIn pageThe Modern Hotelier is produced, edited, and published by Make More MediaLinks:Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-webster-cha-91390181/Hotel Marcel: https://www.hotelmarcel.com/For full show notes head to: https://themodernhotelier.com/episode/134Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-...Connect with Steve and David:Steve: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%8E...David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mil...

By highlighting cost savings, clients can see how efficient water treatment impacts their bottom line. Sustainability isn't just a trendy term—it's about implementing practical practices that protect our planet for current and future generations. By adopting sustainable strategies, we can conserve resources, cut costs, and create lasting benefits for both the environment and our client's businesses. In our latest episode of the Scaling UP! H2O Podcast, we had the privilege of speaking with James Courtney, CWT, LEED AP of CSC Technologies an advocate for water sustainability, who shared actionable insights on how water professionals can effectively embrace sustainability while adding value to their clients. Meet James Courtney: A Champion for Sustainability In our enlightening conversation, James shared his journey in the water industry and emphasized the vital role that water professionals play in promoting sustainability. He stated, "We help our customers by saving them money on water, electricity, and fuel." This highlights how our work not only benefits the environment but also leads to significant financial savings for our clients. Sustainability: More Than Just a Buzzword Sustainability means optimizing our resources. As James noted, "We operate in this space where we are directly responsible for the sustainability of our customers.” Water treaters have a unique opportunity to minimize their clients' carbon footprints while improving efficiency. Whether it's running boilers without scale, optimizing cooling towers, or maximizing cycles of conductivity, every action contributes to a greener future. James also cautioned against greenwashing, reminding us that not all practices labeled as "green" deliver real benefits. We must be vigilant and ensure that our sustainability efforts  Educating and Empowering Clients Understanding water and energy usage is essential for effective water management. James encourages water professionals to educate their clients about their consumption patterns. “Clients often don't realize that overusing chemicals or wasting water is a problem,” he explained. By illustrating the cost savings—like reducing their electricity bills or fuel costs—clients can connect the dots between efficient water treatment and their bottom line. Harnessing Data One of James's most compelling stories was about using smart meters to identify inefficiencies. He shared, “Meters give you information; information gives you the opportunity to find solutions to problems you didn't even know you had.” In one instance, a client's building was using half a million gallons of water due to a blocked condensate receiver. The installation of a meter enabled the team to identify the issue and prevent unnecessary water loss, ultimately leading to significant cost savings for the client. James's team also tackled a fascinating case with two identical LEED Platinum buildings. Even though they were built exactly the same, one consumed significantly more power. By analyzing minute-by-minute energy data, they pinpointed the problem, leading to solutions that not only enhanced efficiency but also inspired other buildings in the community to adopt similar practices. The Impact of Visibility James highlighted an intriguing study involving a housing development where identical homes were built. In half of these homes, energy meters were placed indoors, allowing residents to see their energy usage, while the other half had meters located outdoors. The results were striking: “The houses with visible indoor meters used less energy simply because people could see it,” James explained. Residents began to turn energy monitoring into a game, challenging themselves to reduce their consumption. This simple shift towards visibility in daily energy use not only heightened awareness among residents but also nurtured a culture of energy-saving habits. As James aptly put it, “What gets measured gets managed.” Engaging clients in enjoyable and measurable ways can significantly drive sustainability efforts. Final Thoughts James's insights remind us of the significant role water professionals play in fostering a sustainable future. By leveraging data and educating our clients, we can create meaningful change that benefits both our communities and the environment. Together, let's continue to explore the importance of sustainability practices that protect our generation and the ones to come. Thank you for being part of the Scaling UP! H2O community. Together, let's continue to educate ourselves and each other on the importance of sustainability practices that benefit both our generation and those to come. Stay curious, stay informed, and keep scaling up your knowledge! Timestamps 01:28 - Trace Blackmore shares what he is thankful for, and extends gratitude to the listeners and to AWT for the 2024 Innovation Award, and shares his family's Thanksgiving traditions 15:18 - Interview with James Courtney, CWT 58:00 - Upcoming Events for Water Treatment Professionals 01:01:05 - Drop by Drop with James McDonald  Connect with James Courtney Phone: +1 443 878 2407 Email: james@csctech2o.com Website: https://www.csctech2o.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-courtney-cwt-leed-ap-379a6877/ Read or Download James Courtney's Press Release HERE Guest Resources Mentioned Check if your seafood is sustainable here Check your water footprint here Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone I Said This You Heard That by Kathleen Edelman LEED AP O+M Class More than half of energy use in homes is for heating and air conditioning article The Last Optimist by Mark Mills (Podcast) The United States uses a mix of energy sources article Scaling UP! H2O Resources Mentioned Alton Brown's turkey recipe, Romancing The Bird Donate To Our 6K World Vision Team Learn how to make your own 6K World Vision Team Industrial Water Week Resources The Rising Tide Mastermind Scaling UP! H2O Academy video courses Submit a Show Idea AWT (Association of Water Technologies) 386 Industrial Water Week 2024: Boiler Tuesday 004 It's Not Easy Being Green! 325 Rising Together: Conquering Challenges through Collective Support Drop By Drop with James In today's episode, we're thinking about control ranges. There are a few trains of thought on control ranges. Which tests and readings really need a control range applied to them? How wide or narrow should the control range be? It's something one should consider carefully. I have seen control ranges applied to every test parameter for a makeup, such as city water, that the user had absolutely no control over. Are these control ranges really necessary? Sometimes, they are, especially if the makeup source is susceptible to changes in water quality, such as total hardness, which can impact downstream softener performance. I've also seen control ranges so large a bus could slide through them sideways. What good is such a wide control range doing for the water system? Nothing was actually being controlled. I've seen control ranges that were so unreasonably narrow that the parameters were almost ALWAYS out of range as well. What good does that serve? Is a better control system needed to meet these narrow ranges or is a wider control range more fitting instead? A lot of you out there use field service report programs that turn red, green, and sometimes yellow when a parameter is outside the control range. Not having good and proper control ranges can make that field service report's color coding nearly useless because it is always too red or even too green and not actually reflecting the true stressed or controlled state of the system. Control ranges that are too tight may yield field service reports that are red all the time, which will lead to either the end user ignoring the colors or being annoyed by the report always looking red. Control ranges that are too broad may not show the true state of stress the system is under and lead to more problems down the road. Lastly, I've even seen reps be pressured by their customers to avoid red color coding as much as possible, leading to either uselessly wide control ranges or no control ranges at all. This can be a touchy subject, but your control ranges must be meaningful and useful. It may take some finesse to get everyone on the same side of the table on this but seeing a little red when appropriate TODAY beats dealing with the impact of a failed water system and wasted energy and water TOMORROW. Events for Water Professionals Check out our Scaling UP! H2O Events Calendar where we've listed every event Water Treaters should be aware of by clicking HERE.

Can sustainable buildings actually save you money? Paul Paterson, founder of Elevation Sustainable Building Solutions, explains how energy-efficient designs don't have to cost more - and can even reduce both, building and operational expenses. With decades of experience in engineering and construction, Paul shares his journey from Scotland to Dubai and discusses how he's closing the 'performance gap' to make buildings more efficient. You'll learn about common misconceptions, like why achieving Leed Platinum certification isn't enough, and the innovative materials and technologies that are driving the future of green building. Tune in to hear how smart design can save the planet—and your wallet. To explore more about Paul Paterson and his work, you can follow him on Linkedin or visit his website elevationcarbon.io. Join me, Ladina, on this green journey, and don't forget to subscribe for more insightful conversations about sustainable living and architecture and drop us a review. If you have suggestions for future guests or topics, I'd love to hear from you on my socials! Let's explore the world of green architecture, one conversation at a time. Contact:  Ladina ⁠⁠@ladinaschoepf⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠buildinggreenshow.com Produced by: ⁠⁠marketyourarchitecture.com⁠

Hopes to build 32 residences for seasonal performers Hudson Valley Shakespeare has applied to the Philipstown Planning Board to begin building a 32-bed residential compound for its performers, who have been housed at a hotel in Fishkill. Adam Stolorow, an attorney for HVS, and architect Susan Rodriguez introduced the project to the board on Oct. 17, years earlier than anticipated in the master plan approved for the theater organization in July. HVS, known until a rebranding this year as the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, broke ground last month on the first phase of its new home at the former Garrison Golf Course, an open-air theater with concessions, bathroom and back-of-house buildings. The nonprofit had said that actor lodging would follow in five to 15 years. Instead, HVS would like to begin construction in 2025. Davis McCallum, HVS's artistic director, said on Tuesday (Oct. 22) that a $10 million state grant for the theater, along with other funding awards, has helped the organization close the gap in a fundraising campaign for actor lodging. During a groundbreaking ceremony in September, HVS said $50 million in private and public funding had been raised for the theater, ecological restoration at the property and financial reserves, with an additional $8 million needed for the lodging. "We're still diligently raising money to make the artist lodging possible, and won't be in a position to proceed until that effort is successful," he said. In its application, HVS wants to start building the residences as the theater complex is being constructed and have performers occupy the units for the 2026 season. With 12 fewer units than the 44 approved in the master plan, the impacts will be "either the same or less as what was previously studied," said Stolorow. In place of hotel rooms, actors would spend the festival's season living in one of five residential buildings forming an L-shaped compound in the northwest section of HVS's 97-acre property. Four of the buildings - two-story cottages totaling 1,000 square feet each - would have two separate bedrooms with a private bath on each floor, and a kitchen and living area off the entrance. An additional 16 one-bedroom units with kitchens and bathrooms would be contained in a fifth "barn" building totaling 2,500 square feet. Attached to the building is a common kitchen and dining area, along with a laundry room. Set among existing and newly planted trees, the buildings would have gray metal roofs and natural wood siding, said Rodriguez. "They all have porches and a connection to the natural environment," she said. Philipstown law would prohibit artists from occupying the housing for more than nine consecutive months. During its offseason, HVS would be allowed to rent the units to guests for stays of less than a month. Sen. Charles Schumer visited Philipstown in August to announce a $1.5 million federal grant for the outdoor theater, which will be the first purpose-built theater in the nation certified LEED Platinum, the highest rating for sustainable design. It will have solar panels, a green roof, natural ventilation and rainwater-capture systems.

Stunning architecture, attention to details, service that includes champagne everytime you pass through the grand lobby... the list can go on and on. General Manager Attila AE Domby speaks on the history of thsi LEED Platinum property that is Kimpton's first verture on a new frontier. Well known in the US Kimpton is raising the bar in the city where west meets east. Speaking of bars there is a well provisioned rooftop SkyBar as well a one on the main floor. Quality dining experiences, and an extensive Hungarian wine selection really enhance the stay. I apologize for the slight echo, but imagine this interview happening in their wine gallery!

New theater scheduled to open in 2026 After several years of reviews, public meetings and modifications, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival on July 18 received its final set of approvals from Philipstown for the first phase of development at its new home at the former Garrison Golf Course. Planning Board approval sets the stage for a groundbreaking in the fall for a 13,850-square-foot outdoor theater on the former 11th hole, which provides an expansive view of the Hudson River. Chris Davis, who owned the course, donated 98 acres to the festival, which moved to the site in 2022 after staging its productions for more than 30 years on the grounds of Boscobel on Route 9D. Once completed, the structure will be the first purpose-built theater in the nation rated LEED Platinum. Among other criteria, the international standard - which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - judges buildings on how well they reduce global warming, protect water resources, enhance biodiversity and improve a community's quality of life. Platinum is the highest of four levels. Renderings by StudioGang The site plan was initially presented to the Philipstown Town Board in 2020 and revised several times to address concerns by Planning Board members and neighbors about issues such as noise and traffic. Plans for an inn and an indoor theater were removed from the first phase, more trees will be planted along Route 9 and a parking lot positioned on a wetland was relocated. Artistic Director Davis McCallum said this week that he appreciated the time that Town Board, Planning Board and Conservation Board members dedicated to the project. He also thanked residents who offered feedback during five public hearings. "We tried to listen to the community with openness and curiosity about how we could adapt this project to serve the community best," he said. "The process has yielded a better outcome." The theater will have solar panels, a green roof, natural ventilation and rainwater capture systems and will use low-carbon building materials. McCallum said that HVSF hasn't determined how much the project will cost, but that because of "quiet fundraising" and a $10 million state grant, it will begin construction on the theater in the fall and open the facility before the 2026 season. Since 2022, the festival has been staging its plays in a tent elsewhere on the site. The site was designed by Studio Gang, whose recent projects include the Richard Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Its design there drew acclaim for its flowing and curvaceous granite interior that evokes desert canyons and beehives. "For us, they have delivered a design that is beautiful, sustainable and consonant with the landscape of the Hudson Highlands," McCallum said. Although the theater will have fewer seats than the tent, it won't include support poles that block views. In addition, McCallum said it will allow HVSF to extend its season from early September to mid-October, allowing for weekday matinees for students. The 2025 season is being envisioned as a "farewell to the tent," according to HVSF. McCallum said next year's schedule will be announced in October. He hinted that the company has known for years what show it will perform to open the theater in 2026. He wouldn't budge when pressed for a reveal but said: "It will be the fulfillment of something that we've wanted for many years, which is that moment when the actors can appear over the hillside and approach the theater. That's the thing that I'm most looking forward to on the first night."

What's behind the housing affordability crisis in America?Real estate prices are off the charts, and unless you happen to be a high-net-worth individual, it's nearly impossible to buy a home right now.So, WTF is going on? Is there anything we can do about it?Angela Rozmyn is the cocreator of Women's Personal Finance, a platform that provides empowering financial education for women and nonbinary people.She is also a passionate advocate for affordable, sustainable housing, working a day job for a company that builds LEED Platinum real estate projects.On this episode of Queer Money, Angela joins us to discuss the myriad reasons for the housing affordability crisis in America.Angela explains why the supply of homes has not kept up with demand, how interest rates impact housing costs, and what's behind the NIMBY attitudes that drive real estate prices up.Listen in to understand how it impacts a community when its service workers can't afford to live where they work and find out what you can do to advocate for affordable housing in your city.Topics Covered What makes Angela an expert in the realm of affordable housing issuesWhy it's important to consider transportation costs as part of your housing expensesHow it impacts our communities when service workers can't afford to live where they workWho benefits from increasing home prices and who does not6 reasons for the housing affordability crisis in AmericaWhy the supply of homes has not kept up with demand in the USHow interest rates, permitting issues, labor costs and zoning affect real estate pricesWhy developers aren't building starter homes anymoreWhat's behind NIMBY attitudes in the US and how they impact housing costsThe advantages of adaptive reuse, i.e.: turning vacant commercial buildings into affordable housingAngela's take on investors who bought up SFHs during the Great RecessionWhy people are migrating to high-density cities in the Sunbelt (and what to consider before you join them)Providing affordable housing for the growing number of single occupantsWhat you can do to advocate for affordable housing in your communityFor the resources and to connect with our guests, get the show notes at: https://queermoneypodcast.com/subscribe Follow us:Queer Money Instagram Queer Money YouTubeQueer Money on TiktokDownload your FREE Queer Money Kickstarter a 9-step Guide to Kickstart Your Journey to Financial Independence

In this episode, we sit down with Ryan Funt, VP of Marketing at Fitzrovia Real Estate, to uncover their transformative approach to multifamily housing and property management. Prepare to dive into the innovative strategies that Fitzrovia employs to create vibrant, luxury communities that redefine urban living. Ryan shares insights on how Fitzrovia is revolutionizing the rental market by integrating best-in-class hospitality practices from the hotel industry and focusing on sustainable, high-performance building designs. Key Highlights & Takeaways: Redefining Urban Living: Discover how Fitzrovia is setting new standards in multifamily housing with a unique blend of luxury and functionality.Innovative Property Management: Learn about Fitzrovia's hotel-inspired hospitality services and how they enhance the resident experience. Sustainable Development: Uncover Fitzrovia's commitment to eco-friendly building practices and their pursuit of LEED Platinum and Zero Carbon -Building standards. Operational Excellence: Explore the strategies behind Fitzrovia's efficient event coordination and seamless community management. Future Vision: Get a glimpse into Ryan Funt's vision for the future of Toronto's rental market and the growth trajectory of Fitzrovia. Join us for an enlightening conversation that delves into the cutting-edge approaches and visionary leadership driving Fitzrovia's success in the real estate industry. Digible: ⁠https://digible.com/⁠ Fiona: ⁠https://www.myfiona.com/⁠ Leave a Spotify Review: ⁠https://spoti.fi/3LfoEdU⁠ Leave an Apple Review: ⁠https://apple.co/3AA2zRj⁠

In this bonus episode of the Passive House Podcast, co-host Ilka Cassidy is at the Sustainability Symposium hosted by Green Building United. In the first interview Ilka talks with Robert Fleming, Brian Fullen, Carolina Downey and Sarah Harvey of FCA  along with Kayla Reddington and Sarah Murphy of Turner Construction about their sustainability framwork. In the second interview Ilka speaks with Scott Kelly and Drew Lavine of Re:vision Architecture about  their project, the first Living Building Challenge (LBC) Core certified project in the world, which is also LEED Platinum and Passive House certified. They discuss collaborative and accountable approaches to setting and meeting project sustainability goals and targets.https://www.fcarchitects.com/https://www.turnerconstruction.com/https://revisionarch.com/Thank you for listening to the Passive House Podcast! To learn more about Passive House and to stay abreast of our latest programming, visit passivehouseaccelerator.com. And please join us at one of our Passive House Accelerator LIVE! zoom gatherings on Wednesdays.

Laura Purdy, General Manager at Exhibition Place in Toronto, joins Earth Care for episode 5 of the Sustainability in the Live Music Industry Series.  Exhibition Place, located in Toronto, Ontario, is Canada's premier destination for conventions, exhibitions, events and entertainment. The building's history dates back to 1750 and was properly established in 1879. Fast-forward to present day, Exhibition place has grown into a world class venue that hosts numerous trade and consumer shows each year, including the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE)! The event space has also become a leading participant in environmental sustainability. For the past 30 years, Exhibition Place has participated in the GREENSmart program which includes the promotion of sustainable development, environmental initiatives and leading edge green technologies and practices. They also signed the Net Zero Carbon events pledge which is a global initiative to address climate change across the events and meetings industry to achieve net zero by 2050. Additionally, Exhibition Place is LEED Certified, which is an international symbol of sustainability excellence and green building leadership. In this episode, Laura Purdy takes us behind the scenes at Exhibition Place to better understand the sustainability initiatives in motion. Laura explains how the site has achieved LEED certification, with Enercare Centre being LEED Platinum and Beanfield Centre being LEED Silver. We also discuss the various green practices that have been implemented such as retrofitting, district energy systems, green roofs, waste management programs and rescue bees! MORE FROM SARAH: Take the FREE #FansChooseToReuse pledge here and commit to reducing plastic bottle pollution at live music events! Get 10% off a HYDAWAY Collapsible Bottle with the discount code PODCAST here **Shipping only in Canada, promo ends July 1, 2024** Connect with Sarah on Instagram  Learn more about Earth Care

When Wells Fargo moved its offices to Las Colinas, it had a specific goal in mind—for its building to achieve LEED Platinum and be net zero. In this episode, Nate DeVore, Vice President of Corgan's Commercial Studio, gives us an inside look at how Wells Fargo teamed up with Corgan to plan and design the first net-positive corporate campus ever built in the U.S.  Comprised of two office towers totaling 800,000+ square feet along with a 4,000-square foot parking garage, Corgan collected empirical research, ran energy models, and analyzed data to calculate how the building could reach 5% above net zero by reducing energy usage intensity (EUI) per year—designing a building that produced more energy on-site than it consumes. Discover how Corgan incorporated innovative energy initiatives, including solar panels, electricity, efficient equipment, sustainable building materials, natural sunlight, and self-tinting windows to reduce carbon emissions and reach a net positive. Join us to learn about sustainable design and how corporations are finding new ways to protect our environment.   Visit: https://www.Corgan.com/  Also connect with us on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CorganInc/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CorganInc/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/CorganInc  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/corgan  Video Produced by: Corgan Have Questions? We'd love to hear from you.  Email: communications@corgan.com

In the second episode in Transforming Energy's Lab Notes series, guest host Molly Rettig takes listeners on a journey to Mountain Village, a Yup'ik community working with NREL researchers to design and build super energy-efficient homes amid the challenges of extreme weather and permafrost. Through local collaboration and innovative research and technology, these efforts not only address pressing housing needs but also empower communities to adapt to the changing climate while preserving their traditional way of life.   Housed in the farthest-north LEED Platinum building in the world, the Applied Research for Communities in Extreme Environments (ARCEE) Center focuses on advancing energy efficiency and renewable energy in extreme climates, addressing Arctic and climate-threatened communities, and expanding NREL's wealth of experience in building technologies. In each project, researchers are working hand in hand with communities to make sure these technologies work for their climate, their economy, and their culture.This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by Joe DelNero and Brittany Falch. Graphics are by Brittnee Gayet. Our title music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino of Drift BC. Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast is created by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Email us at podcast@nrel.gov. Follow NREL on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.

Luke LeungLuke is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Fellow; He is also a Centennial Fellow from The Pennsylvania State University Architectural Engineering Department; Board of Directors for USGBC (United State Green Building Council), Illinois; Chairman of the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning) Committee on “Tall Buildings”; Chairman of the Building Pressure Committee, Chicago Committee on High Rise Buildings; Sustainable Committee with Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; Part Time Professor at IIT; Member of the Chicago Sister Cities Program with China; MBA from University of Chicago, MS and BAE from Architectural Engineering at Penn State University.Luke Leung is the Director of the Sustainability Engineering Studio for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP. He is the incoming Chair of ASHRAE Environmental Health Committee; Team leader for ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force, Commercial Buildings; Group Leader for LCA and Embodied Carbon, ASHRAE Decarbonization Task Force; National Renewable Energy Laboratory IN2 Incubator Industry Advisor; BOMA Toronto, Health Committee Co-Chair. His work includes Burj Khalifa, the world's current tallest man-made structure; Multiple times “Excellence in Engineering” award from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE); Selected projects also include Pertamina Tower (Net Zero Supertall), General Motors Global Headquarters, XiongAn Net Zero Development, Beijing Finance Street, Embassy of Ottawa in Canada, Embassy in Beijing, Lakeside – 55 million sqft low energy development, a LEED Platinum building with the first large scale horizontal wind turbine in the city of Chicago; etc., and has served as a member of the editorial team for the CTBUH guide Natural Ventilation in High-Rise Office Buildings, ASHRAE “Design Guide for Tall, Supertall, Megatall Building Systems”, among other publications.TeamHosted by Kristof IrwinProduced by M. WalkerEdited by Nico Mignardi

In this episode, Cherise is joined by Sarah Kennedy, AIA, Associate, and Michael Kehl, AIA, LEED - Associate Principal at SCB based in Chicago with offices also in San Francisco, Boston, and Seattle. They discuss the design of the visionary multifamily housing project “Woolsey Gardens” in South Berkeley, CA.You can see the project here as you listen along.The Woolsey Gardens' goal is to act as a replicable, sustainable, and financeable alternative for future affordable housing developments located on small, infill parcels. To achieve this, the project will feature 100% permanently affordable units, 100% ownership units, Zero Net Energy sustainability, community-centered spaces as well as mass timber construction and LEED Platinum certification.If you enjoy this episode, visit arcat.com/podcast for more. If you're a frequent listener of Detailed, you might enjoy similar content at Gābl Media. Mentioned in this episode:ARCAT Detailed on Youtube

The Falcons' home is a model of green architecture on a massive scale—they're the first professional sports venue in the US to be LEED Platinum and the first stadium worldwide to be TRUE Platinum-certified. It's not easy making something this large ‘green'. Join us on-site to meet some of the leaders who integrated sustainability into the design and building process. We'll also visit parts of the stadium you'll never see during games, to hear how MBS keeps the fans in mind with every eco-conscious decision they make. To learn more, visit www.builtpodcast.com.

In this bonus episode, we share a LIVE conversation from the 2023 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Washington D.C.Cherise is joined by Brittany Storm, Sustainability Manager at MAPEI. Discover MAPEI's commitment to minimizing environmental impact and promoting healthier buildings, as Brittany discusses the dynamic evolution of sustainability trends, including a focus on carbon reduction. Gain valuable insights from the case study of a LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge project, showcasing the company's dedication to creating a greener and more sustainable future.If you enjoy this episode, visit arcat.com/podcast for more. If you're a frequent listener of Detailed, you might enjoy similar content at Gābl Media. Mentioned in this episode:ARCAT Detailed on Youtube

Shree Ramkrishna Exports Pvt. Ltd. (SRK) is one of the largest diamond manufacturers in the world. The diamond industry as a whole has been very difficult to decarbonize, and more broadly, the manufacturing sector is extremely challenging to decarbonize. Manufacturers have to make sure they are calculating their emissions at every step of the way from the supply chain, to business practices and the actual manufacturing facilities. As a purpose-driven company that focuses on sustainability, SRK has been a leader in decarbonizing their manufacturing facilities. SRK achieved LEED Platinum for their two manufacturing facilities in Surat, India - SRK House and SRK Empire - and these facilities remain one of the highest performing LEED buildings in the world. Recently, they committed to achieving net zero for these two facilities and are on track to meet this achievement by 2024. This session will go through how to begin and assess your building's performance and how to put in place a successful roadmap to reach net zero, as well as cover the challenges. This session will go through the challenges and roadblocks to decarbonize manufacturing buildings, how you set a plan in place and establish a roadmap to get to net zero, and also offer best practices. SRK has teamed up with leadership collective The Global Network for Zero to further accelerate the company's net zero targets

Welcome to our 6th anniversary and the start of season 7 of Transit Unplugged. Host Paul Comfort has a special opening reflecting on the past 270+ episodes so far and what lies ahead down the road. In our interview this week, we have Randy Clarke, GM and CEO of WMATA (Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) https://www.wmata.com/, chatting with Paul from his new LEED Platinum office building.In his first year as CEO, Randy has:fixed safety issues with his trainsimproved frequencyincreased ridershipreduced fare evasionworked to reduce crime on the systemand begun an ambitious project to update the Metro bus routesBy any accounts, a successful first year on the job, but...But WMATA faces a looming budget shortfall larger than many agencies' entire budget. Learn how he's approaching the crisis and what he's doing to protect service levels and his people.After the interview, regular contributor Mike Bismeyer reflects on Randy's leadership and everything else he does across the transit industry.Coming up next week we have part 2 of our special new CEO roundtable recorded live at APTA TRANSform Conference and EXPO. In part two you'll hear about the projects they have on the go, what new technologies they have their eyes on, and what they want to celebrate at their agency.If you have a question or comment, email us at info@transitunplugged.com.Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo, Passionate About Moving the World's People.Randy Clarke Has Boosted WMATA, But a Budget Crisis Looms00:00 Introduction and Reflection on the Sixth Anniversary of the Transit Unplugged Podcast01:09 Interview with Randy Clarke, GM of WMATA: Leading a Major Transit Agency and Facing Looming Challenges02:07 Randy Clarke's Journey as CEO of WMATA03:04 Challenges and Achievements at WMATA05:58 Addressing the Fiscal Crisis in WMATA10:09 Dealing with the Fiscal Cliff, Funding, and Budgets17:09 Fighting Fare Evasion and Supporting Low Income Riders19:21 Delivering a Bus Route Optimization Project in Only a Year21:35 Efforts to Curb Crime in the Transit System25:48 What Randy Enjoys Most About His Job30:16 Mike's Minute with Mike Bismeyer: Reflection on Leadership and Mentorship32:12 Coming up next week on Transit Unplugged

Since it started measuring waste diversion from landfills in 2006, when it recycled only 4.6% of materials collected, Seattle's Lumen Field has increased its recycling, composting, and donations efforts to avoid sending 90% of the waste generated by fans to the dump. Meet Christy Briggs, Logistics and Sustainability Manager at First & Goal Incorporated, who leads Lumen Field's recycling and other sustainability programs. The stadium has a high bar to meet, as just across town, Climate Pledge Arena was the country's first LEED Platinum sports venue and has achieved similar waste diversion rates. Of course, sports thrive on competition, and Lumen Field has introduced innovative approaches to collection, sorting, and putting items into the right reuse stream. For example, after each major event, Lumen Field rolls out a portable materials recovery facility — a sorting system like the ones used at recycling transfer stations that separates packaging, food waste, and other items.Sports and concerts connect communities, bringing crowds together from around a city, state, or nation, and those fans toss massive volumes of cups, food service items, programs, and memorabilia. A football game or Taylor Swift concert could be among the most waste-creating events in our society. Many stadiums and sports venues are stepping up to the challenge. Lumen Field's sustainability efforts go back to its construction, when 35% of the concrete from the demolished Kingdome, the stadium that stood where it is today, was used in the new building. First & Goal Incorporated, which also manages the Seattle Seahawks, has developed programs to reduce environmental impacts that include recycling sod through donations to local parks, sourcing Green Seal-certified janitorial supplies, recycling thousands of gallons of cooking oil, and during a major renovation of the field the company donated 96.3% of the used furniture, carpet, and other materials collected. You can learn more about Lumen Field and its sustainability efforts at https://www.lumenfield.com/venue-info/sustainability

  Norbert Szircsak is Head of ESG Strategic Advisory Services for Colliers International based in Budapest, Hungary. Norbert started his career with Colliers International - Hungary in August 2007, joining the Valuation and Advisory services team.   Norbert has over 15 years' experience in the real estate and green building industry. He has been directly involved in more than 30 LEED certification projects, including Commercial Interiors,  Existing Buildings and New Construction projects. In the majority of these projects, he has been the overall project manager. Hungary's first certification in LEED version 4, which is also the first certified office building in the countryside, and the first LEED Platinum certification are on his & his team's list of accomplishments. Norbert has also contributed to more than 10 BREEAM In-Use certifications, similarly in project manager roles. Norbert graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Gábor Dénes College in 2009. He obtained his local appraiser qualification in 2009 and is also a member of the Hungarian Real Estate Association. Furthermore, in 2009, he obtained the LEED Green Associate and in 2013 the LEED Accredited Professional with specialty qualification from the U.S. Green Building Council. In 2019, he became a WELL Accredited Professional.   Show Highlights Get a better understanding of Hungary and the European regions. Usage of renewables  A peak into what rating systems are easier and harder to apply   Taxonomy   European Green Deal  Connecting engineering and technical backgrounds into a green building career. Challenges building within an advanced green building environment.  90% of Collier's work is green building certified with green building advisory for various types of buildings. Learn where green building is expandings in competitive markets. A total carbon plan to reduce your carbon footage with electrification and the renewable energy production on site. The grid infrastructure development needs.        Show Resource and Information Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community!   If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on .  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the !   Copyright © 2023 GBES

"I want to inspire others who are doing this work but based on a different set of priorities, who understand that this priority of sustainability, of efficiencies of resources and processes, of reduction of wastes of all sorts including the carbon is valued. And you should be incorporating those priorities into your project." Steve Matloff is a “sustainable real estate RE-developer,” CEO and founder of Tradicient, which is a business name that combines the two words, “tradition” and “efficient.”   Steve believes that the majority of our built environment was designed and developed for a different world and different times. Over the years, the world has changed significantly, with population growth, the introduction of convenience products, changes in the definition of quality of life, and increased consumption. Our existing built environment, including millions of homes and buildings, was not designed to meet these new circumstances. Therefore, redevelopment is necessary to prioritize efficiency in resource utilization, waste reduction, and urban development. He shares his personal journey and how his love for architecture and design combined with his awareness of environmental impact led him to focus on sustainability in the built environment. He emphasizes the need for a market that offers existing homes with modern functionality and efficiency.  He started out with his own family home, built in 1922. He wanted to find professionals who could maintain the historical characteristics of the home while making it efficient. However, he couldn't find anyone who specialized in this type of work. Steve emphasizes the importance of renovating and retrofitting the existing built environment instead of starting from scratch, as the waste generated from demolishing and rebuilding would be immense.  To address this gap, Steve formed Tradicient. He sought to make his own family's home a LEED Platinum-certified property, the highest level of certification for sustainable homes. He collaborated with professionals on maintaining the aesthetic and historical characteristics of the home while incorporating efficient and sustainable features. Overall, Steve's goal with Tradicient is to create a market for efficient, sustainable redevelopment of existing homes. He believes it's crucial to preserve and enhance the built environment while aligning it with modern sustainability standards. LA Times article by Lisa Boone about Steve's family home and its landscaping done by FormLA Steve Matloff:  steve@tradicient.com

In this episode of The Three Bells, our host, Criena Gehrke sits down with Senior Architect Naseema Asif and Studio Director Peter Emerson, from international design collective RIOS. The two share their insights on what goes into making a project successful, from incorporating evolution to exploring unanticipated angles and embracing a touch of 'messiness' throughout the process.External references: RIOS website The Music Center Plaza San Diego's Balboa Park Houston's Lynn Watt Square For Performing Arts Gold Coast Hi-Lights Lampposts of progress: Hi-Lights Gold Coast Council votes to remove public art installation 'Hi-Lights' from the M1 at Yatala Naseema Asif Bio:Naseema is a Senior Architect at RIOS. She has been the Project Architect on commercial and institutional projects ranging from a community center in Playa Vista to the transformation of a 1980s office park into creative office space. She is a trusted architect and manager, orchestrating complex project teams and projects with a focused vision on the end result. These projects track an ongoing exploration into the integration of tools from architecture and landscape architecture to shape spaces that respond to the unique relationship between a proposed program and the site's environment. She adeptly blends disciplines to create places that blur traditional boundaries and redefine our conceptions of place. Naseema is inspired by the notion of craft and tectonics. Her personal interest in making manifests through construction as an art form, exploring the juxtaposition of materials and textures in projects which transcend disciplines. Her expertise and experience with sustainability is evident in her work on the Resort at Playa Vista. The green building strategies she instituted for this project led to a LEED Platinum certification, the highest level of environmental recognition. Her current projects include Music Center Plaza Renovation, which will enhance the Center's connection to the community by making it more accessible to the public, and The Park, a transformation of San Diego Tech Center into and amenity-filled active landscape to augment the workplace community. Peter Emerson Bio:Peter has built a career around complex projects and integrated design. Since joining RIOS in 2016, Peter has quickly contributed these skills to become an integral part of the practice. His wealth of experience designing and building campus landscapes, parks, and iconic public spaces have been an asset to some of our most complex projects. Peter melds landscape, planning, and architecture at all scales of design, while working closely with stakeholders, collaborators, and clients to create inspiring places for people to live, work, and play. His experience spans levels of scale and expertise, from organic farming and systems all the way to international experience designing landscapes for U.S. embassies that promote ecological diplomacy and design excellence. His projects find balance, whether it be between security and accessibility like at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and grounds, or design and programming like at Jones Plaza in the Houston Theater District. He is a registered landscape architect and a 2009 Olmsted Scholar.

Jess visits actor and environmental champion Ed Begley, Jr. at his LEED Platinum-certified home to talk all things green.

As a lifelong hunter, David Duncan, CEO & Proprietor of Silver Oak in Napa Valley, has a keen appreciation for nature. This has driven David and Silver Oak to pursue many sustainability investments, including being the 1st existing winery and new build winery to be LEED Platinum certified and be at the forefront of energy efficiency for the last 20 years. From solar panels to using waste heat to get water up to sanitization temperatures, David dives into the details of Silver Oak's sustainability efforts and how they think about them in terms of long-term return on investment. Detailed Show Notes: Silver Oak's background - founded in 1972Two wineries - Oakville (Napa) and Alexander Valley (Sonoma)~100k cases/year~700 acres of vineyards, ~75% estate owned fruitFour wine brands total, and Oak Cooperage in MissouriSustainability efforts began in the vineyards in the late 90s, and early 2000sOakville winery2006 dumpster fire burnt the winery downWanted to do the right thing in re-building (2008)Installed solar panels and became 1st LEED Platinum winery (existing building)They looked at LED lighting, but it was 3x as expensive at the timeAlexander Valley wineryBuilt in 2014, 1st LEED Platinum winery (new build)A “living building,” which is mostly energy and water useUses ~1 gallon of water per gallon of wine vs. ~7 gallons of water as the industry averageGenerates 105% of annual electric usageAll LED lighting, which is now more cost-effectiveAmmonia chiller for glycol cooling to keep tanks cool - was old-school technology in the 30s and 40s; new technology is very efficientSanitation water uses solar power to heat to 105F, then waste heat from the cooling system adds 10-15F; the rest of the heating uses electricityIt has a 3-4 month peak season (harvest) where electric usage is higher and sometimes pulls from the electric grid; it has a small battery system but not a large oneUsed recycled materials, which reduced painting needsWorking towards LEED certification for other wineriesVineyards - moving towards electric tractors, but haven't bought one yetCooperage - burns scrap wood to bend barrels instead of natural gasROI for sustainability2.5-year payback for Alexander Valley solar system - highest of all investmentsIt looks at the “life cost of building” to calculate ROI, a long-term evaluation - the long-term view matches the long-term production cycle (5 years to produce Silver Oak)No set target IRR cutoff, but ~5-year payback is the approximate cutoffLooks at the impact on employees, which they call “The Whole Bunch” like a bunch of grapes, and assesses the safety of workersHighest payback investments - solar panels and water use to treat barrels using recycled waterSustainability also improves quality - e.g., minimizing water use in vineyardsBarriers to making sustainability investments are often due to 1 chance a year to make changes; Silver Oak does small trials on 1-2 acres to evaluateShares learnings w/ the industry - gives many tours of winery and vineyards, interviews, seminars and conferences, works w/ UC DavisAlso improving packagingMoving towards a lighter glassThey used to send empty bottles to Canada to decorate and then ship them back to CA to fill. For the 1st time in 25 years, Silver Oak Napa Valley will have a paper label to avoid this environmental impact Get access to library episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mary Davidge has spent her career at the forefront of biophilic design. Between 2014 and 2021, Mary served as Google's Director of Global Design, where she worked closely with biophilic leaders like Bill Browning and Judi Heerwagen to implement design solutions across Google's campuses that prioritize health, happiness, and the environment. Prior to that, she ran her own firm, where her groundbreaking work in biophilic design and green building helped lay the foundation for certifications like LEED Platinum and the Living Building Challenge. Nowadays, Mary serves on the board of the Biophilic Institute and on the advisory board of the International Living Future Institute Biophilic Design Initiative, advocating tirelessly for biophilic solutions at scale. In this episode, we discuss Mary's career at the intersection of tech and green building, the importance of placemaking, and why greening cities can solve multiple societal problems at once. Show NotesAbout Mary Davidge Google's Mary Davidge Talks Sustainability Changes in Silicon Valley Over the Years (Green Building Matters)Why Does Biophilic Design Make Us Feel So Good? With Bill Browning (Biophilic Solutions)Biophilic Design and the Human Habitat with Dr. Judith Heerwagen (Biophilic Solutions)Terrapin Bright GreenLEED Rating System (U.S. Green Building Council)Living Building Challenge (Living Future)Defining the Worst Type of Street Design (City Lab)What is Placemaking? (ArchDaily)Opinion | Since When Have Trees Existed Only for Rich Americans? (New York Times)The Biophilic InstituteKeywords: Nature, Biophilia, Biophilic Design, Green Building, Google, Google Campus, Silicon Valley, Tech, Tech Industry, Design, Architecture, Equity, Environmental Justice, Health

John Ambert, RA, NCARB, LEED Fellow, GPRO, LFA | Architect & Green Building Specialist.    John Ambert is a licensed architect, LEED Fellow, and sustainability subject matter expert with DPR Construction. Since 2006, John has worked to integrate sustainability solutions for more than 100 of the highest performance residential, commercial, mixed-use, office, higher education, health care, and corporate projects in the US. With a deep background in high-performance materials, healthy indoor environments, and low carbon design, John works to implement sustainable construction approaches to minimize the environmental impact of the construction process. A graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, John holds a Bachelors of Architect with a focus in Sustainable Environments.   Speaker & Presentation Experience   2014: NAVFAC “Wounded Warrior Campus – The first LEED Platinum buildings for the US Military” 2016: SDGE: High Performance Water Solutions for Buildings in So Cal 2017: Designing for High Performance & Zero Energy 2019: Net Zero 2019: “Murph Zero” 2019: SDGBC Conference: “Murph Zero” 2021: SD Living Future Collaborative: Webinar Series – 8 total 2022: San Diego Green Building Conference + Expo: DPR + JUST label   Show Highlights   John shares the evolution of his unique sustainability career and the fellowship that comes with being a LEED Fellow. DPR's influence in quality sustainability to make zero harm to people and the planet.  Pathways for people to explore natural building materials not typically found to create different building types that minimize harm from the traditional ways of building. Tips to overlap green values as a team, as a state, a nation, as a world. Flow state at work - explained.  Avoid getting pigeonholed by a narrow perspective in your education and/or career.  Understanding the various routes and opportunities to a prosperous career.   Policy support of sustainability will be the environmental catalysts for the industry. COVID forced health to the forefront of design criteria to rethink  how we live and work in buildings.    “I'm personally very excited about this revival around health centered design, this focus on making buildings for people, not just buildings for buildings sake. We've been designing buildings in the same way for too long and we aren't focused on making them spaces for people to connect with the world around them, to be productive, and to be happy.” -John Ambert   Get the episode transcript here!!   Show Resource and Information Clarity & Connection  Inward Atomic Habits LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community!   If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2022 GBES

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! On today's episode, we talk with Kylie Johnson, Southwest Ohio Regional Director for the Ohio Environmental Council about Environmental Advocacy, Pageants, and Transitioning from Country to City Life.   Read her full bio below.Help us continue to create great content! If you'd like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form Showtimes: 2:44 Nic & Laura Talk about  writing a good email9:18  Interview with Kylie Johnson Starts  11:04  Pageants15:29  Environmental Advocacy21:12  Transitioning from Country to City Life25:31  Field NotesPlease be sure to ✔️subscribe, ⭐rate and ✍review. This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.Connect with Kylie Johnson at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyliejanejohnson/Guest Bio:As the Southwest Ohio Regional Director for the Ohio Environmental Council (OEC), Kylie Johnson works to advance environmental justice and make protection of Ohio's land, air, and water a priority of local and state leaders. She began her career with the national nonprofit Action for the Climate Emergency (ACE) where she educated high school students about the science, consequences, and solutions of climate change and empowered them to take action. Prior to joining OEC in 2021, Kylie managed the Green Learning Station - a retrofitted gas station transformed into a LEED Platinum certified environmental education center and green infrastructure demonstration site. Kylie earned her B.S. in Conservation Science from Muskingum University and M.S. in Environmental Studies from Ohio University, where she was funded by the USDA Forest Service and Georgetown University to conduct urban composting research in Edinburgh, Scotland; Washington, D.C.; and Baltimore, Maryland.Music CreditsIntro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace MesaOutro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs MullerSupport the show

Today on Too Opinionated, celebrity home builder Scott Hamilton Harris.  Behind every home is a builder. SCOTT HAMILTON HARRIS is different. Not your average building contractor. Not by any means. Unlike other building contractors, Scott has a fresh, inspirational, unique perspective and knowledge about life, building (residential/commercial) and how it all really affects our lives...what we can do to be proactive in making changes to improve the quality of our lives...mentally, emotionally, spiritually. He applies his expertise and insight to every jaw-dropping, creme de la creme, multi-million-dollar property including  LEED Platinum certified home of noted actor-environmentalist, Ed Begley Jr.  Scott is a favorite among a long list of billionaires and celebrities (e.g., Paul Allen, Taio Cruz, actors Kevin James and Kevin Costner, John Paul DeJoria, London's Savoy Hotel, LA's AOC restaurant, San Francisco's Saint Francis Hotel, restaurants for Gordon Ramsay and Michel Mina.  BCG is one of the most respected construction firms in Los Angeles and Scott is deemed one the foremost building (general) contractors and the industry's noted “triple threat” (design, architecture and building) “go-to” experts for residential and commercial properties specializing in environmental (“green”), new technology, renovation, deconstruction, reconstruction, restoration and building as an art form. SHH is an accomplished published writer, photographer who has been covered extensively in the media/press, is the COO of Building Construction Group. Many clients are celebrities, executives of high-ranking entertainment industry companies and other notables. Want to watch: YouTube Meisterkhan Pod (Please Subscribe)

Joe Wanninger, managing director of asset management at Principal Real Estate Investors (the dedicated real estate group of Principal Global Investors), joins the program to discuss the firm's landmark Indeed Tower in Austin, a LEED Platinum project recently named “best project design” by the Urban Land Institute. The award recognizes a completed project that demonstrates excellence in design for architecture, interior design, engineering, planning or other project elements. (09/2022)

Joe Wanninger, managing director of asset management at Principal Real Estate Investors (the dedicated real estate group of Principal Global Investors), joins the program to discuss the firm's landmark Indeed Tower in Austin, a LEED Platinum project recently named “best project design” by the Urban Land Institute. The award recognizes a completed project that demonstrates excellence in design for architecture, interior design, engineering, planning or other project elements. (09/2022)

Jennifer Berthelot-Jelovic is a LEED Fellow with extensive experience with IWBI's WELL Building Standard as one of the first Provisional WELL APs, WELL APs, and WELL Faculty in the world. Jen has worked on various WELL Pilots|Projects in almost every typology. Jen is currently overseeing many firsts in WELL, LEED, Net Zero|Carbon Neutral|Net Positive projects in the country and world. Jen also has extensive experience with USGBC's various LEED rating systems.   In her previous roles at Shangri-La; Jen was instrumental in securing the world's 1st LEED Platinum NC certification for an aviation facility, Hangar 25 in Burbank, CA. Hangar 25 was named “Greenest Aviation Facility In the World” and was Net Zero|Net Positive in 2008. Jen also orchestrated the LEED Platinum certification of Citadel Environmental Services under LEED CI. This was the 1st LEED Platinum CI office space in the Tri-City (Glendale/Pasadena/Burbank) area and Net Zero Energy in 2010. One of Jen's most renowned projects is Step Up On Vine, an adaptive reuse Platinum certified LEED Homes Multi-family, permanent supportive housing project for chronically homeless, mentally ill individuals in Hollywood, CA.   Jen was a Peer Reviewer for WELL v1 thru v2, a member of the IWBI Covid-19 and other Respiratory Infections Task Force, and has the unique experience of being a Consultant to both Delos and IWBI. Jen had worked with WELL in various phases on projects globally. Jen's participation in the WELL Portfolio Pilot Program resulted in co-facilitating IWBI's Portfolio Provider Trainings globally. Jen has also been an active member of at least five WELL Advisories. Jen has been a reviewer for USGBC's Greenbuild program multiple times, an item|form reviewer for the WELL AP Exam Maintenance, and a Specs Reviewer for the WELL AP v2 Exam.   Jen has provided tours of hundreds of LEED|WELL registered|certified projects nationally for international and domestic Owners, Developers, Design|Build teams, Consultants, Innovators, Fortune 500 Companies, and more. Jennifer has also provided hundreds of Sustainability|Wellness presentations globally for hundreds of organizations. Jen has been interviewed|published in articles and publications over the past 15 years. Jen is also a content contributor, reviewer and on-screen SME for the WELL Learning Library (WLL); a comprehensive solution for WELL v2 education and survey requirements. Jen has been a 1st through final round Greenbuild education program Reviewer multiple times, a Global Health & Wellness Summit Advisory Board Member and LEED Fellow Evaluation Committee member since receiving the designation. Show Highlights From movie sets to LEED Fellow, Jen's story on how to turn your passion into a successful career and business.  The value of credentials to be an asset in your career, shape your commitment and reflect your work.  WELL's measurable impact on taking care of people in a meaningful way.    A SustainAble Production is the global WELL experts. Their portfolio benchmarking plays to zero and for organizations at scale.  Jen shares partnerships for ESG strategies the market and clients are demanding. The International Well Building Institute has a WELL equity rating coming out that includes what's important holistically for sustainability.  Ideas for the innovators who want to help people move in healthy ways to drive sustainability forward.    “I travel the world teaching WELL, and we even teach it to a lot of our competitors. Again, our dear friends, we want everyone to succeed. We want the movement to succeed. The more people that get it right, the more healthier people we will have in the world living longer, more vibrant lives.” -Jennifer Berthelot-Jelovic   Get the episode transcript here!!   Jennifer Berthelot-Jelovic's Show Resource and Information LinkedIn Instagram A SustainAble Production The Little Prince Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community!   If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2022 GBES

In this episode, Cherise is joined by John Marx, AIA, Co-Founding Principal and Chief Artistic Officer at Form4 Architecture in San Francisco, California. John is responsible for developing Form4 Architecture's design vision and philosophical language. In this conversation, John shares his experience and insights into his work on the Innovation Curve Life Science Campus in Palo Alto, California. The project is a 265,895 square-foot, four-building, LEED Platinum life-science campus on the edge of the Stanford Research Park. The clear glass envelope with glass shading fins creates a crystalline form that evokes a sense of lightness and spirit. A mid-level blue horizontal ribbon shading element follows the shape of the classic R&D timeline; from creative spark, through trial and tribulation, to welcome success. To see project photos and details discussed, visit https://www.arcat.com/podcast (arcat.com/podcast) Allison Koo, Managing Director at Sand Hill Property Co., also shares her perspective as the client and building owner. Involved from land acquisition to occupancy and stabilization, Allision provides wide-ranging insight into an owner's decision making process. This project provided unique challenges and opportunities - A unique curved shading element and design feature required unconventional materials to build, the design balanced extensive use of glass with effective sun shading elements to help obtain LEED platinum certification, a creative and flexible design allowed the owner to effectively navigate volatility in the real estate market, and much more. If you enjoy this show, you can find similar content at https://gablmedia.com/ (Gābl Media).

The summer heat is in full swing, so let's revisit why systems like district energy could be a sustainable way to heat and cool communities—ultimately working towards a zero carbon footprint. Jeff Westeinde, President of Zibi Canada and Founding Partner of Windmill Development Group joined thinkenergy to talk about how Zibi, which aims to be Canada's most sustainable development project, embraces district energy and One Planet Living. Relive this episode as part of thinkenergy's Summer Recharge!    Related links LinkedIn, Jeff Westeinde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-westeinde-a46b4843/ LinkedIn, Windmill Development Group: https://www.linkedin.com/company/windmill-development-group/?originalSubdomain=ca Zibi: https://zibi.ca/   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Check out our cool pics on https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   More to Learn on https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the Tweets at https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod   Transcript   Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy. The podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey everyone, welcome to the summer rewind edition of the thinkenergy podcast. While we recharge our batteries during these lazy hazy days of summer, we're bringing back some blasts from our podcast past. We'll be reintroducing some of our most popular interviews that garnered a lot of attention and interest. There's been a lot of talk about the future electrification of energy on the path to net zero. The episodes we've selected are very future focused with themes around Green Innovation, renewable energy, and our impact on the environment. So I hope you enjoy the summer rewind edition of today's episode. In the meantime, have a happy summer. And we'll be back on August 15. To kick off another exciting season. Cheers. I'm Dan Seguin from Hydro Ottawa, and I'll be hosting the thinkenergy podcast. So here's today's big question. Are you looking to better understand the fast changing world of energy? Join me every two weeks and get a unique perspective from industry leaders as we deep dive and discuss some of the coolest trends, emerging technologies and latest innovations that drive the energy sector. So stay tuned as we explore some traditional and some quirky facets of this industry. This is the thinkenergy podcast.  Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is the ThinkEnergy podcast. What happens when you use a network of hot and cold water pipes, bury them underground and then use them to efficiently heat and cool buildings - even whole communities, you get something called 'district energy'. And it's not a new concept. A quick search will reveal that its origins can be traced back to the second century BC to the invention of the hypocaust heating systems that powered the hot water bath of the ancient Roman Empire. Famously a hot water distribution system in Chaudes-Aigues, in France, is regarded as the first real district heating system. It used geothermal energy to provide heat for about 30 houses in the 14th century, and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis began steam district heating in 1853. If you're like me, maybe you're wondering why modern civilization did not continue to use this efficient and environmentally sustainable technology more. There are some European countries such as Denmark, where district energy is mandated, but for the most part, it is largely gone the way of ancient Rome and public bathing. The latter is not such a bad thing in my mind, with more and more socially conscious citizens around the globe, district energy is once again seeing a surge in popularity and becoming a preferred method, thanks to its lower and energy efficient operating costs, reduced supply disruptions, and environmentally sound methods of heating and cooling buildings, municipalities and property owners are intrigued by this ancient alternative energy technology. So, here's today's big question: Is the world ready to embrace district energy as a viable means to power our communities? Is the nation's capital ready to have the first one planet zero carbon community district energy system in the country? Well, my guest today is the founding partner of the Thea partnership. One of Canada's most sustainable real estate development companies, as well as the president of Zibi Canada, which aims to be Canada's most sustainable development project. He's also an active investor and entrepreneur in both environmental, clean tech and real estate sector with active investments in solar energy, site remediation, and the beneficial reuse of waste. Dear listeners, please welcome Jeff Westeinde. Jeff, can we start by you telling us a bit about your background, the Zibi project and what drives your passion to build sustainable communities?   Jeff Westeinde  05:24 Well, so I guess my background, I always say I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an engineer by training, but entrepreneur by practice. So I've, I've had one, what I call real job in my career, I worked for a company for a little over a year, it quickly became apparent that I was unemployable. So I had to start my own business. And I've always been in the environmental sector. So I started I started my career as an environmental contractor cleaning up industrial messes and some of the wastes of the past. And as part of that, I would watch our clients the way they were cleaning up properties, and then what they would do to redevelop them. And I was pursuing trying to, you know, clean up the environment, make the planet a better place. And yet, so the practices we were using, were actually making it worse. We're trucking contaminated soils. You know, the time I lived in BC, we're picking up soil, putting it in a dump truck and hauling it across the Rocky Mountains into a landfill in Alberta. And nobody can tell me that's good for the environment. So very good. quickly decided that we shouldn't say very quickly but decided while I continue to move up the food chain, and start to buy contaminated properties and start to develop places and communities. And because we were purchasing contaminated properties, the commitment that we had was, let's do better than we've done before. So let's push the envelope about how can we live in a sustainable way? How can we ensure that what we're building today doesn't cause the problems that we're cleaning up on the very site for developing so that's maybe a bit of a background as to you know, why how I got into this and in my passion around, you know, leaving, like, I don't know if you're ever in the wilderness, but there's a rule, leave the campsite better than you found it. And I think that rule, that should be a planet wide rule, and it's historically as you know, as not being so.   Dan Seguin  07:12 Okay, Jeff, you're on the record saying that the way we build communities does not support health, happiness or the environment. What do you mean by that? And how does Zibi differentiate?   Jeff Westeinde  07:28 So, I might even be so bold as to say that, I would argue that most of our planning, especially in North America, is actually shortening the lifespan of our own citizens. And that's because we're so car reliant. We're so socially isolated in the way that we build. So think about a typical suburb. In a typical suburb, if you want to get up and, you know, go get a coffee, buy some milk, bring your kids to school, the very first thing you do is go hop in your car and drive. And that that leads to, you know, the stats that can predict the rate of diabetes, the rate of obesity, the rate of all sorts of other chronic diseases by the postal code you live in, was shocking. So, this car centric suburban lifestyle is not good for you. So that's the health side of it. The happiness side of it, I'll just point to one stat. And that's that you can use, there are statistics that say you can determine the level of happiness of somebody by how many of their neighbors they know by first name. Well, when you live in the suburbs, you know, you might know 2, 3, 4 neighbors, or those people whose kids are your age, or those guys you play hockey with, but you don't have the unexpected collisions as you're walking to the coffee shop or as you're bringing your kids to school. So again, that urban sprawl arguably leads to a lot of source of social isolation. And if something happens to an older person, you fall, you break a leg, even as a young person and you're inside your house. Similarly, you're not looking out your window and seeing people and waving at them and those types of things. So how we build our communities, I think is really important for health, happiness and obviously for environmental sustainability. And what we're doing at Zibi is making sure that you will not be car centric, that you do have these collisions with your neighbors. As you're walking around the neighborhood. We actually have social programming that, you know, we have snowshoe nights and that when Cirque du Soleil comes, we have a night that is just for the residents of Zibi that come, you know those kinds of things to make sure you feel like a part of that community.   Dan Seguin  09:49 How did you discover the one planet system? What can you tell us about it and your goal to build the first one in Canada?   Jeff Westeinde  10:00 Well, so we'll talk about how we discovered it first, and that's good. Myself and my business partners were behind the very first LEED Platinum buildings in Canada. So we built the first LEED Platinum building in BC, Alberta, Ontario, and in the country as a whole and the LEED Platinum building we built in Alberta - I was visiting one day A couple years after we'd built it, and LEED Platinum is literally the Platinum standard, the most sustainable in the lead system. And I watched one of the residents of his LEED Platinum condominium building drive a Hummer SUV into the parking garage, and said, you know, it's great that our building is sustainable, but we really have an impact and how the users are using the building and how they're, how they're living their lives. So we started scouring the planet, literally to say, Well, is there a system that would really impact not only how we build our buildings and how they operate at a point in time, but how do we engage the people, the users that are using those places? So one planet, we get rated on things like health and happiness and social engagement, along with all the other architectural and engineering features of a community. And the way one planet works: very simple. The name says it all we have to live as if we only have one planet. Most people when I say that look at me and sort of go, but we only do have one planet. And we need to remind them that if you live like a typical Canadian, you're using four planets of resources to sustain your unsustainable lifestyle, and Americans using five planets, Europeans using three planets, and all we're doing is stealing from future generations, and the developing world to sustain our unsustainable lifestyles. So one planet really is all about both environmental sustainability, like technical sustainability and social sustainability, with one planet worth of resources, and it's a very holistic program. Very audacious goals, we're going to talk about zero carbon. So as you know, Zibi is in the nation's capital in Ottawa and Gatineau. You know, we are we are today we're going to be at plus 34 degrees. Six months from now we'll be at minus 34 degrees Celsius and to be zero carbon in this environment. It's the Holy Grail. So achieving one planet is not an easy thing to do very audacious. But that's where we said, No, that's the bar we need to hit, we need to again, leave our campsite better than we came to it.   Dan Seguin  12:35 I was fascinated that this method, 'district energy' dates back, like I think is 3000 or 4000 years to the time of the Roman Empire. What are some of the key benefits of the energy system you're implementing in your community? And why has it taken this long for folks to embrace it with it's being around for so long?   Jeff Westeinde  13:01 Well, like most technological breakthroughs, it is not the technology itself or even the concept itself that gets in the way, its people. So regulators, you know, if you look at how our grid works, say in Ontario, you cannot run a district electrical system. I can't, I couldn't produce energy and give it to my neighbor. Because we have a regulatory body that says you can't do it. And there are good reasons for that it was around safety and security and all those types of things. But we've ended up with all of these barriers, that that would prohibit the transportation and sale of energy. And, you know, I talked about electricity. But what's very interesting at Zibi - our district energy system is just hot and cold water. And there are no regulations currently in Ontario and Quebec, around moving hot and cold water. So that allowed us to start a district energy system. Answer so yeah. Again, the reason I would say you don't see more of them is the regulatory hurdles to implement the district energy system are enormous. However, the benefits are huge. And I'll use a very, you know, high level example that if you were to have a, you know, a Shopify data center, a good Canadian company, unlike Amazon, as a for instance. That is in constant cooling. So it's rejecting heating all the time. Right? And beside it, you have the Nordic spa, another great company that always needs heating, but needs to therefore be rejecting cooling. When you put those two side by side, and they're swapping energy back and forth. So your load is so much less. That's the concept of District energy is that by sharing and you know, a commercial building has different loads than a residential building has different loads than a retail building. By sharing those loads, they have different peaks, either for peak shades, you'd be you have less capital expenditure and you're more efficient. Why is it taking so long? It drives me crazy, but I really do think it's regulation is the key item why.   Dan Seguin  15:13 Aside from regulation, what have been the challenges you encountered bringing this technology to market in Canada? The sight of your one planet community alone, straddling Ontario and Quebec, is really unique. Tell us about the challenges and how your passion has gotten you through.   Jeff Westeinde  15:34 Yeah, I'm not sure how long this podcast is, but I could talk for a week about the challenges. Yeah, as you talked about, we do span the provincial border between Ontario and Quebec. You know, we jokingly say, both sides have a different word for everything. Because one speaks French one speaks English. Even the rule of law is different to one side of the other the legal system. So, you know, we need to repeat everything twice when we do this, but what I'll tell you is, I would say that the way that we've overcome what are just an enormous amount of challenges, I won't even get into what they all are, but it was it was crazy. Boy, when we overcome it was we shared our vision. And actually, I would say was our community's vision of saying, this is where our region started. Arguably, this is where, you know, the roots of our country started was on this site. And when we when we purchased the property was a fenced off locked off contaminated former industrial site that nobody had seen unless you worked at domtar. For probably 100 years, people didn't realize there's a waterfall in the middle of the city. What the community talked about in the vision that we had was no, we need to do something truly world class like something that people would come to our region and say Quebecers Ontarians, Canadians, look at the communities and the places that they create. And with that vision of being world class, we were fortunate that that politicians in the region, federal, municipal and provincial, all endorsed out the community endorse it. So when we started to bump up against bureaucracy and regulations, we were able to remind everybody that our commitment or contract to all of our stakeholders was, we're going to do some world class. Now world class, meaning different, and bureaucracies and regulations exist to enforce the same. So we were able to say, listen, you've got to empower, talk to the politicians, you've got to empower the bureaucrats who are paid to make sure that everybody does everything the same, to say, No, we've got to look at this one differently. We're not looking to do anything unsafe or unreasonable. But there's a better way and we've got to find it. And it was really that vision of world class and the endorsement that we got from all of the public stakeholders who said, yeah, we want to be world class. We don't want to just build another suburb of the City of Ottawa or Gatineau.   Dan Seguin  18:08 Now through a marketing lens, how did you position this alternative energy system that provides heating and cooling to your communities' new housing projects? What was the value proposition for prospective buyers and investors.   Jeff Westeinde  18:25 I think the key one, one of the lessons we've learned about sustainability and building sustainable buildings and building sustainable communities, is, most consumers don't, you know, while it's a nice to have being sustainable, it's not something that they're making a purchasing decision around. That's changing. I think more and more people are starting to look at that, but historically hasn't been important. So the key to sustainability is, we need to, we're going to allow you to be much more environmentally sustainable, socially sustainable, without any impact to your lifestyle. So when it comes to district heating and cooling, we said, listen, we're going to deliver you zero carbon district heating and cooling at the same market cost as a carbon based system, and you won't know. If you know you're going to turn your heat on, it's going to get hot, you're going to turn up your cooling on it's going to get cool, and you're not going to pay any more of the market. So that was that batten marketing. I mean, that's a no brainer to everybody that Okay, hold on, I get the exact same as I would get in a carbon based system but I'm zero carbon or more sustainable. That's a pretty easy sell at that point.   Dan Seguin  19:33 Okay, now I'd like to explore design aspects. District energy equipment inside a building occupies about one fifth of the area of conventional systems that boilers and chillers take up. I'm assuming this provides more flexibility in designing your buildings and community. By eliminating traditional HVAC systems, what building design options did this enable you to expand on?   Jeff Westeinde  20:06 There's some easy ones like if you think about rooftop patios, as a for instance, you know, if you have a rooftop patio beside a big chiller that's making a bunch of noise is not a great rooftop. So by  being able to eliminate that equipment. You know, our rooftop patios are much nicer. But really as a place maker, as a developer, the key aspect for us was if you know if you take all of that mechanical and electrical distribution space, and you end up with instead real estate that you can use, it's another added benefit to saying that that district energy makes financial sense or can make financial sense. It wasn't easy to unlock that but can make financial sense. So, so yeah, it obviously the less constraints you have on a building, the more flexibility you have and district is one tool for that for sure.   Dan Seguin  21:06 Now, wondering if you could zero in on the energy distribution system that harnesses excess heat from the Kruger paper mill on the Ottawa River and the temporary thermal plant that was or is built to serve residents businesses in your community.   Jeff Westeinde  21:24 Sure, yeah. So are, you know, like talking about the benefits, or sorry, the rationale behind district that if you have different energy cycles between neighboring buildings, you can share that energy. Our district energy system is actually based on that very same principle that Kruger operates a tissue mill, directly across from Parliament Hill. They, it's a very efficient, very successful mill. But as part of that process, they bring in millions of litres of water a day, heated up to over 40 degrees Celsius. Use it several times in their papermaking process, but then discharge it into the Ottawa River at about 30 degrees Celsius, anywhere from 25 to 30. So what we're doing is saying listen, you're discharging the millions of liters of hot water into the Ottawa River. Why don't we strip that heat so then what we're doing is we're taking it from 25 to 30 degrees down to seven to 10 degrees and discharging out into the Ottawa. River in our heating system or in the heating season. So that's the concept behind it's very rudimentary engineering, it's strictly heat transfer between water. So, so pretty straightforward from that point of view. What the temporary plane that you speak about is our district energy system. That backbone heating system at Kruger is not yet built that's getting built this season. However, we have users in our buildings right now. So, we have temporary plants that are providing that but the infrastructure for the district the pipes in the streets and hot and cold water system is there. So those temporary plants are going to operate for about another year, after which will be on our permanent system.   Dan Seguin  23:06 In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy resilience. Is it fair to say that district energy deliver economies of scale in areas with high population? What are some of the short and long term benefits for the owner and end user alike? And how do these factor into the government carbon reduction targets?   Jeff Westeinde  23:33 Well, yeah, so the short term is if you can be more efficient, so if you have dense populations with different energy cycles, so different peaks and whatnot, as we talked about earlier, you need to spend less capital because you're peaking is at a lower level. And you're sharing energy between so that your overall initial energy utilization from the grid or from the gas system is lower because you're sharing more so overall that drives efficiency. And at the end of the day efficiency then drives lower greenhouse gas emissions and ideally, lower and more stable costs because your energy inputs are a lower percentage of the overall district. So say in our case, you if we're harnessing heat from Kruger, there are no escalation in the cost of that heat. It is waste industrial heat that otherwise wouldn't go anywhere. Whereas if we're connected to the Ontario grid, as you know, you know, costs have escalated very significantly. So that energy input if that is our key input, our energy costs are going to be higher. So we're fortunate that again, the combination of we sit in Ontario and in Quebec, so we have two different electrical and two different gas grids. We have waste heat and our cooling is going to come largely from the Ottawa River. So we have low cost inputs with waste heat and Ottawa River cooling. And we have four different grids we can tap into for alternative and for other energy if need be. So that then allows us to control our costs. So again, just an example of how you can drive efficiency and provide more price stability, while at the same time reducing emissions.   Dan Seguin  25:22 Okay. Do alternative energy sources like district energy reduce exposure to fluctuating energy prices? How are the rates/cost determined for residents? Are they comparable to current rates? And are they stable?   Jeff Westeinde  25:41 Yeah, so, yes, not all district energy systems are the same. Obviously, it depends on what those inputs are. But in the case of the Zibi community utility, our district energy system, but then our key inputs are that waste industrial heat and cooling base from the Ottawa River, both of which obviously have are stable. There's there is no Yeah, well, I shouldn't say we have some commercial transactions that go on without but not like the grid that allows us to decrease our reliance on the grid for other inputs. So to answer the question on rates, yes, our rates are comparable to market. And we've actually indexed them to the price of Quebec hydroelectricity. And for anyone that understands electrical grids, I would suggest that in North America, Quebec is likely the most stable grid in all of North America. I would say that it is a national utility for the province of Quebec. And I would say, you know, all Canadians are very proud of our healthcare and if they ever tried to take it away, there'd be riots in the streets. I would suggest that if anybody tried to raise electrical rates in Quebec, similar to what's happened Ontario, there would be even bigger riots in the streets. So, you know, we are expecting that will allow us to provide really stable pricing over the long term to our, to our customers.   Dan Seguin  27:09 Now, how important was it to find a strategic partner like hydro Ottawa, that had more than 100 years of experience and a strong track record to create safe and reliable utility infrastructure?   Jeff Westeinde  27:24 The partnership with Hydro Ottawa was critical. And again, consumer acceptance of that of the district energy system. You know, if you think about reliability if you're a consumer at Zibi, and you said, Okay, well what happens if my heating or cooling goes off? Who do I call if I see, well, you know, I am Jeff and here's my cell phone, you know, call me up at the cottage and I'll see if I can help you. That's not exactly reassuring. When you say 'Well, you call Hydro Ottawa" and they will is not who I would normally, you know, they, they're, they're, you know, the relative reliability stats of Hydro Ottawa better than me, but it's 99.999 something percent uptime, you know, 24 hour response, etc., etc. So, being able to bring that credibility of a utility operator to our district was absolutely critical for overall consumer acceptance and I would even say regulatory acceptance. You know, when we started talking about listen we're going to be moving hot and cold water in the you know energy in the form of hot and cold water around the around our community all municipal officials provincially "Okay, let you know if they did you have experience with this?" when we say well, Hydro Ottawa is our partner, it is an automatic acceptance of all know, okay, you guys are credible we understand let's carry on. So having Hydro Ottawa as a partner has been truly exceptional for us to be able to pioneer this.   Dan Seguin  28:50 Jeff, in addition to district energy, what else is he planning to feature in terms of other advanced technology and innovation to achieve zero carbon living for the residents and tenants on site?   Jeff Westeinde  29:08 Yeah, again, I know your podcast is not that long so I could talk forever about this, but I'll give you some key examples. So you know, again, trying to decrease reliance on carbon based transportation systems. So you know, the personal vehicle. You know, having car sharing, having excellent access to transit, when you're looking at other things that have a carbon footprint, how we build our buildings, the components that go into our buildings, the materials that go into our buildings, some are very carbon intensive. So again, we're targeting those that aren't carbon intensive. Even things like if you look at logistics, you know, when you buy a head of lettuce at the at the grocery store, the carbon it took to get that lettuce to the grocery store is embedded in that very product. So having urban agriculture, you'll see urban gardens, we've got a couple on site now. So all sorts of areas where anywhere where we can target things that are that use carbon to get delivered to or to, as part of the system that we're in. We're looking at incrementally changing all of those things. And those increments when they add up, turn into some big numbers. So that's really our focus.   Dan Seguin  30:27 Jeff, how about we close off with some rapid fire questions? Are you ready to go? What is your favorite word?   Jeff Westeinde  30:36 Serendipity. Yeah, I love serendipity. Because good things happen when you're not paying attention.   Dan Seguin  30:42 What is one thing you can't live without?   Jeff Westeinde  30:46 That was an easy one, my wife, I could be dead without that!   Dan Seguin  30:52 What is something that challenges you?   Jeff Westeinde  30:54 The word "No." I'm not good at taking the word 'No', it's how Zibi exists.   Dan Seguin  31:00 If you could have one superpower, what would it be?   Jeff Westeinde  31:03 I'd love to be a shapeshifter, be able to get inside different systems, different beings and understand how and why they work. I have endless curiosity. So I think being a shapeshifter would be amazing.   Dan Seguin  31:15 If you had to turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you tell them?   Jeff Westeinde  31:21 First, I would say smarten up and stop doing dumb things. But no, I think the one thing I would say is listen, relax. You know, something that has come to ring true with me, the Roman philosopher Seneca said, you know, "luck happens when opportunity meets preparedness". And I've been very fortunate to be lucky. But there's only one thing I can control in there. I can't control luck, I can't control opportunity. All I can do is control preparedness. So get prepared and just relax, pay attention, good things will happen.   Dan Seguin  31:52 And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector?   Jeff Westeinde  31:57 I love the fact that public health - so right now, you know, as you know, we're in the middle of a covid pandemic - public health is leading that across our country. But here in Ottawa, it's Vera Etches, I love the fact that our public health officials are starting to be included in our urban planning policies. So in Ottawa, Vera Etches participated in that. So remember I said earlier, you know, the way we plan is shortening the lifespan of our citizens. Public health starting to get involved in that. I'm really hoping that there will be an influence where they'll say, "if we planned communities this way, then here are the health benefits of it. If we do it that way, here's the health benefits." That's not currently happening. So I find that really exciting.   So, you know, we've been talking mostly about the Zibi project, which is one of the many things I do you know, if you go to Zibi.ca, then you can find more about Zibi and if you look to hello@zibi.ca anybody that wants to connect they're very good at getting people to me. I'm not much of a social media person, I do have a LinkedIn profile. I don't use it very often. But you can find me on LinkedIn and I'm good at responding to messages there as well.   Dan Seguin  32:41 Well, Jeff, we've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast, last question for you. How can our listeners learn more about you and Zibi? How can they better connect?  Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you had a lot of fun.   Jeff Westeinde  33:35 Well, this was fun, Dan, and thank you for your interest in Zibi and One Planet. That's fantastic.   Dan Seguin  33:42 Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of The thinkenergy podcast. For past episodes, make sure you visit our website HydroOttawa.com/podcast. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Cheers, everyone.

In this episode, Mark checks in with past CEO/President of American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), Randy Fiser about the profound impact interior design has on humanity and the world. From launching the groundbreaking campaign DESIGN IMPACTS LIVES to spearheading the world's first WELL and LEED Platinum headquarters in Washington, D.C., Randy remains at the forefront of making the world a better place. As current Executive Director/CEO at American Geophysical Union, this rare interview with a true global visionary is essential listening for corporate leaders, design professionals and anyone interested in implementing real world solutions into everyday life. Welcome to Scandalabra. Hosted by Mark Brunetz, best known as the Emmy award-winning co-host of Clean House on the Style Network, Scandalabra is the first podcast to critically examine the world of interior design. Curious, skeptical and equally hospitable, Mark pulls back the curtain on his high-profile design career to talk about America's obsession with home decor and the price we unwittingly pay for it. Featuring fellow designers and industry leaders, each episode highlights the ways the design industry intersects with consumers through media, products, and experts, revealing the often-unknown truth behind beautiful spaces. Support the podcast: https://anchor.fm/scandalabra Where to find us: https://www.instagram.com/scandalabrapodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/markbrunetz/?hl=en https://markbrunetz.com/podcast Where to find Randy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyfiser/ https://www.agu.org/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/scandalabra/support

Daniel Overbey, Browning Day's director of sustainability, speaks with us about the largest privately developed LEED Platinum project in Indiana came to be. Listen as he discusses some of the challenges of this project, especially trying to achieve those high standards.

Saskia van Gendt is an environmental scientist and the first Head of Sustainability at Rothy's, the San Francisco-based, direct-to-consumer fashion company. Rothy's items are made from 100% recycled plastic water bottles and post-consumer recycled materials. Saskia oversees their initiatives to use more reusable materials, design products that eliminate waste, and advance their goal of making the brand - and fashion industry at large - ever more circular to better serve our planet and future. Saskia van Gendt: Saskia is an environmental scientist with over a decade of experience in sustainable manufacturing and design, Saskia is the Head of Sustainability at Rothy's, a San Francisco-based company transforming environmentally-friendly materials into timeless essentials for everyday wear. At Rothy's, Saskia develops strategies to minimize the environmental impact that Rothy's supply chain has on the environment, advancing Rothy's sustainable innovations in materials, production, fulfillment, and more. Prior to joining Rothy's, Saskia worked as the Senior Director of Sustainability at method, a brand renowned for their sustainable, clean, and effective cleaning products. At method, Saskia implemented sustainability initiatives on the ground for the European business and at method's LEED-Platinum soap factory in Chicago.   Resources: Learn more about Rothy's at https://rothys.com/ Connect with Saskia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/svangendt/ Visit leadwithwe.com to learn more about Simon's new book or search for "Lead With We" on Amazon, Google Books, or Barnes & Noble.

In this issue of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Peter Rumsey, founder and CEO of Point Energy Innovations, a consulting firm specializing in ultra-efficient buildings and decarbonization. They discuss his extensive career in technological innovation, and all the contributions he has made in the design of low energy and zero energy buildings internationally. He pioneered such key building innovations as chilled beams, radiant cooling, data center economizers, zero energy buildings and affordable LEED Platinum buildings. Peter has transformed the building industry by creating examples of the world's most innovative and most sustainable buildings. 

Passive House Podcast cohost Zack Semke interviews Sy Safi, founder of Louisville, Kentucky-based design/build company, Ubergreen Spaces + Homes. Sy has been a leader in green building and design for well over a decade. In 2012 he created My Green Kentucky Home, a model home that is Kentucky's first Net Zero Energy, Net Zero Water home certified LEED Platinum by the US Green Building Council. Since then, he's adopted the most stringent third-party programs in the Living Building Challenge, Passive House and the WELL Building Standard, while becoming a Department of Energy Zero Energy Ready Home Partner, a Certified Passive House Consultant, Certified Passive House Builder and WELL Accredited Professional. In this interview, Sy talks about how he melds Passive House with WELL and Living Building Challenge in his work, and shares about a new, ambitious development project he's spearheading.

A marvel of modern engineering, Dubai's Museum of the Future is also a donut. Listen in as Aaron and Matt discuss steel diagrids, LEED Platinum designations, and the definition of "honesty" in design. Register to vote during the future live recordings. 

---Join us for our Summer Rewind series as we feature past podcast episodes!--- EPISODE #34: What happens when you use a network of hot and cold water pipes, bury them underground, and then use them to efficiently heat and cool buildings – or even whole communities? You get something called district energy. In this episode, Jeff Westeinde, President of Zibi Canada and Founding partner of Windmill Development Group, shares his passion for environmental sustainability, designing communities to support One Planet Living, and leveraging age-old systems like district energy as a means of achieving a zero carbon footprint. Related Content & Links: Hydro Ottawa – https://hydroottawa.com/ Zibi Canada – https://www.zibi.ca Linkedin - Jeff Westeinde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-westeinde-a46b4843/ --------------------------- Transcript Dan Seguin  00:02 Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is the ThinkEnergy podcast. What happens when you use a network of hot and cold water pipes, bury them underground and then use them to efficiently heat and cool buildings - even whole communities, you get something called 'district energy'. And it's not a new concept. A quick search will reveal that its origins can be traced back to the second century BC to the invention of the hypocaust heating systems that powered the hot water bath of the ancient Roman Empire. Famously a hot water distribution system in Chaudes-Aigues, in France, is regarded as the first real district heating system. It used geothermal energy to provide heat for about 30 houses in the 14th century, and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis began steam district heating in 1853. If you're like me, maybe you're wondering why modern civilization did not continue to use this efficient and environmentally sustainable technology more. There are some European countries such as Denmark, where district energy is mandated, but for the most part, it is largely gone the way of ancient Rome and public bathing. The latter is not such a bad thing in my mind, with more and more socially conscious citizens around the globe, district energy is once again seeing a surge in popularity and becoming a preferred method, thanks to its lower and energy efficient operating costs, reduced supply disruptions, and environmentally sound methods of heating and cooling buildings, municipalities and property owners are intrigued by this ancient alternative energy technology. So, here's today's big question: Is the world ready to embrace district energy as a viable means to power our communities? Is the nation's capital ready to have the first one planet zero carbon community district energy system in the country? Well, my guest today is the founding partner of the THEIA partnership. One of Canada's most sustainable real estate development companies, as well as the president of Zibi Canada, which aims to be Canada's most sustainable development project. He's also an active investor and entrepreneur in both environmental, clean tech and real estate sector with active investments in solar energy, site remediation, and the beneficial reuse of waste. Dear listeners, please welcome Jeff Westeinde. Jeff, can we start by you telling us a bit about your background, the Zibi project and what drives your passion to build sustainable communities? Jeff Westeinde  04:02 Well, so I guess my background, I always say I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an engineer by training, but entrepreneur by practice. So I've, I've had one, what I call real job in my career, I worked for a company for a little over a year, it quickly became apparent that I was unemployable. So I had to start my own business. And I've always been in the environmental sector. So I started I started my career as an environmental contractor cleaning up industrial messes and some of the wastes of the past. And as part of that, I would watch our clients the way they were cleaning up properties, and then what they would do to redevelop them. And I was pursuing trying to, you know, clean up the environment, make the planet a better place. And yet, so the practices we were using, were actually making it worse. We're trucking contaminated soils. You know, the time I lived in BC, we're picking up soil, putting it in a dump truck and hauling it across the Rocky Mountains into a landfill in Alberta. And nobody can tell me that's good for the environment. So very good. quickly decided that we shouldn't say very quickly but decided while I continue to move up the food chain, and start to buy contaminated properties and start to develop places and communities. And because we were purchasing contaminated properties, the commitment that we had was, let's do better than we've done before. So let's push the envelope about how can we live in a sustainable way? How can we ensure that what we're building today doesn't cause the problems that we're cleaning up on the very site for developing so that's maybe a bit of a background as to you know, why how I got into this and in my passion around, you know, leaving, like, I don't know if you're ever in the wilderness, but there's a rule, leave the campsite better than you found it. And I think that rule, that should be a planet wide rule, and it's historically as you know, as not being so. Dan Seguin  05:51 Okay, Jeff, you're on the record saying that the way we build communities does not support health, happiness or the environment. What do you mean by that? And how does Zibi differentiate? Jeff Westeinde  06:07 So, I might even be so bold as to say that, I would argue that most of our planning, especially in North America, is actually shortening the lifespan of our own citizens. And that's because we're so car reliant. We're so socially isolated in the way that we build. So think about a typical suburb. In a typical suburb, if you want to get up and, you know, go get a coffee, buy some milk, bring your kids to school, the very first thing you do is go hop in your car and drive. And that that leads to, you know, the stats that can predict the rate of diabetes, the rate of obesity, the rate of all sorts of other chronic diseases by the postal code you live in, was shocking. So, this car centric suburban lifestyle is not good for you. So that's the health side of it. The happiness side of it, I'll just point to one stat. And that's that you can use, there are statistics that say you can determine the level of happiness of somebody by how many of their neighbors they know by first name. Well, when you live in the suburbs, you know, you might know 2, 3, 4 neighbors, or those people whose kids are your age, or those guys you play hockey with, but you don't have the unexpected collisions as you're walking to the coffee shop or as you're bringing your kids to school. So again, that urban sprawl arguably leads to a lot of source of social isolation. And if something happens to an older person, you fall, you break a leg, even as a young person and you're inside your house. Similarly, you're not looking out your window and seeing people and waving at them and those types of things. So how we build our communities, I think is really important for health, happiness and obviously for environmental sustainability. And what we're doing at Zibi is making sure that you will not be car centric, that you do have these collisions with your neighbors. As you're walking around the neighborhood. We actually have social programming that, you know, we have snowshoe nights and that when Cirque du Soleil comes, we have a night that is just for the residents of Zibi that come, you know those kinds of things to make sure you feel like a part of that community. Dan Seguin  08:28  How did you discover the one planet system? What can you tell us about it and your goal to build the first one in Canada? Jeff Westeinde  08:38 Well, so we'll talk about how we discovered it first, and that's good. Myself and my business partners were behind the very first LEED Platinum buildings in Canada. So we built the first LEED Platinum building in BC, Alberta, Ontario, and in the country as a whole and the LEED Platinum building we built in Alberta - I was visiting one day A couple years after we'd built it, and LEED Platinum is literally the Platinum standard, the most sustainable in the lead system. And I watched one of the residents of his LEED Platinum condominium building drive a Hummer SUV into the parking garage, and said, you know, it's great that our building is sustainable, but we really have an impact and how the users are using the building and how they're, how they're living their lives. So we started scouring the planet, literally to say, Well, is there a system that would really impact not only how we build our buildings and how they operate at a point in time, but how do we engage the people, the users that are using those places? So one planet, we get rated on things like health and happiness and social engagement, along with all the other architectural and engineering features of a community. And the way one planet works: very simple. The name says it all we have to live as if we only have one planet. Most people when I say that look at me and sort of go, but we only do have one planet. And we need to remind them that if you live like a typical Canadian, you're using four planets of resources to sustain your unsustainable lifestyle, and Americans using five planets, Europeans using three planets, and all we're doing is stealing from future generations, and the developing world to sustain our unsustainable lifestyles. So one planet really is all about both environmental sustainability, like technical sustainability and social sustainability, with one planet worth of resources, and it's a very holistic program. Very audacious goals, we're going to talk about zero carbon. So as you know, Zibi is in the nation's capital in Ottawa and Gatineau. You know, we are we are today we're going to be at plus 34 degrees. Six months from now we'll be at minus 34 degrees Celsius and to be zero carbon in this environment. It's the Holy Grail. So achieving one planet is not an easy thing to do very audacious. But that's where we said, No, that's the bar we need to hit, we need to again, leave our campsite better than we came to it. Dan Seguin  11:13 I was fascinated that this method, 'district energy' dates back, like I think is 3000 or 4000 years to the time of the Roman Empire. What are some of the key benefits of the energy system you're implementing in your community? And why has it taken this long for folks to embrace it with it's being around for so long? Jeff Westeinde  11:40 Well, like most technological breakthroughs, it is not the technology itself or even the concept itself that gets in the way, its people. So regulators, you know, if you look at how our grid works, say in Ontario, you cannot run a district electrical system. I can't, I couldn't produce energy and give it to my neighbor. Because we have a regulatory body that says you can't do it. And there are good reasons for that it was around safety and security and all those types of things. But we've ended up with all of these barriers, that that would prohibit the transportation and sale of energy. And, you know, I talked about electricity. But what's very interesting at Zibi - our district energy system is just hot and cold water. And there are no regulations currently in Ontario and Quebec, around moving hot and cold water. So that allowed us to start a district energy system. Answer so yeah. Again, the reason I would say you don't see more of them is the regulatory hurdles to implement the district energy system are enormous. However, the benefits are huge. And I'll use a very, you know, high level example that if you were to have a, you know, a Shopify data center, a good Canadian company, unlike Amazon, as a for instance. That is in constant cooling. So it's rejecting heating all the time. Right? And beside it, you have the Nordic spa, another great company that always needs heating, but needs to therefore be rejecting cooling. When you put those two side by side, and they're swapping energy back and forth. So your load is so much less. That's the concept of District energy is that by sharing and you know, a commercial building has different loads than a residential building has different loads than a retail building. By sharing those loads, they have different peaks, either for peak shades, you'd be you have less capital expenditure and you're more efficient. Why is it taking so long? It drives me crazy, but I really do think it's regulation is the key item why. Dan Seguin  13:52 Aside from regulation, what have been the challenges you encountered bringing this technology to market in Canada? The sight of your one planet community alone, straddling Ontario and Quebec, is really unique. Tell us about the challenges and how your passion has gotten you through. Jeff Westeinde  14:12 Yeah, I'm not sure how long this podcast is, but I could talk for a week about the challenges. Yeah, as you talked about, we do span the provincial border between Ontario and Quebec. You know, we jokingly say, both sides have a different word for everything. Because one speaks French one speaks English. Even the rule of law is different to one side of the other the legal system. So, you know, we need to repeat everything twice when we do this, but what I'll tell you is, I would say that the way that we've overcome what are just an enormous amount of challenges, I won't even get into what they all are, but it was it was crazy. Boy, when we overcome it was we shared our vision. And actually, I would say was our community's vision of saying, this is where our region started. Arguably, this is where, you know, the roots of our country started was on this site. And when we when we purchased the property was a fenced off locked off contaminated former industrial site that nobody had seen unless you worked at domtar. For probably 100 years, people didn't realize there's a waterfall in the middle of the city. What the community talked about in the vision that we had was no, we need to do something truly world class like something that people would come to our region and say Quebecers Ontarians, Canadians, look at the communities and the places that they create. And with that vision of being world class, we were fortunate that that politicians in the region, federal, municipal and provincial, all endorsed out the community endorse it. So when we started to bump up against bureaucracy and regulations, we were able to remind everybody that our commitment or contract to all of our stakeholders was, we're going to do some world class. Now world class, meaning different, and bureaucracies and regulations exist to enforce the same. So we were able to say, listen, you've got to empower, talk to the politicians, you've got to empower the bureaucrats who are paid to make sure that everybody does everything the same, to say, No, we've got to look at this one differently. We're not looking to do anything unsafe or unreasonable. But there's a better way and we've got to find it. And it was really that vision of world class and the endorsement that we got from all of the public stakeholders who said, yeah, we want to be world class. We don't want to just build another suburb of the City of Ottawa or Gatineau. Dan Seguin  16:47 Now through a marketing lens, how did you position this alternative energy system that provides heating and cooling to your communities' new housing projects? What was the value proposition for prospective buyers and investors. Jeff Westeinde  17:03 I think the key one, one of the lessons we've learned about sustainability and building sustainable buildings and building sustainable communities, is, most consumers don't, you know, while it's a nice to have being sustainable, it's not something that they're making a purchasing decision around. That's changing. I think more and more people are starting to look at that, but historically hasn't been important. So the key to sustainability is, we need to, we're going to allow you to be much more environmentally sustainable, socially sustainable, without any impact to your lifestyle. So when it comes to district heating and cooling, we said, listen, we're going to deliver you zero carbon district heating and cooling at the same market cost as a carbon based system, and you won't know. If you know you're going to turn your heat on, it's going to get hot, you're going to turn up your cooling on it's going to get cool, and you're not going to pay any more of the market. So that was that batten marketing. I mean, that's a no brainer to everybody that Okay, hold on, I get the exact same as I would get in a carbon based system but I'm zero carbon or more sustainable. That's a pretty easy sell at that point. Dan Seguin  18:11 Okay, now I'd like to explore design aspects. District energy equipment inside a building occupies about one fifth of the area of conventional systems that boilers and chillers take up. I'm assuming this provides more flexibility in designing your buildings and community. By eliminating traditional HVAC systems, what building design options did this enable you to expand on? Jeff Westeinde  18:44 There's some easy ones like if you think about rooftop patios, as a for instance, you know, if you have a rooftop patio beside a big chiller that's making a bunch of noise is not a great rooftop. So by  being able to eliminate that equipment. You know, our rooftop patios are much nicer. But really as a place maker, as a developer, the key aspect for us was if you know if you take all of that mechanical and electrical distribution space, and you end up with instead real estate that you can use, it's another added benefit to saying that that district energy makes financial sense or can make financial sense. It wasn't easy to unlock that but can make financial sense. So, so yeah, it obviously the less constraints you have on a building, the more flexibility you have and district is one tool for that for sure. Dan Seguin  19:45 Now, wondering if you could zero in on the energy distribution system that harnesses excess heat from the Kruger paper mill on the Ottawa River and the temporary thermal plant that was or is built to serve residents businesses in your community. Jeff Westeinde  20:02 Sure, yeah. So are, you know, like talking about the benefits, or sorry, the rationale behind district that if you have different energy cycles between neighboring buildings, you can share that energy. Our district energy system is actually based on that very same principle that Kruger operates a tissue mill, directly across from Parliament Hill. They, it's a very efficient, very successful mill. But as part of that process, they bring in millions of litres of water a day, heated up to over 40 degrees Celsius. Use it several times in their papermaking process, but then discharge it into the Ottawa River at about 30 degrees Celsius, anywhere from 25 to 30. So what we're doing is saying listen, you're discharging the millions of liters of hot water into the Ottawa River. Why don't we strip that heat so then what we're doing is we're taking it from 25 to 30 degrees down to seven to 10 degrees and discharging out into the Ottawa. River in our heating system or in the heating season. So that's the concept behind it's very rudimentary engineering, it's strictly heat transfer between water. So, so pretty straightforward from that point of view. What the temporary plane that you speak about is our district energy system. That backbone heating system at Kruger is not yet built that's getting built this season. However, we have users in our buildings right now. So, we have temporary plants that are providing that but the infrastructure for the district the pipes in the streets and hot and cold water system is there. So those temporary plants are going to operate for about another year, after which will be on our permanent system. Dan Seguin  21:44 In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy resilience. Is it fair to say that district energy deliver economies of scale in areas with high population? What are some of the short and long term benefits for the owner and end user alike? And how do these factor into the government carbon reduction targets? Jeff Westeinde  22:12 Well, yeah, so the short term is if you can be more efficient, so if you have dense populations with different energy cycles, so different peaks and whatnot, as we talked about earlier, you need to spend less capital because you're peaking is at a lower level. And you're sharing energy between so that your overall initial energy utilization from the grid or from the gas system is lower because you're sharing more so overall that drives efficiency. And at the end of the day efficiency then drives lower greenhouse gas emissions and ideally, lower and more stable costs because your energy inputs are a lower percentage of the overall district. So say in our case, you if we're harnessing heat from Kruger, there are no escalation in the cost of that heat. It is waste industrial heat that otherwise wouldn't go anywhere. Whereas if we're connected to the Ontario grid, as you know, you know, costs have escalated very significantly. So that energy input if that is our key input, our energy costs are going to be higher. So we're fortunate that again, the combination of we sit in Ontario and in Quebec, so we have two different electrical and two different gas grids. We have waste heat and our cooling is going to come largely from the Ottawa River. So we have low cost inputs with waste heat and Ottawa River cooling. And we have four different grids we can tap into for alternative and for other energy if need be. So that then allows us to control our costs. So again, just an example of how you can drive efficiency and provide more price stability, while at the same time reducing emissions. Dan Seguin  24:00 Okay. Do alternative energy sources like district energy reduce exposure to fluctuating energy prices? How are the rates/cost determined for residents? Are they comparable to current rates? And are they stable? Jeff Westeinde  24:19 Yeah, so, yes, not all district energy systems are the same. Obviously, it depends on what those inputs are. But in the case of the Zibi community utility, our district energy system, but then our key inputs are that waste industrial heat and cooling base from the Ottawa River, both of which obviously have are stable. There's there is no Yeah, well, I shouldn't say we have some commercial transactions that go on without but not like the grid that allows us to decrease our reliance on the grid for other inputs. So to answer the question on rates, yes, our rates are comparable to market. And we've actually indexed them to the price of Quebec hydroelectricity. And for anyone that understands electrical grids, I would suggest that in North America, Quebec is likely the most stable grid in all of North America. I would say that it is a national utility for the province of Quebec. And I would say, you know, all Canadians are very proud of our healthcare and if they ever tried to take it away, there'd be riots in the streets. I would suggest that if anybody tried to raise electrical rates in Quebec, similar to what's happened Ontario, there would be even bigger riots in the streets. So, you know, we are expecting that will allow us to provide really stable pricing over the long term to our, to our customers. Dan Seguin  25:47 Now, how important was it to find a strategic partner like Hydro Ottawa that had more than 100 years of experience and a strong track record to create safe and reliable utility infrastructure, Jeff Westeinde  26:03 The partnership with hydro auto was critical. And again, consumer acceptance of that of the district energy system. You know, if you think about reliability if you're a consumer at Zibi, and you said, Okay, well what happens if my heating or cooling goes off? Who do I call if I see, well, you know, I am Jeff and here's my cell phone, you know, call me up at the cottage and I'll see if I can help you. That's not exactly reassuring. When you say 'Well, you call Hydro Ottawa" and they will is not who I would normally, you know, they, they're, they're, you know, the relative reliability stats of Hydro Ottawa better than me, but it's 99.999 something percent uptime, you know, 24 hour response, etc., etc. So, being able to bring that credibility of a utility operator to our district was absolutely critical for overall consumer acceptance and I would even say regulatory acceptance. You know, when we started talking about listen we're going to be moving hot and cold water in the you know energy in the form of hot and cold water around the around our community all municipal officials provincially "Okay, let you know if they did you have experience with this?" when we say well, Hydro Ottawa is our partner, it is an automatic acceptance of all know, okay, you guys are credible we understand let's carry on. So don't having Hydro Ottawa as a partner has been truly exceptional for us to be able to pioneer this, Dan Seguin  27:29 Jeff, in addition to district energy, what else is he planning to feature in terms of other advanced technology and innovation to achieve zero carbon living for the residents and tenants on site? Jeff Westeinde  27:46 Yeah, again, I know your podcast is not that long so I could talk forever about this, but I'll give you some key examples. So you know, again, trying to decrease reliance on carbon based transportation systems. So you know, the personal vehicle. You know, having car sharing, having excellent access to transit, when you're looking at other things that have a carbon footprint, how we build our buildings, the components that go into our buildings, the materials that go into our buildings, some are very carbon intensive. So again, we're targeting those that aren't carbon intensive. Even things like if you look at logistics, you know, when you buy a head of lettuce at the at the grocery store, the carbon it took to get that lettuce to the grocery store is embedded in that very product. So having urban agriculture, you'll see urban gardens, we've got a couple on site now. So all sorts of areas where anywhere where we can target things that are that use carbon to get delivered to or to, as part of the system that we're in. We're looking at incrementally changing all of those things. And those increments when they add up, turn into some big numbers. So that's really our focus. Dan Seguin  29:06 Jeff, how about we close off with some rapid fire questions? Are you ready to go? What is your favorite word? Jeff Westeinde  29:15 Serendipity. Yeah, I love serendipity. Because good things happen when you're not paying attention. Dan Seguin  29:20 What is one thing you can't live without? Jeff Westeinde  29:24 That's an easy one. My wife. I could be dead without that woman! Dan Seguin  29:30 What is something that challenges you? Jeff Westeinde  29:33 The word "No." I'm not good at taking the word 'No', it's how Zibi exists. Dan Seguin  29:38 If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Jeff Westeinde  29:41 I'd love to be a shapeshifter, be able to get inside different systems, different beings and understand how and why they work. I have endless curiosity. So I think being a shapeshifter would be amazing. Dan Seguin  29:53 If you had to turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you tell them? Jeff Westeinde  29:59 First, I would say smarten up and stop doing dumb things. But no, I think the one thing I would say is listen, relax. You know, something that has come to ring true with me, the Roman philosopher Seneca said, you know, "luck happens when opportunity meets preparedness". And I've been very fortunate to be lucky. But there's only one thing I can control in there. I can't control luck, I can't control opportunity. All I can do is control preparedness. So get prepared and just relax, pay attention, good things will happen. Dan Seguin  30:31 And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector? Jeff Westeinde  30:36 I love the fact that public health - so right now, you know, as you know, we're in the middle of a covid pandemic - public health is leading that across our country. But here in Ottawa, it's Vera Etches, I love the fact that our public health officials are starting to be included in our urban planning policies. So in Ottawa, Vera Etches participated in that. So remember I said earlier, you know, the way we plan is shortening the lifespan of our citizens. Public health starting to get involved in that. I'm really hoping that there will be an influence where they'll say, "if we planned communities this way, then here are the health benefits of it. If we do it that way, here's the health benefits." That's not currently happening. So I find that really exciting.  Well, Jeff, we've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast, last question for you. How can our listeners learn more about you and Zibi? How can they better connect? So, you know, we've been talking mostly about the Zibi project, which is one of the many things I do you know, if you go to Zibi.ca, then you can find more about Zibi and if you look to hello@zibi.ca anybody that wants to connect they're very good at getting people to me. I'm not much of a social media person, I do have a LinkedIn profile. I don't use it very often. But you can find me on LinkedIn and I'm good at responding to messages there as well. Dan Seguin  32:09 Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you have a lot of fun. Jeff Westeinde  32:13 Well, this was fun, Dan, and thank you for your interest in Zibi and one planet. That's fantastic. Dan Seguin  32:20 Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. For past episodes, make sure you visit our website HydroOttawa.com/podcast. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Cheers, everyone.

Podcast: The Green Building Matters Podcast with Charlie Cichetti (LS 34 · TOP 3% what is this?)Episode: HEAPY Michael Berning and MEP Emerging TrendsPub date: 2020-09-23Michael is responsible for the development of new markets and services and to provide corporate leadership for (the wholly owned subsidiary the Design/Build construction services company HEAPY.). In this role, his team develops the “what's next” to enhance client service experience and produce colleague advancement opportunities. To emphasize a keen focus on the HEAPY Vision of “Building a more Resilient and Sustainable Society”, new markets and services are centered on Smart Technologies Integration, Distributed Energy Resources, Resiliency Planning, Energy as a Service (EaaS), etc. Michael has presented at several National and Regional Conferences including: Greenbuild, AIA National Convention, International Living Futures UnConference, National Conference on Building Commissioning, the World Energy Engineering Conference, Greening the Heartland and the US Institute for Theater Technology Conference. He is on the Industrial Advisory Committee for the University of Dayton Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and served as a Fellow for the Hobart Center for Food Service Sustainability. He was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the former EDC Magazine, writing a column focused on Sustainability. He leads sustainability on the local level as Co-Chair of the Dayton (Ohio) Regional Green Initiative (DRG3.org) and is a past Regional Chair for the U.S Green Building Council's College and University based USGBC Students Program. He recently served as Chair of USGBC Ohio. HEAPY is a nationally recognized MEP&T Systems Design, Sustainability, and Planning & Commissioning Services firm. Heapy has an outstanding record of providing practical sustainable-based smart solutions for today's high performance buildings. The HEAPY HQ achieved LEED PLATINUM. Michael's experience with projects in both the public and private sectors shows, when properly planned and executed throughout the entire design and construction process, every project can be Resilient, Environmentally Responsible, Energy Efficient AND Cost Effective.   Show Highlights    Building holistically by looking at the entire client's portfolio to create a plan that blends standards  Position your green building projects and jobs to be recession proof  Michael's unique building systems as an innovation officer on solar and smart grids Concepts that look at how you make the best use of renewables and what's next in buildings Stick to your convictions when determining the path for your career Outside of the box thinking that impacts long term needs and deferred maintenance for green building   “This market is still ginormous. This is the opportunity to help move the world, your community, and your family forward by being green and by living green. Helping others to do that too will give you a rewarding and impactful life. That's what we're all looking for. How can I be of impact? Being in the sustainability movement certainly is. It is questions answered.” -Michael Berning     Michael Berning's Show Resource and Information     Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on .  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the !   Copyright © 2020 GBESThe podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Charlie Cichetti, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

The 2021 National ACEC Engineering Excellence Grand Conceptor Award – which honors the year's most outstanding engineering achievement in the U.S. – was presented to IMEG Corp. for its design of the Denver Water Operations Complex Redevelopment. This episode examines the project's extensive water and energy efficiency goals and challenges from the perspective of Ken Urbanek, who led the IMEG team on the $205M redevelopment featuring a 186,000-sf LEED Platinum, net-zero energy and “One Water” administration building. “This project is a testament to what we in the AEC industry can do,” says Urbanek. “It demonstrates that given the right drive from ownership, we can achieve carbon-free emissions, net zero energy, and even significant reductions in water use. Engineers, contractors, and architects – we can all deliver on this.”

Many years ago, our local builders association constructed a model "green" home that achieved LEED Platinum status. I walked in to inspect it and had to walk out minutes later due to the offgassing coming primarily from the closet shelving systems.  Since then, I've been on a quest to find the perfect system. Well, here it is!!  Today I talk with Rob Norden, CEO of Lundia USA, who has developed the healthiest system I've ever seen.     To receive free shipping and a 5% rebate on your purchase http://www.lundiausa.com/andy.htm 

Lourdes Salinas nos comparte su historia detrás de fundar Three Consulting - consultoría ambiental, arquitectura sostenible e ingeniería holística. Las primeras oficinas en obtener doble certificado “LEED Platinum” en Latinoamérica y segunda en el mundo. Definitivamente Lu nos inspira en mucho más que temas relacionados con cuidar nuestro medio ambiente y mejorar nuestra calidad de vida. También nos inspira siendo un gran ser humano, como emprendedora, como mujer y nos invita a descubrir nuestra pasión que todos podemos encontrar detrás de nuestro valor principal. @three.mx ¡No te pierdas #lasChorchas! Síguenos en nuestras redes en Instagram @empieza_contigo en Facebook y YouTube como empiezacontigo. Suscríbete a nuestro podcast y déjanos tus comentarios. ¿Con qué te quedas? Recuerda que todo puedes cambiar si empiezas contigo. #empiezacontigo #laschorchas #podcastempiezacontigo

This is a special podcast episode where Charlie & Drew actually interview each other about how they built their green building consulting businesses. It has a style similar to NPR's How I Built This. Enjoy!   Drew Shula is Founder & Principal at Verdical Group, a leading Los Angeles-based full-service green building consulting firm specializing in certification project management, net zero, commissioning, energy modeling, and program management. Verdical Group is a certified B Corporation and 1% for the Planet member company. In addition to managing some of the highest profile green building projects in California, including LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge projects (such as the first Energy Petal certified project in California), Verdical Group hosts the world's largest annual Net Zero Conference. Shula is a Founding Steering Committee member of the Living Building Challenge Los Angeles Collaborative and a frequent speaker on net zero and high performance buildings including at Cornell University, The 2 Degrees Symposium on Climate Change, and the Living Future unConference. Shula has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, USGBC+ Magazine, and the International Living Future Institute's Trim Tab. He holds a 5-year professional degree in Architecture from the University of Notre Dame. Charlie Cichetti is the CEO of several small giants in the Green Building industry: Sustainable Investment Group (SIG), Green Building Education Services (GBES), Blue Ocean Sustainability, and Aetos Imaging. Over the course of his career Charlie has personally taught and trained over 10,000+ professionals in-person about LEED, the green building movement, and how to pass LEED exams. His green building education company GBES has over 130,000+ professionals around the world who use their study tools and CE materials to help maintain their credentials after Charlie and his team helped them pass their exams. Charlie also advocates for LEED and the green building movement to thousands of people monthly as they tune in to listen to his weekly podcast, Green Building Matters. Charlie is an expert in both the designing of green buildings and the operations of green buildings. Charlie has led many projects (over 50 Million SF of LEED/Energy Star/Cx-RCx) to LEED Gold, and even a few to the highest mark: Platinum, and is a master trainer on sustainability topics.   Show Highlights Focused on decarbonizing the built environment. Verdical Group's three buckets.  Join the largest net zero building event in the world.  A template for folks just coming up in the industry and thinking about starting their own businesses in the future.  Accomplishing the Triple Bottom Line.   One of the problems with the industry.  Education, innovation and software tools to help with the evolution of the movement to capitalize on the moment to impact the future. The drive  to become social entrepreneurs and how to chase opportunity. How Charlie and Drew are building companies to make a positive environmental and social impact on the world?  Forecasting the future to be part of building equitable solutions Success versus luck. Understanding entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship and knowing when you go through the window.  “I don't know how you do it, Charlie. You are an entrepreneur's entrepreneur with all your startups. It's really incredible. You're like the Elon Musk of the green building world and you drive a Tesla to boot, so kudos to you with all the amazing things you're working on.” -Drew Shula    Drew Shula's Show Resource and Information Verdical Group  Net Zero Conference How I Built This with Guy Raz – NPR Podcast Patagonia Outdoor Clothing & Gear LinkedIn   Drew Shula Transcript   Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2021 GBES

Michael Lehrer talks about the Water + Life Museums in Hemet, the first LEED Platinum museums in the world. He describes the ideology behind the buildings, which is evident both in their museum content and their architectural design. The Water and Life Museums are born of the construction of Diamond Valley Lake (DVL), the largest man-made water storage lake in North America. Set in the semi-arid Southern California desert near Hemet, DVL is an integral part of the state's water infrastructure.  The lake provides a 6-month emergency supply of water for all of Southern California.  Diamond  Valley existed between 2 mountain ranges.  Diamond Valley Lake was created by damming the Valley's open ends with two 300' high dams.  The East Dam is 2.5 miles long.  The Dam, is made from rock mined from these mountains.  The Museums sit near the base of the East Dam of DVL.  The construction of these dams is the largest earthwork project in American history.

Hoppy Easter to everybody, in this weekly update I wish you all a wonderful Easter break. In news around the world, Rotterdam-based architecture office Powerhouse Company has unveiled designs for a 12-story project will feature 11 stories built of cross-laminated timber without the use of adhesives to allow the building to be demounted and reassembled . SRG Partnership recently completed its own office in Portland, Oregon. A LEED Platinum project translates into an active design environment cultivating better work, stronger relationships, and fantastic energy. Vincent Callebaut Architectures has unveiled a bold vision to transform the heart of Lille, France into a carbon-neutral district capable of producing more energy than it uses. The project is called ‘Archiborescence' — a combination of the words architecture and arborescence. A major expansion incorporating additional academic space and new student housing is planned for Douglas College immediately west of its main campus in downtown New Westminster. Leading Russian wood processing holding Segezha Group has launched the country's first factory to manufacture cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels in Sokol. That's a wrap for this week, I look forward to catching you next time. Until then, be well. Production by Deeelicious Beats Music "Game Play" by Quality QuestPodcast is a Mass Timber Construction Journal Production www.masstimberconstruction.com  Rotho Blaas "Build the [Im]possible" Solutions designed for building in wood that are easily accessible adapting to the needs of all. Sponsor Wanted Here Looking for global sponsorship opportunities in the mass timber sector? Why not consider sponsoring?

Guest: Kathleen Hetrick If 2020 taught us anything, it's the importance of creating healthier buildings. This need goes beyond adding sanitizing stations and more space to social distance and touches on every aspect of the way we design, build, and operate. Join Kathleen Hetrick, Senior Sustainability Engineer at Buro Happold for a deeper dig into the rise of public health in the built environment and why it must be considered when building resilient, sustainable buildings. Kathleen Hetrick is a senior engineer at Buro Happold and a WELL AP and LEED AP BD+C accredited professional. As part of the Buro Happold Los Angeles Sustainability team, Kathleen combines her passion for regenerative design with a technical background in Architectural Engineering. She leads the sustainable design process on a wide range of cutting-edge buildings including LEED Platinum, Zero Carbon and Living Building Challenge projects, historical adaptive reuse, LEED Neighbourhood Developments, and university sustainability plans. She is currently leading the Living Building Challenge process for the Santa Monica City Hall East, which aims to create a new precedent for Net Zero Energy and Water buildings in Southern California. She also co-facilitates Buro Happold's Diversity and Inclusion Forum, spearheading the outreach initiatives to encourage local K-12 students to pursue sustainability-focused careers in STEM. She is currently a board member of USGBC-LA and the Young Professionals Council at LA Promise Fund. Click here to learn more about our Green Building Accelerator. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/innovationsv/support

BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE Eve Picker: [00:00:13] Hi there, thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate, I'm on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. Real estate can help to solve climate change, can house people affordably, can create beautiful streetscapes, unify neighborhoods and enliven cities. So I'm on a journey to find the most creative thinkers and doers out there. I'm not the only one who wants to rethink real estate. You can learn more about me at EvePicker.com or you can find me at SmallChange.co. A real estate crowdfunding platform with impact real estate investment opportunities open for investment right now. And if you want to support this podcast, join me at Patreon.com/rethinkrealestate, where there are special opportunities for my friends and followers.   Eve: [00:01:17] Today, I'm talking with Kevin Cavenaugh, who may very well be my favorite developer. Kevin has carved out a special place for himself in the Portland real estate world. His buildings are memorable escapes from the mocha colored vinyl covered buildings he so disdains. Forgotten buildings in forgotten neighborhoods, buildings that you and I would not look twice at, are transformed into little creative hubs and bright spots in streetscapes in Kevin's hands. And now he's bringing heart into his practice as well, setting himself the challenge of incorporating homeless housing or anti-gentrification into his projects. All with no subsidy and all providing a return to his investors. I'm going to learn a lot from Kevin and so might you. So listen in. If you'd like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast or go to Patreon.com/rethinkrealestate to learn about special opportunities for my friends and followers and subscribe if you can.   Eve: [00:02:45] Hello, Kevin, I'm just really thrilled to have you on my show.   Kevin Cavenaugh: [00:02:49] Howdy, Eve. Thanks for having me.   Eve: [00:02:52] You are one bad ass developer. I'm really not sure where to start with this interview. I've seen so many tantalizing quotes by you, so I figured I'd start with those. Is that Okay?   Kevin: [00:03:05] Okay. Yeah, of course.   Eve: [00:03:07] The one I probably love the most is, "I do a bunch of weird stuff." So what is it you do?   Kevin: [00:03:14] Oh. Boy, that's a big essay question. So I guess for your audience, I'm educated as an architect and I became a developer only because I knew nobody would hire me to do that weird stuff. Well, and when I was working for an architecture firm, I was doing really boring stuff. And I realized early on that I was being hired at phase one as the architect, and the interesting thing is phase zero. Like I wasn't deciding what the 'it' was supposed to be, what the program is. Here's a piece of land, who gets to decide whether it's going to be an apartment building or retail or mixed use. I wanted to decide that. That's why I became a developer. Once that I realized that the developers weren't necessarily smarter than me. They just control the money. And once I realized that it wasn't their money, they just grabbed the important seat at the table. They asked around. I took some of the developers to coffee. I'm like, hey, is there any reason I can't grab that seat myself? And they all said, no, you know, go for it. So that allows me to build my weird stuff. So I design and then develop and own and manage projects that I always wished somebody would hire me to do. If that makes sense.   Eve: [00:04:30] Yeah, it does. So there's another quote which probably comes right off that. "I'm tired of mocha colored vinyl window boring. I can't change the fact that the streets are gray and the sky is gray, but the buildings?" So is this your mission statement? How does this play out in your world?   Kevin: [00:04:48] Well, I've got like a dozen mission statements. It's an ever evolving mission statement. But Portland, Oregon, the skies are gray and the city's gray and it's that's great. I can't change that. But I rail against institutional money. I never, I run away from institutional money. I run away from national franchise tenants. I want to be quirky and local. And actually, I want to prove that being quirky and local and colorful and not doing copy and paste buildings is just as profitable, if not more profitable than the mocha colored vinyl windows buildings. I don't put vinyl in anything. As a trained architect, the design comes first.   Eve: [00:05:29] Vinyl is pretty offensive.   Kevin: [00:05:31] It's so bad, it's so bad. And it's cheap and it makes sense in a pro forma if I'm going to sell the building. But because I don't sell anything, I can do deeper dives on what I put in the building. I can paint The Fair-haired Dumbbell. That paint job on that building...   Eve: [00:05:47] Is insane.   Kevin: [00:05:47] Cost a half a million dollars. It's the most expensive paint in the world. And I'm never going to sell the building, so I can make different decisions and I can add to the city skyline in a way that institutional money would never consider.   Eve: [00:06:02] Yes, and that is impactful, isn't it?   Kevin: [00:06:04] I think so. I hope so.   Eve: [00:06:06] So there's a final quote I'm going to read to you.  "I just realized that I don't have to play by the rules. It's that simple." How does that play out?   Kevin: [00:06:17] Real estate development is so easy and straightforward and simple. It's almost, I'm never the brightest person in the room. The only thing I am is the person with the largest risk appetite, in the room. So once I took Francesca Gambetti to coffee and she was a client of ours when I was in the, at the architecture firm and I said, hey, how do you, what is a pro forma, how do you do what you do. And she laughs. She's like, you're already doing it, Kevin. You just bought a house in my neighborhood and I saw that you're fixing it up and you're selling. That's development. That's real estate development. You just have to shift the decimal point over. And instead of doing your house, do a little mixed use building. Or it could be an adaptive reuse. It could be new construction, but A plus B equals C, um, you know, hard cost plus soft cost plus land cost, you know, that's that's your total all in cost. And as long as when you're done, throw a cap rate on it, it's worth more than what it costs. You're a successful real estate developer. So then my first question is like, that's great, Francesca, what the hell's a cap rate? So like, I was starting at zero. And after twenty minutes, I knew I knew everything. And then she emailed me her pro forma, which is the pro forma that I still use today, and all of my pro forma are up on my website open source. So people are downloading my pro forma from my products every day because if she gave it to me, I can pay it forward. It's not complicated. It's simple. And when people try to make it complicated, they mystify it in a way that keeps the layperson out of real estate development.   Eve: [00:07:51] Absolutely.   Kevin: [00:07:52] Which makes American cities dumber and uglier and more mocha colored.   Eve: [00:07:56] And doesn't spread the wealth around. That's what I deal with every day in crowdfunding. The fact that people don't understand the special language that's been developed for the developing incrowd, that just doesn't have to be that complicated.   Kevin: [00:08:07] It's not necessary.   Eve: [00:08:08] Yeah.   Kevin: [00:08:09] It's so dumb. It's just it's you buying the neighbor house across the street that's dilapidated and fixing it up and selling it. That's real estate development. What you and I do, Eve, is no different. It just takes a little longer and it's C for commercial instead of R for residential. But...   Eve: [00:08:25] That's right, right.   Kevin: [00:08:26] Everything else is the same.   Eve: [00:08:27] Yeah. I can't wait to download one of the pro formas. I'll probably use it.   Kevin: [00:08:32] You're welcome to it.   Eve: [00:08:33] There's nothing worse than getting a pro forma that's like 20 pages, 20 tabs, an Excel spreadsheet and you've got to work your way for every number, trying to figure out where it came from.  That's just too complicated for me.   Kevin: [00:08:43] Not necessarily. Mine's one page. And the funny thing is, I go to a bank, with that pro forma that that you're about to download, and it's one page and I show it to a bank and I can get a 10 million dollar loan. So complex isn't required. Banks aren't demanding it. It's just part of that language that we feel we have to create to keep the outsider out, which is just not helpful.   Eve: [00:09:07] Not at all. So going back to your quote about the mocha colored vinyl window boring, many of your projects have really both striking facades and pretty far out names like Atomic Orchard Experiment, Burnside Rocket, or Dr. Jim's Still Really Nice, which I admit is my very favorite building.   Kevin: [00:09:29] That's where I live. That's that's what I'm talking to you from, right now.   Eve: [00:09:31] Oh, that's a beautiful building.   Kevin: [00:09:32] There are stories behind all the names. I don't know that I want to tell you the stories, though.   Eve: [00:09:35] Oh, well, what are you trying to accomplish with your buildings? Let's talk about that.   Kevin: [00:09:41] They are all experiments. They're all just things that I want to do and I'm curious about professionally and sadly probably like you, it all is interesting. It all like when someone brings an opportunity to me, I look at it. I have such a hard time saying, no, I'm an actual addict. Like I, I can see fun in almost any project. And I go to my coworkers, like should we do this and they're just as bad as me. They've never said no, no boss, don't buy that property, don't do that building. We are all in all the time. The names are funny. It's just that if I told you that the names are so deeply personal to me and I found in the past that when I explain to somebody what a name means, they're almost disappointed because the story that's in their head or what they've kind of thought of is much more compelling than what I just told them.   Eve: [00:10:32] I have no preconceptions about who Dr. Jim is.   Kevin: [00:10:36] Dr. Jim Saunders is an eye doctor.   Eve: [00:10:39] Oh.   Kevin: [00:10:40] And he sold me a warehouse over on Southeast Ankeny Street. And I got really creative financing and I borrowed hard money for hit the down payment. He carried a contract so I bought his building without any money of mine. And as soon as I closed on it, a hard money guy reached out to Dr. Jim Saunders and said, hey, Cavenaugh has no skin in the game. I want to replace him. I want, the buildings worth more than you sold it for. I'll pay you more.   Eve: [00:11:06] Oh. Eww.   Kevin: [00:11:07] A just as little end around. And I had bounced a check, my first payment to Dr. Jim bounced. So like, I was in a really vulnerable place. And Dr. Jim called me up and he's like, Hey Kevin, like what are you doing. Like I like you. You've been, we've been talking for a year. We're like, you put this together and like I believe in your vision. Don't like, I don't want to get calls like this. So he could have made more money. And he said he had other offers for more than than what I was paying him as well. And he kept honoring his handshake to me.   Eve: [00:11:41] He is really nice.   Kevin: [00:11:44] Yeah, he's really nice. So ,that building, that project was called Dr. Jim's Really Nice. Now, in the recession, I had to sell that warehouse because the bank put a gun to my head and I lost everything in the recession.   Eve: [00:11:57] Awww.   Kevin: [00:11:57] But lo and behold, eight years later, I bought another warehouse, a hundred year old warehouse, one more neighborhood over. The exact same program, that exact same phase zero that I talked about, I was doing. And when thinking of a name, I just I wanted to still honor Jim Saunders. So I named it Dr. Jim's Still Really Nice. That's the LLC of the building and it's a single asset, LLC. Dr. Jim doesn't know this building is named after him. I haven't I haven't talked to him in a while, probably should mention to him that I've given him props.   Eve: [00:12:31] Well, I think that's a great story behind the name. So what are you trying to like, they're all experiments, but I know I've been to some of these and I love your buildings.   Kevin: [00:12:43] Thank you.   Eve: [00:12:43] And I can see that they are, you know, experiments with a clear purpose. There's got to be more than just I'm going to experiment with this building.   Kevin: [00:12:52] Yeah. Yeah. So there's a couple different layers to that. When I first started, it was about left brain, right brain. Even before that, I think most buildings have too many cooks in the kitchen. I think buildings that we're all drawn to and we all see have one dominant voice, one dominant vision who is in charge. And and it's not a committee of designers or a community.   Eve: [00:13:18] Not a democracy, right.   Kevin: [00:13:19] It not a democracy. No. And I say that to my investors and I say that to other folks. I don't collaborate. I don't have any interest in collaborating. If you want to if you want to hop into my 15 passenger van, that's great. Just you got to sit in the back. I'm going to I'm driving this van. I'm not sharing the steering wheel with anybody. And you end up getting these hopefully iconic, singular, visionary buildings that I don't need to explain them to you. You as the observer or participant or tenant. You just get it. And you don't know how I got there. You don't care. You're just really happy to be in the building. That's the goal.   Eve: [00:13:52] Right.   Kevin: [00:13:52] When I started, the first layer was left brain, right brain. So a product always starts with the design. And then I instantly toggle over and do a pro forma. And if the numbers don't work, then I crumple up the paper and start with a new design. So it has to be design first and then the numbers. But the numbers can't be ignored because there's a lot of architects who become developers and just done one project and it's an ode to their ego and then they can't do it again because all of their money is sunk in the building. It's not really a successful financial deal in the bank. The bank says next time, like, nah, I'm not that interested in giving you the million dollars because that wasn't very pretty the first time. So the numbers have to work. But the vast majority of our peers, Eve, it's only the numbers. So I view those mocha colored vinyl windowed buildings. I call them either Greavy buildings or I call them pro formas with windows. And I look at them. I think I know exactly what the numbers look like in that, because it's just a pro forma that the developer is only tasking the architect to do the bare minimum to reach this ROI, to reach this return, to reach to reach this number.   Eve: [00:15:04] Right.   Kevin: [00:15:05] And the funny thing is. None of our buildings are maxed out. So if a developer says, hey, I know I can put 100 apartments on this site, so they hire the architect and the architect has no option of building designing 90 units. When a 90 unit building might be significantly better to the city skyline, to the  streetscape.   Eve: [00:15:23] Right.   Kevin: [00:15:23] There are no dog units with their 90 units, but if there's 100, there's going to be some dog units. But the developer doesn't care. He or she just wants the 100 units. So toggling back and forth between my left and right brain is all about making sure the design is always front and center and it just has to make enough money. And then I pull the trigger, then I go for it. The tricky thing is that the last layer to that equation, what makes a building compelling or not, is about social repair. So now it's more about head and heart instead of just staying left brain, right brain all on my head. Now I look around the city and I see homelessness or I'm doing a project that supports social workers. I'm doing a project that supports 18 year olds aging out of foster care, which have a higher proclivity to become homeless. I tried to do a reverse gentrification project, which isn't actually a thing, but in the office we call it gentlefication. So how do I how do I develop in a neighborhood that's turning without displacing anyone who's already there? So these are the more social repair elements that I'm trying to lean into, which is super fun, but hard.   Eve: [00:16:33] Very difficult. Yeah. Oh, that's really interesting. So these projects I mean, I've seen you do some pretty remarkable projects, which includes homeless housing and in neighborhoods that no one else have looked at really before. Are they making you money? Are they making your investors money?   Kevin: [00:16:53] They are. Jolene's First Cousin is my first attempt to tackle homelessness, and it's up and running. It opened last summer and we cut Q4 distribution checks last month.   Eve: [00:17:10] That's amazing.   Kevin: [00:17:10] And it made five percent from the crowdfunded equity. It made, I think seven percent for the long term tranche of investors. I raised three hundred grand of crowdfunding and three hundred grand of accredited investors. And there's not one dollar of public money in that project. And I'm super proud of that.   Eve: [00:17:29] Amazing. That's amazing.   Kevin: [00:17:31] It's fun.   Eve: [00:17:32] Congratulations.   Kevin: [00:17:33] Thanks. And the performance online, go ahead and take it. And I'm I'm breaking ground on Jolene's Second Cousin and I'm buying the land for Jolene's Third Cousin. So I'm just going to pepper, these nestle into neighborhoods. I don't like Pruitt-Igoe or Cabrini-Green. I don't like when thousands of poor folk are crammed into a building. That's a great way to not break the cycle of poverty from generation to generation. So each Jolene's Cousin only has like a roughly a 12 bed SRO plugged into it, like a 12 bedroom apartment, like a flophouse, and the tenants pay rent. It's just that it's super, super, super cheap rent. And there's usually a subsidy for that rent. That's not my, I'm not involved in that. I just provide the ...   Eve: [00:18:22] What's the what's the rest of the building. How do you make that pro forma work?   Kevin: [00:18:26] It's internally subsidized. So, Jolene's First Cousin has three retail spaces. It has a hair salon, a coffee shop and a bakery. It has two market rate apartments that are very expensive and it has the SRO, the homeless housing unit. So when all six rents are added together, it's enough to spin off a profit. And the other fun thing is, it's allowed by a right. So I didn't have to do any special entitlements to get it. In Portland, you have to go and present to the neighborhood association on any project. Because it's a law by  right, you don't have to do what they ask, but you just have to be a good neighbor and be transparent. This is the first neighborhood association I thought I was going to go in front of where I was going to get rotten tomatoes thrown at me. Because here I am, I'm bringing homeless in. I mean, there's a single family house right next door and I presented it and I kind of stood back and waited and there were no questions and there were no tomatoes. And then I asked a question, how do you guys, what's your take on this? Like, how do you feel about bringing homeless into your neighborhood? And then a woman in front said, well, once they lived there, they're not homeless anymore.   Eve: [00:19:34] And they're probably already in the neighborhood, so giving them a home...   Kevin: [00:19:38] Exactly. And then another neighbor said, with 11 bedrooms, like, we're going to know their names. It's going to be like Suzy and Jim and Frank. And if it was 100 units, we probably would be pushing back Kevin. But there's 11. So they were in total support. And they're it's been wonderful.   Eve: [00:19:56] That is wonderful. And, you know, I think it's vastly different than it might have been five years ago. I think homelessness and affordable housing is now on everyone's mind. And it's a real shift. But, you know, what about the two market rate units? How do they feel about the SRO unit right next to them?   Kevin: [00:20:13] That's a great question, because there was so much speculation in the papers, on blogs, like like Cavenaugh's an idiot. Like no one's going to rent those. Nobody's going to want to, like, be paying 1,800 bucks a month living like next to guys who used to be living in sleeping bags out in front on the sidewalk. And my response was like, well we'll see, you know, like all of my products are all experiments. It's a question. There's only two units. My guess is there are two people who will love being part of this. And lo and behold, they rented out in about 20 minutes.   Eve: [00:20:51] Oh, that's fantastic, Kevin.   Kevin: [00:20:52] There's a huge backup. Yeah. Backup for people who want them when they become vacant again.   Eve: [00:20:57] Are you sure you won't partner with anyone? Because I want to do a project with you.   Kevin: [00:21:03] Just take it...   Eve: [00:21:03] I would like to be in the passenger seat, not the back seat.    Kevin: [00:21:07] You're welcome to be in the passenger seat. I do. I do talk about that. I said it's not a pretty ride. It's usually scary, but I always arrives safely at the destination.   Eve: [00:21:17] Oh, it really sounds wonderful, sounds wonderful. Okay.   Kevin: [00:21:21] But you know exactly how to do this, Eve. You should just take my plans and my pro forma and build it in Pittsburgh.   Eve: [00:21:27] Yeah, I should. I've been thinking about it for a long time, actually. I have one in mind, but it's a lot of fun what you're doing and really impactful. So, you did mention crowdfunding. So, you know, I first became aware of your work when I started to build Small Change, my crowdfunding platform. And you had launched a Regulation A offering, which, if I'm remembering properly, may have been the first of its kind for one of your buildings in Portland.   Kevin: [00:21:53] Yes.   Eve: [00:21:53] The Fair-Haired Dumbbell. And what was that about? Why did you do that?   Kevin: [00:21:58] Good question. I don't, I didn't realize it was the first until we were done and then my lawyer, I chose this lawyer who was recommended to me because he was an expert in crowdfunding, all the hoops that he had to jump through. And when we were done, it took me a year and a half to to get through the SEC regulatory framework. He, on the phone is like, oh, my God, congratulations. We're so excited. This is our first one. Wait, what? Like you're the expert? What do you mean? Like this is your first one. He's like, no, this is everybody's first one. So,   Eve: [00:22:31] Wow.   Kevin: [00:22:32] It was a big deal. It was the the first new construction. I think there was one prior to me, construction that the Fundrise brothers put together.   Eve: [00:22:40] Yes. I remember seeing a photograph of the paperwork they had to submit, which was about three feet high.   Kevin: [00:22:47] Yeah. Yeah.   Eve: [00:22:48] And just, um, just for listeners who are not aware, Regulation A is an offering that lets anyone over the age of 18 invest. It requires really writing almost like a mini IPO and submitting it to the SEC and getting their approval before you can launch and raise money. Right?   Kevin: [00:23:05] Exactly right. Yeah. And it's it's a lot it's a it's a heavy lift.   Eve: [00:23:10] It's really not worth it for, you know, anything much under five or ten million dollar raise. It's too much work. Right?   Kevin: [00:23:16] I raised one and a half million dollars.   Eve: [00:23:18] Oh!   Kevin: [00:23:19] I don't know that I would do it again for that amount, but I want to do it again because the idea of it is so profound to me and I know to you too, Eve. So, I'm legally not allowed to talk to my mailman or my kid's teacher about a very lucrative development deal that I'm working on. They're not accredited investors. They're not already wealthy.   Eve: [00:23:44] Right.   Kevin: [00:23:45] And part of the social repair that I'm working on is the wealth gap in America. It's broken, it's distorted. It's not sustainable in the long term. It's not sustainable today. So when I decided to dip my toe into the crowd investing pool, it was purely to allow mechanics and school teachers and librarians to own a 17, 18, 20 percent, 10 year IRR building with me. Right. Internal rate of return, a really lucrative investment. Like my wife has a 401k and she puts her money in a mutual fund. And that's all she, the options to her are different than the options to somebody who's on the 17th fairway of a country club golf course talking to his buddy about deals.   Eve: [00:24:32] And many people don't have a 401K at all. They've just got the bank with less than zero percent interest.   Kevin: [00:24:38] Exactly. So it was important to me, just ethically and profoundly to do this, even though it was, it would have been so much easier to just tap some rich guy's shoulder and say, hey, I need 1.5 million, that's the gap to get this product off the ground. Instead, I took a year and a half and people for as little as 3,000 dollars now own the Dumbbell with me. And they've been getting paid from day one, eight percent.   Eve: [00:25:01] That's fantastic. So, yes, since then, regulation crowdfunding has come into play, which is, would be much easier for you. But I have yet to convince you, yet.   Kevin: [00:25:11] Well, I've done two other crowdfunding vehicles on the homeless housing project. I did raise 300,000 dollars that way...   Eve: [00:25:19] Through a state vehicle, right?   Kevin: [00:25:21] Yeah. State only. And that was unaccredited. And then on my Tree Farm Building. I like that one for your listeners...   Eve: [00:25:29] What is a Tree Farm Building?   Kevin: [00:25:32] You got to go my website and see it, but it's like it's self-explanatory.   Eve: [00:25:36] Okay.   Kevin: [00:25:38] But I raised two million dollars that way, but they're more accredited and I don't want to holler from the rooftops about that. But it is legally, it's another form of crowdfunding.   Eve: [00:25:48] Well, we just had a breakthrough on our site. We raised almost 900,000 dollars through Reg CF.   Kevin: [00:25:54] Wow.   Eve: [00:25:55] For a project in the Berkshires. And the issuer was the most pleased when the local librarian made an investment.   Kevin: [00:26:04] Yeah.   Eve: [00:26:05] He was just delighted. And I mean, that's really the point, right? That's why I do it.   Kevin: [00:26:11] It democratizes real estate investing.   Eve: [00:26:13] Yeah.   Kevin: [00:26:14] I understand why there are fences up that keep the shitty developers from bilking Mrs. McGillicuddy from her retirement. Like there should be there should be rules and laws against that from happening. So so lowering the bar for me to talk to Mrs. McGillicuddy can be scary, but it's still a pretty damn high bar. I just like that I can jump through some hoops and you can jump through some hoops and Mrs. McGillicuddy can invest in a building.   Eve: [00:26:43] Well, you can actually, under Reg CF talk to her, but you can't tell her the terms of the offering. That's got to be on a registered funding platform. But you can say to her, we're doing a project and it's around the corner from you and you can invest. If you go to this funding portal, right?   Kevin: [00:27:00] Yeah, yeah, I love it.   Eve: [00:27:02] Yes, I love it, too. Okay, so so you've gone from getting your architecture degree, to joining the Peace Corps, to far out real estate developer. And told us a little bit about how you did that. And what's the biggest challenge you've had?   Kevin: [00:27:22] Mmm, well I lost everything in the 2008-10 recession. That was difficult, but, it I mean, on paper, that should be the most challenging. I lost everything. On a Thursday, I had a net worth of four million dollars. And then a month later on this day, on a Thursday, I was a million dollars underwater. And that should be bad. That should be difficult. My buddy claims that I have HSP, which stands for hyper serotonin production, which isn't a thing, but I didn't even know at the time that I was getting punched in the face by the economy. Every day I would wake up like, Okay, I guess this is the puzzle and I like puzzles and I know you like puzzles and just everything.   Eve: [00:28:14] Yes.   Kevin: [00:28:14] All of our products are puzzles and it's just another puzzle. And I got to figure this one out. So I should have probably been more devastated by it, but I was too dumb to know that I was, you know, in a hole.   Eve: [00:28:24] Oh, I don't know that that's forward looking, right?   Kevin: [00:28:28] Yeah, I think that my internal wiring is probably such that I, like my wife calls me dangerously optimistic. So there are probably things where I should have been more concerned or realized that I was on the ground, but I just didn't even realize it.   Eve: [00:28:45] Wow. So, you allowed to talk about your next project. What are you working on now?   Kevin: [00:28:50] Sure. This is a fun one, so I never want to sell anything.   Eve: [00:28:55] Why is that? Is it because you love your buildings too much?   Kevin: [00:28:58] Yeah, it's like selling my progeny. Like, I spent so many, like I lie in bed for I go to sleep and I'm like building. I close my eyes. I'm building the building in my head and by the time it's drawn, I've already built it 100 times in my head. It's my baby. Like in the 2008 recession, now a lawyer owns the Burnside Rocket. And I did, it's LEED Platinum. There's a geothermal open loop heat pump under the under the building, although all the water is, you know, I have tapped into a 10,000 year old aquifer for all the potable water. It's it's a crazy fun experiment. And now some like, you know, kind of a knuckleheaded lawyer who doesn't care about that, owns that. It's just an asset. And he views it differently than I view it. So I don't want to sell. Was it Monday, my most recent project? I'm buying a house on a big lot out in what's called The Numbers of Portland. It's a pretty trashy area. It's no sidewalks, deeper poverty, houses without foundations, double wide trailers. It's it's it's rough, but it's also where all the young families are moving because they can buy there. Because the house prices have just gone through the roof here. So we all understand that in five, 10, 20 years, it's going to be a place you want to be. It just not a place, now. You're on the bleeding edge of gentrification. So, I'm actually going to buy this house for 265,000 dollars. And on Zillow is worth 100,000 more than that. It wasn't on the market. Someone just called me up and I'm going to split the house off and probably give it to someone else to fix up and keep that. I don't need the profit from that. Someone else can go get the profit, but all they want is the land and the rest of the land, the, a guy named Eli Spevak is a developer in town. And he does forward thinking policy. And Portland has some wonderful density promoting policy and Eli's work to change all the zoning for every single family house you can now build fourplex on. You're allowed by right to build a fourplex on it, in the entire, everywhere in the city. And this lot is such that I could build 12 houses if I wanted to. I don't want to own rentals out in The Numbers. So what I'm going to do is I'll fit seven. There will be seven two bedroom cottages, two story, two bedroom. Little front porches, you'll walk down a path and they'll spin off to the left and right. And these will cost 200,000 dollars each but be worth 300,000 dollars each. And I will sell them off for two hundred thousand dollars to first time homebuyers who qualify. You have to be poor, whether it's a perfect partner with Habitat for Humanity or some agency to identify who the buyers are. But held against the deed of the house, if you buy this for 200 and that's worth 300, that's great, but has to always be owner occupied. And if and when you sell it, you have to sell it at two thirds of the appraised value. So it has to always be affordable. So if you sell it for, if it's worth 600,000 grand in a decade...   Eve: [00:32:03] How are you going to track them?   Kevin: [00:32:06] Just put a covenant against the deed on everything.   Eve: [00:32:08] Wow, and are you going to break even on this?   Kevin: [00:32:12] I'll probably make 10 grand per house, so I'll make 60 grand and it's not enough to, you know...  Yeah, I'll break even. It's it's a deep experiment. The other projects, I've got 21 other projects and since I keep them ,they all spin off a little bit of money to me. But you know, it's been a decade since the last recession and now I've got those 21 projects, 14 of them are spinning off money and I now make enough passably that I don't need each project to work.   Eve: [00:32:48] Yeah, yeah.   Kevin: [00:32:48] If it breaking even is is a fine. Not everyone do I want to do that with, but...   Eve: [00:32:54] Interesting.   Kevin: [00:32:55] This feels fun. I'm also this week I'm putting an offer in on Jolene's Third Cousin, so I'm keeping that going. So there's, there's no lack of fun stuff. I'm breaking ground on an apartment building where 20 percent of the lofts are being held aside at 60 percent of median family income for I mentioned before, 18 year old aging out of the foster care system in a really great neighborhood. Most see their options for living are way out in The Numbers, not near jobs, not in your transit, not near opportunities. So that'll be fun.   Eve: [00:33:30] It all sounds fun. And I'm really jealous.   Kevin: [00:33:33] I just I'm just I virtue signal like nobody else, you know, that's all I'm doing.   Eve: [00:33:39] So I'm going to ask you one wrap up question and that's what's your big, hairy, audacious goal?   Eve: [00:33:46] Oh, that's a that's a great question, because I just spent the month of January vacationing and usually the big, hairy, audacious goals happen when you're not in your 9:00 to 5:00. You have to step outside of your life to to have them kind of allow your your brain to accept them. So, my youngest of three is a junior in high school, and in a year and a half, I'll be an empty nester. And I have been courted by lots of other cities. Cincinnati, Honolulu, Denver. And I've always said no because I can't do what I do it unless I am embedded in that city. I do a lot of micro restaurants. I find that food is a great inroad into a neighborhood. It's a great, micro restaurants are like a a variation of the food cart. I understand the business model. I need to live in Pittsburgh to know who the sous chefs are, looking for a space that can afford 25 or 30 grand if they call their uncle and their neighbor and they can cobble together some money and open up a restaurant. I'll never know that person without living in Pittsburgh.   Eve: [00:34:54] Mm hmm.   Kevin: [00:34:55] So in a year and a half, I know that I'm start taking the show on the road. And to kind of continue the the virtue signaling theme. I am a fifty three year old white man. And the vast, you know, this Eve, good God, the vast majority of developers look like me. Maybe 10 years older, maybe 50 pounds fatter, and it's just it's a caricature.   Eve: [00:35:21] Mm hmm.   Kevin: [00:35:21] But it's true. And there's no license you need to be a developer. There's no special credentials or, you just need to have knowledge and you need to be invited into the room. You need to have access to the 17th fairway, the country club, and that's a broken system. So, as I go into cities like Honolulu or Tucson, I'm thinking of Detroit as well. And I create branches of Guerrilla, and I go and I drop myself in for three months at a time. I want everyone that I hire to eventually run the show. To be native Hawaiian or Latino or African-American, and when I leave, I'm gonna drop the keys off to the company, to the next generation, a developer that looks nothing like me because that doesn't happen to them. When I lost it all, it took me about a minute with my 505 credit score to get a loan for a million dollars for my next project.   Eve: [00:36:20] Mm hmm.   Kevin: [00:36:20] That's not OK. There are people who are much more deserving and I didn't question it at the time. I was just so happy that I can merge back into traffic and start developing again. Now, we all realize that there are people at that same bank getting rejections that were much more deserving of the money. They just didn't look like, I look like I'm good at tennis and golf. I look like, I have the gift of gab. That helped me get that million dollars and my face more than anything else. I had a 505 credit score. That's offensive. That's really, really bad. And only now am I realizing that other people need to just be handed opportunities and they need to have hutzpah and they need to have tenacity, the way that I know you have, Eve. I mean, it's more about personalities than skill. I can teach you skill. I can teach you how to do certain tasks, like just the way that Francesca Gambetti taught me.   Eve: [00:37:15] It's about sticktoitness, too, isn't it?   Kevin: [00:37:18] Oh, my God, yes. If you don't have a risk appetite and when I'm interviewing the next generation in Detroit, I want to know all about you as a person. I don't care about whether you know Excel. I don't care about where you went to school. I need to know what happens when you get punched in the face.   Eve: [00:37:32] Yeah.   Kevin: [00:37:34] And I can't wait ten years from now, to walk away from these branch companies and hand the keys off to the next generation and change the face of what development looks like.   Eve: [00:37:43] That's an amazing goal. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. I'm totally in love with what you do, Kevin, thank you so much.   Kevin: [00:37:54] Thank you. It's fun.   Eve: [00:38:10] That was Kevin Cavenaugh.   Eve: [00:38:13] Kevin is a rare developer. Left brain, right brain, head and heart all come to bear on his wildly creative buildings, his personal solutions to the physical world. Each building must make an occupant or visit a happy one. Each building must drown out the gray of Portland streets. Each building has a tantalizing name with a back story. And now each building needs to serve impact goals as well. Homeless or affordable housing for a start. All while making a return for investors. Wow.   Eve: [00:39:02] You can find out more about this episode on the show notes page at EvePicker.com, or you can find other episodes you might have missed. Or you can show your support at Patreon.com/rethinkrealestate, where you can learn about special opportunities for my friends and followers. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We'll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Charalampos Giannikopoulos is the founder of DCarbon, a consultancy firm whose goal is to provide top-quality analysis and strengthen existing values in the real-estate sector through the seamless integration of sustainable development tools, optimum efficiencies, innovation and green advocacy. Charalampos started his career in the UK as the Sustainability Coordinator of the R&D group at Aedas, a global leading architectural firm, jumping to the business consultancy sector focusing on environmental investments and PPP projects. In 2011, he was involved in the inaugural implementation of LEED in Greece with large scale commercial projects. With extensive experience in participating in multi-disciplinary teams on major international projects including the “Masdar City” sustainable masterplan and the “Abu Dhabi Investment Council” development in Abu Dhabi, Charalampos has been involved in prominent commercial, industrial and educational projects in the region including management of more than 80% of all completed LEED projects in Greece. Along with dynamic energy modelling projects, creation and implementation of environmental management plans and green advocacy programs. Charalampos is a LEED Fellow, a USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) Faculty, a former member of the LEED Technical Advisory Group of the USGBC and USGBC Pro Reviewer, a founding member of the BoD of the SBC Greece, former Vice President of the Hellenic Chapter of ASHRAE, a LEED AP with the “Building Design + Construction”, “Interior Design + Construction”, “Operations + Maintenance” and “Neighborhood Development” specialties, a WELL AP, a BREEAM International New Construction Assessor, a BREEAM In-Use Assessor, an Estidama Pearl Qualified Professional, a DGNB Consultant and an EDGE Expert.    Show Highlights Greece's  95% collapse in the real estate sector pushed sustainability to the forefront of projects. Charalampos' project management company does sustainability on a greater scale by asking how green is your portfolio.  Looking at sustainability from a different aspect to improve product manufacturer requirements.  Charalampos' fearlessness has allowed his team to be involved in every single first project in its category. How the evolution of health issues connects directly with the economics of green building? The biggest challenges for the future and why LEED has been taken for granted. Applying LEED and other rating systems in his region. Keys for successful LEED projects and how to engage teams to maximize resources.   “I'm really proud of our involvement in the first  LEED Platinum project in Greece - a kindergarten! To us, it is vitally important that children come into contact with sustainability. We believe that early exposure to sustainability can have a positive impact on the way people see the world, and choose to live and interact with the environment.” - Charalampos Giannikopoulos   Charalampos Giannikopoulos Transcript   Charalampos Giannikopoulos' Show Resource and Information   This Changes Everything LinkedIn DCarbon | Sustainability Consulting | LinkedIn DCARBON     Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2021 GBES

Season 2 of Lead With We is launching soon! And I’m looking forward to sharing all-new conversations with purposeful business leaders as we move through 2021.  We’ll announce our launch date soon, but until then please enjoy my conversation with Adam Lowry, Co-Founder of Method & Executive Chairman of Ripple Foods. Adam is a prolific entrepreneur, and in this episode we talk about how he’s changed the world through disruptive startups like Method, which makes eco-friendly cleaning products, and Ripple Foods, which uses technology to make high-protein dairy replacements that actually taste good. Listen to this episode to hear how Adam has persevered in the face of industry attacks, how he approaches branding, and why he helped found the B-corp movement.  Adam Lowry Adam Lowry is a former climate scientist and the founder of several circular economy businesses, including Method Products and Ripple Foods, both public benefit corporations and Certified B Corporations.  Adam designs businesses with sustainability principles at their core, so that their growth produces positive social and environmental impacts.  His businesses have eliminated more than a million tons of GHG emissions and thousand tons of plastic waste, saved more than 100 billion gallons of water, and created hundreds of green manufacturing jobs on four continents; all while creating more than a billion dollars in shareholder value. Adam’s companies have been named #7 on the Inc 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in the US; #16 on Fast Company’s Fast 50 World’s Most Innovative Companies; and twice named to the Global CleanTech 100.  Adam has contributed countless innovations to the sustainable business space, including the first 100% post-consumer recycled and recyclable PET packaging; the first packaging made from ocean plastic; several new green chemistries; a LEED Platinum certified factory in Chicago that is renewably powered, water neutral, landfill-free, and grows vegetables on its roof; and a number of innovative corporate governance structures that enable circular economy businesses to innovate & succeed.  Adam has been honored as recipient of The Circular Economy Award from the World Economic Forum and the Global Citizen Award from the Clinton Global Initiative for his leadership in the private sector; and is a Catto Environmental Fellow at the Aspen Institute.  Adam has served and does serve on a number of private company and non-profit boards and is the author of two books on sustainable business, including “The method Method, 7 Obsessions that Helped our Scrappy Startup Turn an Industry Upside-Down”. This episode of LEAD WITH WE was produced and edited by goal17media.com and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify. Resources Learn more about Ripple Foods and check out Adam’s previous company, Method Connect with Adam Lowry via LinkedIn Get free resources about purposeful branding at wefirstbranding.com

Lois Arena is one of North America’s top Passive House practitioners and has worked on many of the continent’s most significant Passive House buildings. In this episode of the Passive House Podcast, Lois joins cohost Zack Semke to discuss her journey to Passive House as well as to offer a teaser for the Global Passive House Happy Hour presentation about VRF lessons learned on January 20. The conversation takes us from her days as a remodeling contractor, her work as a building engineering researcher and trainer, to her practice of Passive House design on large-scale projects as director of Passive House Services with Steven Winter Associates. She talks about her current work on a historic retrofit of the Pirelli Tire building in Connecticut, a brutalist icon that will become a Passive House hotel. She also touches on her work on the glass high rise Passive House (and LEED Platinum) building in Boston, Winthrop Center. Listen to the full episode to hear about Louis’ Passive House projects and her trailblazing work across North America.About the Pirelli Tire building: https://www.swinter.com/party-walls/pirelli-historic-retrofit-part-1/About Winthrop Center: https://handelarchitects.com/project/winthrop-centerPassive House Accelerator's "Passive House Week in Preivew": https://passivehouseaccelerator.com/articles/passive-house-week-in-preview-jan-11

What does LEED mean, and why is it important to have a company like Sierra Nevada leading the way with their LEED platinum brewery? Learn in today’s show with Mandi McKay, their Director of Sustainability. Connect with Mandi McKay Mandi McKay is the Director of Sustainability at Sierra Nevada, where she leads all sorts of amazing initiatives to reduce waste, carbon emissions, as well as energy and water sustainability and improvements. Learn about Sierra Nevada’s commitment to sustainability: https://sierranevada.com/about/sustainability/ Buy Birdies Garden Beds Use code EPICPODCAST for 5% off your first order of Birdies metal raised garden beds, the best metal raised beds in the world. They last 5-10x longer than wooden beds, come in multiple heights and dimensions, and look absolutely amazing. Click here to shop Birdies Garden Beds Buy My Book My book, Field Guide to Urban Gardening, is a beginners guide to growing food in small spaces, covering 6 different methods and offering rock-solid fundamental gardening knowledge: Order on Amazon Order a signed copy Follow Epic Gardening YouTube Instagram Pinterest Facebook Facebook Group

Jeff focuses on public interest architecture and planning. He is the former Executive Director of First Community Housing, a Non-Profit Affordable Housing Developer in San Jose, CA. As Executive Director of FCH, Jeff built the firm into a nationally recognized pioneer [and early adopter] in the development of sustainable, affordable housing. FCH's impressive record of architecturally significant, sustainable affordable housing in the Silicon Valley has been recognized through multiple local, state and national awards, including an AIA/COTE 2009 Top Green Projects Award, an AIA National Housing Award, an AIA California Chapter "Community Housing Honor Assistance Award"​, Boston Society of Architects John M. Clancy Award for Socially Responsible Housing, a USGBC "Super Heroes"​ Award and the State of California GEELA Award for Sustainability. As ED at FCH Jeff developed the first "set-aside" in California for Developmentally Disabled tenants--which is now a core value in all FCH developments. Under Jeff's leadership, FCH pioneered the integration of "Green"/Vegetative roofs in Affordable Housing Developments. Jeff has served as a juror on the national AIA/HUD Housing Awards and on the Cradle to Cradle International Ideas Competition and is a frequent speaker at national conferences on Housing, Sustainability and integrating special needs populations. Jeff is a member of the SPUR San Jose Policy Board and Housing Advisory Committee and served on the USGBC 2015 LEED Fellows Selection Committee. He is an expert Integrated Design Team Leader. Jeff is a member of the AIA California Council Housing Congress exploring the Architects' role in providing solutions to our current housing affordability crisis. Consultation in: Multifamily Affordable Housing, Incorporating Special Needs Tenants in Multifamily Housing, Urban Design and Design Review, and Social Equity in Design.    Show Highlights    How the shootings at Kent State inspired how Jeff looked at the community and how  people participate in the environment? Everything you need to know about First Community Housing, why they are hyper aware of toxins, green roofs, and how they became the model beyond affordable housing in their designs.  Integrating green products into your designs so they can't be value engineered out.  A perfect formula that pulls the community together to design exciting architecture for people with developmental disabilities. Partnering with organizations like Enterprise Community Foundations and the Living Building can help meet some challenges with budget.  It's essential to improve air circulation systems and not let net zero carbon and electricity overshadow using natural  and nontoxic materials.  Stop thinking about sustainability and start thinking about carbon reduction, zero electric and regenerative planning.      “I left First Community Housing five years ago, all our buildings were LEED Platinum and we're starting to investigate getting a Living Building Future. That is even further than LEED. Now I realize that's passe right now, because we really need to be looking at all electric buildings, zero electric, new materials, maybe photo glass that are going to change things. Just being sustainable is not enough anymore.”   - Jeff Oberdorfer     Jeff Oberdorfer Transcript   Jeff Oberdorfer's Show Resource and Information The New Carbon Architecture by Bruce King LinkedIn Facebook Jeff | University of San Francisco Jeff Oberdorfer FAIA   Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2020 GBES

Please join us on Friday, October 16, at Noon PDT for a conversation with Wendy Miller, President of the American Society of Landscape Architects. In reckoning with the impact from a global pandemic and environmental disasters of 2020, landscape architecture is in a unique position in its ability to respond and help lead us forward with designs for resilience to these events in the future. What are these themes and ideas landscape architects are considering right now? Also, they’ll be discussion on collaboration between landscape architects and landscape contractors, so essential to achieving these new desired design outcomes, including water conservation and the growth of good green spaces broadly for all communities. How can architects and contractors each benefit from more closely partnering? Founded in 1899, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is the professional association for landscape architects in the United States, representing more than 15,000 members. The Society’s mission is to advance landscape architecture through advocacy, communication, education, and fellowship. Sustainability has been part of ASLA’s mission since its founding and is an overarching value that informs all of the Society’s programs and operations. ASLA is a leader in demonstrating the benefits of green infrastructure and sustainable and climate-resilient landscape planning and design. ASLA led the development of the ASLA Center for Landscape Architecture, its LEED Platinum headquarters and green roof in Washington, D.C., and co-developed the Sustainable SITES Initiative (SITES) rating system. ASLA also develops and promotes publicly-accessible resources and news designed to educate members and the public about climate change, sustainability, and resilience. Special Guest: Wendy Miller.

Helen has worked on over 80 LEED projects in various roles leading the design and construction team to develop more sustainable projects. On most projects, she is the primary LEED consultant and Project Team Administrator. In addition to leading the LEED process, we provide energy efficiency/energy modeling and commissioning consulting. In recognition of our technical abilities, HJKessler Associates has been recognized as a LEED® Proven Provider™ for the Building Design and Construction rating system family by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI). LEED Platinum projects have included Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and Kresge Centennial Hall, Legacy Charter School in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago (K-8), Exelon's Headquarters Project, which, at the time it was certified, was by far the largest LEED Commercial Interiors project to achieve Platinum; the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston, the first house of worship to achieve LEED Platinum; the Chicago Center for Green Technology, the first LEED Platinum municipal building; Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy, a Chicago public high school; Bousfield Hall, a residence hall at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign; and some Interpretive Centers. LEED Gold projects have included projects at Northwestern University, many schools and libraries for the Chicago Public Building Commission, municipal facilities such as police and fire stations, office buildings, and many others. Current projects include schools, university facilities, hotels, office buildings, and other project types. Her goal is always to encourage and facilitate an integrative approach to design and to encourage teams to go as far beyond the LEED requirements as possible. Specialties: Sustainable design, LEED and energy efficiency consulting Commissioning process management Facilitation Regenerative Development.   Show Highlights    How to turn Silver into LEED Platinum at relatively little or no extra costs? Helen's career is made up of “disparate parts” that have made a tremendous impact on energy efficiency and sustainability in our world.  Hear her tips on what to study for an impactful career.  Using energy models as a design tool will make a valuable resource and significant difference.  Embodied Carbon is making a come back into conversations. Helen explains why you can't have a regenerative design or buildings without considering these essential factors.  How LEED became a very important tool in transforming the market? To solve issues on climate change society needs to become more creative and develop technologies related to human and social development.   “I've also been educating myself about racism and especially that history of our country. I am more convinced than ever that we won't create a sustainable world until we create a sustainable society that gives everyone an equal opportunity.” -Helen Kessler Helen Kessler Transcript Helen Kessler's Show Resource and Information   Drawdown by Paul Hawken  The Regenerative Life by Carol Sanford The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende About Ta-Nehisi Coatess  Toni Morrison: Books    Regenesis Group  Carol Sanford Institute CREW Chicago - Home Chicago Build Expo HJKessler Associates LinkedIn hjkessler@hjkesslerassociates.com    Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2020 GBES

Michael is responsible for the development of new markets and services and to provide corporate leadership for HEAPY (the wholly owned subsidiary the Design/Build construction services company HEAPY.). In this role, his team develops the “what's next” to enhance client service experience and produce colleague advancement opportunities. To emphasize a keen focus on the HEAPY Vision of “Building a more Resilient and Sustainable Society”, new markets and services are centered on Smart Technologies Integration, Distributed Energy Resources, Resiliency Planning, Energy as a Service (EaaS), etc. Michael has presented at several National and Regional Conferences including: Greenbuild, AIA National Convention, International Living Futures UnConference, National Conference on Building Commissioning, the World Energy Engineering Conference, Greening the Heartland and the US Institute for Theater Technology Conference. He is on the Industrial Advisory Committee for the University of Dayton Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and served as a Fellow for the Hobart Center for Food Service Sustainability. He was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the former EDC Magazine, writing a column focused on Sustainability. He leads sustainability on the local level as Co-Chair of the Dayton (Ohio) Regional Green Initiative (DRG3.org) and is a past Regional Chair for the U.S Green Building Council's College and University based USGBC Students Program. He recently served as Chair of USGBC Ohio. HEAPY is a nationally recognized MEP&T Systems Design, Sustainability, and Planning & Commissioning Services firm. Heapy has an outstanding record of providing practical sustainable-based smart solutions for today's high performance buildings. The HEAPY HQ achieved LEED PLATINUM. Michael's experience with projects in both the public and private sectors shows, when properly planned and executed throughout the entire design and construction process, every project can be Resilient, Environmentally Responsible, Energy Efficient AND Cost Effective.   Show Highlights    Building holistically by looking at the entire client's portfolio to create a plan that blends standards  Position your green building projects and jobs to be recession proof  Michael's unique building systems as an innovation officer on solar and smart grids Concepts that look at how you make the best use of renewables and what's next in buildings Stick to your convictions when determining the path for your career Outside of the box thinking that impacts long term needs and deferred maintenance for green building   “This market is still ginormous. This is the opportunity to help move the world, your community, and your family forward by being green and by living green. Helping others to do that too will give you a rewarding and impactful life. That's what we're all looking for. How can I be of impact? Being in the sustainability movement certainly is. It is questions answered.” -Michael Berning   Michael Berning Transcript   Michael Berning's Show Resource and Information Be Fearless by Jean Case 4 Disciplines of Execution by Jim Huling Chris McChesney, Sean Covey  Jerry Yudelson  Twitter LinkedIn HEAPY “The Godfather of Green” – Jerry Yudelson podcast episode  Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2020 GBES

MARSHALL GOBUTYPresident and Founder, Pearl HomesHunters PointPearl HomesEmail Marshall - marshallgobuty@gmail.comMarshall Gobuty is an experienced homebuilder with a passion for sustainable design and development. His success in the apparel, rental housing, and hospitality furnishings industries fuels his vision to create a true sustainable lifestyle experience. After the sellout of the award-winning, LEED-Platinum rated Mirabella community in Florida, Marshall now pushes green building even further with the creation of an attractive, modern net-zero home. Marshall’s vast experience as an entrepreneur is anchored in fashion design and in the garment industry. Starting with a small apparel business in Canada, he transformed the company into an international enterprise, establishing overseas supply chain logistics and fostering key relationships. His experience included becoming one of the first ever private labels for a large, well-known retailer. His ventures and experience eventually grew into other areas, where his company, LagoInvest, had 4,500 apartment units under management, mostly with a focus in Berlin, Germany. Later shifting towards hospitality, Marshall began supplying hotels across the United States with furnishings, giving him a network across the globe to begin redefining sustainable and affordable housing 

We've all probably heard about LEED Certified buildings, but mostly related to commercial buildings. Your home can also be LEED Certified. But most of us have some common misconceptions of so-called "green" homes - that they're wildly expensive, that the process takes years of planning, that they're out of reach for most of us. Our guest today, Aaron Stash, and his family, built a LEED Platinum home in the suburbs of Chicago - a home that continues to inspire his family to lead a more sustainable life. Tune in to see how this process might inspire you as well.

An environmental scientist with over a decade of experience in sustainable manufacturing and design, Saskia is head of sustainability at Rothy’s, a global lifestyle brand best known for creating stylish, comfortable shoes from recycled plastic water bottles. At Rothy’s, Saskia develops strategies to minimize the environmental impact that Rothy’s supply chain has on the environment, advancing Rothy’s sustainable innovations in materials, production and fulfillment and more. Prior to joining Rothy’s, Saskia worked as senior director of sustainability at Method, a brand renowned for their clean, sustainable, and effective cleaning products. At Method, Saskia implemented sustainability initiatives on the ground for the European business and at Method’s LEED-Platinum soap factory in Chicago. Saskia joins Sustainable Nation to discuss: - Circularity and ocean plastic sourcing  - How to communicate sustainability value of products - Importance of industry collaboration - Mission driven company culture and employee retainment  - Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders Saskia's final five question responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think that this would depend on where in their journey they are. For students, I would recommend taking some hard science classes and by hard science, I mean, kind of chemistry, and that will really serve you well in this emerging world of sustainability. I think that within corporations, within a lot of the emerging opportunities for sustainability, the science driven aspects of sustainability will be the most enduring. The reason for that is it's important to be grounded in facts in data. And that will allow sustainability kind of clear out a lot of the trendiness and the noise. So I think it's important to be kind of rooted in science. And then another thing that I found to be just true and I think will continue to be true in this landscape of sustainability careers is there are going to be so many different opportunities. Everything from local government, private companies, product companies, nonprofits. And for me, at least it was a process of elimination. I worked in some small nonprofits and learned a ton when I was there, but didn't necessarily feel that it was exactly the best fit for my talents and what was needed from that organization. So it was a kind of winnowing into what I really, really feel passionate and comfortable with today. So I would say like, don't assume that within sustainability, that you're going to land at the company, that's going to be your forever company. There is this kind of understanding that your own skills will kind of be refined and that each of the opportunities that you have, even if it's nonprofit going to government will still serve you in this larger landscape of sustainability. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I touched on it a bit before, but I think that I'm seeing a lot of momentum around this collision among these different, what were considered separate movements and the idea that we could just be looking at environmental justice and biodiversity and that those would be separate somehow. I think intersectionality and this awareness that all of these different pieces have to be happening at the same time and that they overlap and they're benefiting each other in a really clear way. We're starting to see a lot more awareness of that, even just like the awareness from COVID that the spread of disease is likely from some of the biodiversity loss and that climate change will continue to exacerbate that is all kind of coming out right now. So this will only serve us to all be aligned and to hopefully move quicker in the same direction. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? That's a tough one. And it's mostly because this is a hard book to read, but one of my favorite books came out pretty recently is an Uninhabitable Earth. Have you read it? I have not read that one yet. I've heard the recommendation though. Haven't gotten to it yet. It's by David Wallace Wells. And I say it's a hard one because it's about the effects of climate change that we can anticipate over the next few decades. And it's a very real view of what that will be like. It doesn't kind of sugarcoat it. And I think some people have critiqued it for not being a solutions oriented as it can be, but I think it's important for sustainability professionals to read it because it really grounds us in the challenge that we have ahead. And for me, it was motivating because knowing what this potential future could be, how can I double down on my efforts in order to mitigate it? What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Well, a few kind of different organizations that I look to a lot of Project Drawdown is a great organization that has pretty creatively looked at all the different options that we have around mitigating climate change and quantify them both in, in terms of how, you know, how much gigatons they can pull out of greenhouse gases, but also what are the financial benefits of that? And it doesn't just look at the electricity grid it also looks at kind of these social mitigation that we can do so I love them as a resource and I think the model that they've created is really creative. I also have worked quite a bit with a think tank called Forum for the Future, and they are really futurists. They think about what these possible futures could be and how businesses can better be equipped to adapt and respond to those features. So I think that they work in the world of sustainability, but they do it in a really creative way and I just love working in partnering with them. And then, because I am a scientist, I read a lot of different journals. I read nature science journal of industrial ecology and think being rooted in the latest sciences is really important too. And finally Saskia, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Rothy's? Check out the Rothy's blog and our website. So we do quite a bit of new information, either product launches and talking about some of the materials we're using, I'll be writing on our blog and sharing some of our new initiatives around sustainability. So would encourage people to bookmark that and keep returning to that and sign up for our email list to get updates. About Sustridge Sustridge is a sustainability consulting firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, sustainability reporting, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in a TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

What happens when you use a network of hot and cold water pipes, bury them underground, and then use them to efficiently heat and cool buildings – or even whole communities? You get something called district energy. In this episode, Jeff Westeinde, President of Zibi Canada and Founding partner of the THEIA Partnership, shares his passion for environmental sustainability, designing communities to support One Planet Living, and leveraging age-old systems like district energy as a means of achieving a zero carbon footprint. Related Content & Links: Hydro Ottawa – https://hydroottawa.com/ Zibi Canada – https://www.zibi.ca Linkedin - Jeff Westeinde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-westeinde-a46b4843/ --------------------------- Transcript Dan Seguin  00:02 Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is the ThinkEnergy podcast. What happens when you use a network of hot and cold water pipes, bury them underground and then use them to efficiently heat and cool buildings - even whole communities, you get something called 'district energy'. And it's not a new concept. A quick search will reveal that its origins can be traced back to the second century BC to the invention of the hypocaust heating systems that powered the hot water bath of the ancient Roman Empire. Famously a hot water distribution system in Chaudes-Aigues, in France, is regarded as the first real district heating system. It used geothermal energy to provide heat for about 30 houses in the 14th century, and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis began steam district heating in 1853. If you're like me, maybe you're wondering why modern civilization did not continue to use this efficient and environmentally sustainable technology more. There are some European countries such as Denmark, where district energy is mandated, but for the most part, it is largely gone the way of ancient Rome and public bathing. The latter is not such a bad thing in my mind, with more and more socially conscious citizens around the globe, district energy is once again seeing a surge in popularity and becoming a preferred method, thanks to its lower and energy efficient operating costs, reduced supply disruptions, and environmentally sound methods of heating and cooling buildings, municipalities and property owners are intrigued by this ancient alternative energy technology. So, here's today's big question: Is the world ready to embrace district energy as a viable means to power our communities? Is the nation's capital ready to have the first one planet zero carbon community district energy system in the country? Well, my guest today is the founding partner of the THEIA partnership. One of Canada's most sustainable real estate development companies, as well as the president of Zibi Canada, which aims to be Canada's most sustainable development project. He's also an active investor and entrepreneur in both environmental, clean tech and real estate sector with active investments in solar energy, site remediation, and the beneficial reuse of waste. Dear listeners, please welcome Jeff Westeinde. Jeff, can we start by you telling us a bit about your background, the Zibi project and what drives your passion to build sustainable communities? Jeff Westeinde  04:02 Well, so I guess my background, I always say I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an engineer by training, but entrepreneur by practice. So I've, I've had one, what I call real job in my career, I worked for a company for a little over a year, it quickly became apparent that I was unemployable. So I had to start my own business. And I've always been in the environmental sector. So I started I started my career as an environmental contractor cleaning up industrial messes and some of the wastes of the past. And as part of that, I would watch our clients the way they were cleaning up properties, and then what they would do to redevelop them. And I was pursuing trying to, you know, clean up the environment, make the planet a better place. And yet, so the practices we were using, were actually making it worse. We're trucking contaminated soils. You know, the time I lived in BC, we're picking up soil, putting it in a dump truck and hauling it across the Rocky Mountains into a landfill in Alberta. And nobody can tell me that's good for the environment. So very good. quickly decided that we shouldn't say very quickly but decided while I continue to move up the food chain, and start to buy contaminated properties and start to develop places and communities. And because we were purchasing contaminated properties, the commitment that we had was, let's do better than we've done before. So let's push the envelope about how can we live in a sustainable way? How can we ensure that what we're building today doesn't cause the problems that we're cleaning up on the very site for developing so that's maybe a bit of a background as to you know, why how I got into this and in my passion around, you know, leaving, like, I don't know if you're ever in the wilderness, but there's a rule, leave the campsite better than you found it. And I think that rule, that should be a planet wide rule, and it's historically as you know, as not being so. Dan Seguin  05:51 Okay, Jeff, you're on the record saying that the way we build communities does not support health, happiness or the environment. What do you mean by that? And how does Zibi differentiate? Jeff Westeinde  06:07 So, I might even be so bold as to say that, I would argue that most of our planning, especially in North America, is actually shortening the lifespan of our own citizens. And that's because we're so car reliant. We're so socially isolated in the way that we build. So think about a typical suburb. In a typical suburb, if you want to get up and, you know, go get a coffee, buy some milk, bring your kids to school, the very first thing you do is go hop in your car and drive. And that that leads to, you know, the stats that can predict the rate of diabetes, the rate of obesity, the rate of all sorts of other chronic diseases by the postal code you live in, was shocking. So, this car centric suburban lifestyle is not good for you. So that's the health side of it. The happiness side of it, I'll just point to one stat. And that's that you can use, there are statistics that say you can determine the level of happiness of somebody by how many of their neighbors they know by first name. Well, when you live in the suburbs, you know, you might know 2, 3, 4 neighbors, or those people whose kids are your age, or those guys you play hockey with, but you don't have the unexpected collisions as you're walking to the coffee shop or as you're bringing your kids to school. So again, that urban sprawl arguably leads to a lot of source of social isolation. And if something happens to an older person, you fall, you break a leg, even as a young person and you're inside your house. Similarly, you're not looking out your window and seeing people and waving at them and those types of things. So how we build our communities, I think is really important for health, happiness and obviously for environmental sustainability. And what we're doing at Zibi is making sure that you will not be car centric, that you do have these collisions with your neighbors. As you're walking around the neighborhood. We actually have social programming that, you know, we have snowshoe nights and that when Cirque du Soleil comes, we have a night that is just for the residents of Zibi that come, you know those kinds of things to make sure you feel like a part of that community. Dan Seguin  08:28  How did you discover the one planet system? What can you tell us about it and your goal to build the first one in Canada? Jeff Westeinde  08:38 Well, so we'll talk about how we discovered it first, and that's good. Myself and my business partners were behind the very first LEED Platinum buildings in Canada. So we built the first LEED Platinum building in BC, Alberta, Ontario, and in the country as a whole and the LEED Platinum building we built in Alberta - I was visiting one day A couple years after we'd built it, and LEED Platinum is literally the Platinum standard, the most sustainable in the lead system. And I watched one of the residents of his LEED Platinum condominium building drive a Hummer SUV into the parking garage, and said, you know, it's great that our building is sustainable, but we really have an impact and how the users are using the building and how they're, how they're living their lives. So we started scouring the planet, literally to say, Well, is there a system that would really impact not only how we build our buildings and how they operate at a point in time, but how do we engage the people, the users that are using those places? So one planet, we get rated on things like health and happiness and social engagement, along with all the other architectural and engineering features of a community. And the way one planet works: very simple. The name says it all we have to live as if we only have one planet. Most people when I say that look at me and sort of go, but we only do have one planet. And we need to remind them that if you live like a typical Canadian, you're using four planets of resources to sustain your unsustainable lifestyle, and Americans using five planets, Europeans using three planets, and all we're doing is stealing from future generations, and the developing world to sustain our unsustainable lifestyles. So one planet really is all about both environmental sustainability, like technical sustainability and social sustainability, with one planet worth of resources, and it's a very holistic program. Very audacious goals, we're going to talk about zero carbon. So as you know, Zibi is in the nation’s capital in Ottawa and Gatineau. You know, we are we are today we're going to be at plus 34 degrees. Six months from now we'll be at minus 34 degrees Celsius and to be zero carbon in this environment. It's the Holy Grail. So achieving one planet is not an easy thing to do very audacious. But that's where we said, No, that's the bar we need to hit, we need to again, leave our campsite better than we came to it. Dan Seguin  11:13 I was fascinated that this method, 'district energy' dates back, like I think is 3000 or 4000 years to the time of the Roman Empire. What are some of the key benefits of the energy system you're implementing in your community? And why has it taken this long for folks to embrace it with it's being around for so long? Jeff Westeinde  11:40 Well, like most technological breakthroughs, it is not the technology itself or even the concept itself that gets in the way, its people. So regulators, you know, if you look at how our grid works, say in Ontario, you cannot run a district electrical system. I can't, I couldn't produce energy and give it to my neighbor. Because we have a regulatory body that says you can't do it. And there are good reasons for that it was around safety and security and all those types of things. But we've ended up with all of these barriers, that that would prohibit the transportation and sale of energy. And, you know, I talked about electricity. But what's very interesting at Zibi - our district energy system is just hot and cold water. And there are no regulations currently in Ontario and Quebec, around moving hot and cold water. So that allowed us to start a district energy system. Answer so yeah. Again, the reason I would say you don't see more of them is the regulatory hurdles to implement the district energy system are enormous. However, the benefits are huge. And I'll use a very, you know, high level example that if you were to have a, you know, a Shopify data center, a good Canadian company, unlike Amazon, as a for instance. That is in constant cooling. So it's rejecting heating all the time. Right? And beside it, you have the Nordic spa, another great company that always needs heating, but needs to therefore be rejecting cooling. When you put those two side by side, and they're swapping energy back and forth. So your load is so much less. That's the concept of District energy is that by sharing and you know, a commercial building has different loads than a residential building has different loads than a retail building. By sharing those loads, they have different peaks, either for peak shades, you'd be you have less capital expenditure and you're more efficient. Why is it taking so long? It drives me crazy, but I really do think it's regulation is the key item why. Dan Seguin  13:52 Aside from regulation, what have been the challenges you encountered bringing this technology to market in Canada? The sight of your one planet community alone, straddling Ontario and Quebec, is really unique. Tell us about the challenges and how your passion has gotten you through. Jeff Westeinde  14:12 Yeah, I'm not sure how long this podcast is, but I could talk for a week about the challenges. Yeah, as you talked about, we do span the provincial border between Ontario and Quebec. You know, we jokingly say, both sides have a different word for everything. Because one speaks French one speaks English. Even the rule of law is different to one side of the other the legal system. So, you know, we need to repeat everything twice when we do this, but what I'll tell you is, I would say that the way that we've overcome what are just an enormous amount of challenges, I won't even get into what they all are, but it was it was crazy. Boy, when we overcome it was we shared our vision. And actually, I would say was our community's vision of saying, this is where our region started. Arguably, this is where, you know, the roots of our country started was on this site. And when we when we purchased the property was a fenced off locked off contaminated former industrial site that nobody had seen unless you worked at domtar. For probably 100 years, people didn't realize there's a waterfall in the middle of the city. What the community talked about in the vision that we had was no, we need to do something truly world class like something that people would come to our region and say Quebecers Ontarians, Canadians, look at the communities and the places that they create. And with that vision of being world class, we were fortunate that that politicians in the region, federal, municipal and provincial, all endorsed out the community endorse it. So when we started to bump up against bureaucracy and regulations, we were able to remind everybody that our commitment or contract to all of our stakeholders was, we're going to do some world class. Now world class, meaning different, and bureaucracies and regulations exist to enforce the same. So we were able to say, listen, you've got to empower, talk to the politicians, you've got to empower the bureaucrats who are paid to make sure that everybody does everything the same, to say, No, we've got to look at this one differently. We're not looking to do anything unsafe or unreasonable. But there's a better way and we've got to find it. And it was really that vision of world class and the endorsement that we got from all of the public stakeholders who said, yeah, we want to be world class. We don't want to just build another suburb of the City of Ottawa or Gatineau. Dan Seguin  16:47 Now through a marketing lens, how did you position this alternative energy system that provides heating and cooling to your communities' new housing projects? What was the value proposition for prospective buyers and investors. Jeff Westeinde  17:03 I think the key one, one of the lessons we've learned about sustainability and building sustainable buildings and building sustainable communities, is, most consumers don't, you know, while it's a nice to have being sustainable, it's not something that they're making a purchasing decision around. That's changing. I think more and more people are starting to look at that, but historically hasn't been important. So the key to sustainability is, we need to, we're going to allow you to be much more environmentally sustainable, socially sustainable, without any impact to your lifestyle. So when it comes to district heating and cooling, we said, listen, we're going to deliver you zero carbon district heating and cooling at the same market cost as a carbon based system, and you won't know. If you know you're going to turn your heat on, it's going to get hot, you're going to turn up your cooling on it's going to get cool, and you're not going to pay any more of the market. So that was that batten marketing. I mean, that's a no brainer to everybody that Okay, hold on, I get the exact same as I would get in a carbon based system but I'm zero carbon or more sustainable. That's a pretty easy sell at that point. Dan Seguin  18:11 Okay, now I'd like to explore design aspects. District energy equipment inside a building occupies about one fifth of the area of conventional systems that boilers and chillers take up. I'm assuming this provides more flexibility in designing your buildings and community. By eliminating traditional HVAC systems, what building design options did this enable you to expand on? Jeff Westeinde  18:44 There's some easy ones like if you think about rooftop patios, as a for instance, you know, if you have a rooftop patio beside a big chiller that's making a bunch of noise is not a great rooftop. So by  being able to eliminate that equipment. You know, our rooftop patios are much nicer. But really as a place maker, as a developer, the key aspect for us was if you know if you take all of that mechanical and electrical distribution space, and you end up with instead real estate that you can use, it's another added benefit to saying that that district energy makes financial sense or can make financial sense. It wasn't easy to unlock that but can make financial sense. So, so yeah, it obviously the less constraints you have on a building, the more flexibility you have and district is one tool for that for sure. Dan Seguin  19:45 Now, wondering if you could zero in on the energy distribution system that harnesses excess heat from the Kruger paper mill on the Ottawa River and the temporary thermal plant that was or is built to serve residents businesses in your community. Jeff Westeinde  20:02 Sure, yeah. So are, you know, like talking about the benefits, or sorry, the rationale behind district that if you have different energy cycles between neighboring buildings, you can share that energy. Our district energy system is actually based on that very same principle that Kruger operates a tissue mill, directly across from Parliament Hill. They, it's a very efficient, very successful mill. But as part of that process, they bring in millions of litres of water a day, heated up to over 40 degrees Celsius. Use it several times in their papermaking process, but then discharge it into the Ottawa River at about 30 degrees Celsius, anywhere from 25 to 30. So what we're doing is saying listen, you're discharging the millions of liters of hot water into the Ottawa River. Why don't we strip that heat so then what we're doing is we're taking it from 25 to 30 degrees down to seven to 10 degrees and discharging out into the Ottawa. River in our heating system or in the heating season. So that's the concept behind it's very rudimentary engineering, it's strictly heat transfer between water. So, so pretty straightforward from that point of view. What the temporary plane that you speak about is our district energy system. That backbone heating system at Kruger is not yet built that's getting built this season. However, we have users in our buildings right now. So, we have temporary plants that are providing that but the infrastructure for the district the pipes in the streets and hot and cold water system is there. So those temporary plants are going to operate for about another year, after which will be on our permanent system. Dan Seguin  21:44 In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy resilience. Is it fair to say that district energy deliver economies of scale in areas with high population? What are some of the short and long term benefits for the owner and end user alike? And how do these factor into the government carbon reduction targets? Jeff Westeinde  22:12 Well, yeah, so the short term is if you can be more efficient, so if you have dense populations with different energy cycles, so different peaks and whatnot, as we talked about earlier, you need to spend less capital because you're peaking is at a lower level. And you're sharing energy between so that your overall initial energy utilization from the grid or from the gas system is lower because you're sharing more so overall that drives efficiency. And at the end of the day efficiency then drives lower greenhouse gas emissions and ideally, lower and more stable costs because your energy inputs are a lower percentage of the overall district. So say in our case, you if we're harnessing heat from Kruger, there are no escalation in the cost of that heat. It is waste industrial heat that otherwise wouldn't go anywhere. Whereas if we're connected to the Ontario grid, as you know, you know, costs have escalated very significantly. So that energy input if that is our key input, our energy costs are going to be higher. So we're fortunate that again, the combination of we sit in Ontario and in Quebec, so we have two different electrical and two different gas grids. We have waste heat and our cooling is going to come largely from the Ottawa River. So we have low cost inputs with waste heat and Ottawa River cooling. And we have four different grids we can tap into for alternative and for other energy if need be. So that then allows us to control our costs. So again, just an example of how you can drive efficiency and provide more price stability, while at the same time reducing emissions. Dan Seguin  24:00 Okay. Do alternative energy sources like district energy reduce exposure to fluctuating energy prices? How are the rates/cost determined for residents? Are they comparable to current rates? And are they stable? Jeff Westeinde  24:19 Yeah, so, yes, not all district energy systems are the same. Obviously, it depends on what those inputs are. But in the case of the Zibi community utility, our district energy system, but then our key inputs are that waste industrial heat and cooling base from the Ottawa River, both of which obviously have are stable. There's there is no Yeah, well, I shouldn't say we have some commercial transactions that go on without but not like the grid that allows us to decrease our reliance on the grid for other inputs. So to answer the question on rates, yes, our rates are comparable to market. And we've actually indexed them to the price of Quebec hydroelectricity. And for anyone that understands electrical grids, I would suggest that in North America, Quebec is likely the most stable grid in all of North America. I would say that it is a national utility for the province of Quebec. And I would say, you know, all Canadians are very proud of our healthcare and if they ever tried to take it away, there'd be riots in the streets. I would suggest that if anybody tried to raise electrical rates in Quebec, similar to what's happened Ontario, there would be even bigger riots in the streets. So, you know, we are expecting that will allow us to provide really stable pricing over the long term to our, to our customers. Dan Seguin  25:47 Now, how important was it to find a strategic partner like Hydro Ottawa that had more than 100 years of experience and a strong track record to create safe and reliable utility infrastructure, Jeff Westeinde  26:03 The partnership with hydro auto was critical. And again, consumer acceptance of that of the district energy system. You know, if you think about reliability if you're a consumer at Zibi, and you said, Okay, well what happens if my heating or cooling goes off? Who do I call if I see, well, you know, I am Jeff and here's my cell phone, you know, call me up at the cottage and I'll see if I can help you. That's not exactly reassuring. When you say 'Well, you call Hydro Ottawa" and they will is not who I would normally, you know, they, they're, they're, you know, the relative reliability stats of Hydro Ottawa better than me, but it's 99.999 something percent uptime, you know, 24 hour response, etc., etc. So, being able to bring that credibility of a utility operator to our district was absolutely critical for overall consumer acceptance and I would even say regulatory acceptance. You know, when we started talking about listen we're going to be moving hot and cold water in the you know energy in the form of hot and cold water around the around our community all municipal officials provincially "Okay, let you know if they did you have experience with this?" when we say well, Hydro Ottawa is our partner, it is an automatic acceptance of all know, okay, you guys are credible we understand let's carry on. So don't having Hydro Ottawa as a partner has been truly exceptional for us to be able to pioneer this, Dan Seguin  27:29 Jeff, in addition to district energy, what else is he planning to feature in terms of other advanced technology and innovation to achieve zero carbon living for the residents and tenants on site? Jeff Westeinde  27:46 Yeah, again, I know your podcast is not that long so I could talk forever about this, but I'll give you some key examples. So you know, again, trying to decrease reliance on carbon based transportation systems. So you know, the personal vehicle. You know, having car sharing, having excellent access to transit, when you're looking at other things that have a carbon footprint, how we build our buildings, the components that go into our buildings, the materials that go into our buildings, some are very carbon intensive. So again, we're targeting those that aren't carbon intensive. Even things like if you look at logistics, you know, when you buy a head of lettuce at the at the grocery store, the carbon it took to get that lettuce to the grocery store is embedded in that very product. So having urban agriculture, you'll see urban gardens, we've got a couple on site now. So all sorts of areas where anywhere where we can target things that are that use carbon to get delivered to or to, as part of the system that we're in. We're looking at incrementally changing all of those things. And those increments when they add up, turn into some big numbers. So that's really our focus. Dan Seguin  29:06 Jeff, how about we close off with some rapid fire questions? Are you ready to go? What is your favorite word? Jeff Westeinde  29:15 Serendipity. Yeah, I love serendipity. Because good things happen when you're not paying attention. Dan Seguin  29:20 What is one thing you can't live without? Jeff Westeinde  29:24 That's an easy one. My wife. I could be dead without that woman! Dan Seguin  29:30 What is something that challenges you? Jeff Westeinde  29:33 The word "No." I'm not good at taking the word 'No', it's how Zibi exists. Dan Seguin  29:38 If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Jeff Westeinde  29:41 I'd love to be a shapeshifter, be able to get inside different systems, different beings and understand how and why they work. I have endless curiosity. So I think being a shapeshifter would be amazing. Dan Seguin  29:53 If you had to turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you tell them? Jeff Westeinde  29:59 First, I would say smarten up and stop doing dumb things. But no, I think the one thing I would say is listen, relax. You know, something that has come to ring true with me, the Roman philosopher Seneca said, you know, "luck happens when opportunity meets preparedness". And I've been very fortunate to be lucky. But there's only one thing I can control in there. I can't control luck, I can't control opportunity. All I can do is control preparedness. So get prepared and just relax, pay attention, good things will happen. Dan Seguin  30:31 And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector? Jeff Westeinde  30:36 I love the fact that public health - so right now, you know, as you know, we're in the middle of a covid pandemic - public health is leading that across our country. But here in Ottawa, it's Vera Etches, I love the fact that our public health officials are starting to be included in our urban planning policies. So in Ottawa, Vera Etches participated in that. So remember I said earlier, you know, the way we plan is shortening the lifespan of our citizens. Public health starting to get involved in that. I'm really hoping that there will be an influence where they'll say, "if we planned communities this way, then here are the health benefits of it. If we do it that way, here's the health benefits." That's not currently happening. So I find that really exciting.  Well, Jeff, we've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast, last question for you. How can our listeners learn more about you and Zibi? How can they better connect? So, you know, we've been talking mostly about the Zibi project, which is one of the many things I do you know, if you go to Zibi.ca, then you can find more about Zibi and if you look to hello@zibi.ca anybody that wants to connect they're very good at getting people to me. I'm not much of a social media person, I do have a LinkedIn profile. I don't use it very often. But you can find me on LinkedIn and I'm good at responding to messages there as well. Dan Seguin  32:09 Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you have a lot of fun. Jeff Westeinde  32:13 Well, this was fun, Dan, and thank you for your interest in Zibi and one planet. That's fantastic. Dan Seguin  32:20 Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. For past episodes, make sure you visit our website HydroOttawa.com/podcast. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Cheers, everyone.

Nico is a founding director of Atelier Ten's New York City office and member of Atelier Ten's US and international leadership group. He consults on a wide variety of large scale residential, commercial and institutional buildings, as well as on masterplan and renovation work in the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. Nico specializes in the application of advanced building analysis including facade optimization, daylight and shading analysis, and in the optimization of building systems. Recent work includes, among others, the first LEED Platinum condominium high rise in New York City, the sustainability framework and first two significant buildings for Columbia University's new Manhattanville Campus, the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Brasilia, the Masterplan and Phase 1 for the Fulbright University Vietnam campus, the new wing for the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the new LEED Platinum-target Comcast Research and Innovation Center tower in Philadelphia. Nico has held teaching engagements at Harvard GSD, Pratt Institute and Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation with a focus on building systems integration and sustainability. He is a LEED Fellow, and served as an industry representative member on the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Green Building Advisory Committee from 2011-2016. He also serves on the board of Urban Green Council and Storefront for Art and Architecture. Nico holds a Dipl. Ing. in Architecture from the Technical University in Munich, an M.S. in Building Technology from MIT and a DDes from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.   Show Highlights  Nico embraces being both technical and creative as a leader in sustainability in Germany and the US. Essential questions on performance and design that help influence Nico's career and move the industry forward.  What it is like to work for Atelier Ten and clients who want to push the envelope with environmental design and energy systems to be more “human centric.” Why the LEED Silver and Gold levels have really become a baseline for projects. Nico shares why architects will need to educate themselves with the dynamics of the utility grid. Nico breaks down the plan, obstacles, and shifts for electrifying buildings and decarbonizing our grid. Why building trust and building relationships takes both technical prowess and social skills. “Trust in a design team is incredibly important because everybody's taking risks all the time because nobody's ever done this before (on a highly advanced sustainability project). So the importance of personal relationships and really being aware of that and understanding stakeholders and people I work with on the client side on a deeper level.”  -Nico Kienzl   Nico Kienzl Transcript    Nico Kienzl's Show Resources and Information Thermal Delight in Architecture LinkedIn Atelier Ten Local Law 97      Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2020 GBES

The One Toyota North America project is one of Toyota’s most sustainable projects in their portfolio. This episode, we’ve assembled some of the key players from this project to discuss how they reached Toyota’s lofty sustainability goals, known as the Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050, and what companies just starting out in their sustainability journey can do to reach their objectives. Vaughn Engler of Noresco, Pat Murphy of NV5 Engineering, and Daniel Lessing of BHDP tell the amazing story of how the LEED Platinum project came to be.

Steve Glenn, CEO of Plant Prefab and LivingHomes (right here in Santa Monica!) drops by the podcast to discuss factory-built modular homes and why he started a tech company instead of following his childhood dream to become an architect. Prefab is unique in its ability to shorten the timeline for many building projects, including custom single-family homes, multi-family, and affordable housing. We also talk about other benefits of prefab, including reduced waste, lower labor costs and increased quality control. Episode Sponsor - www.sustainablehomesofthefuture.comContact Host - info@shfbuild.com Steve Glenn is the founder and CEO of Plant Prefab, the first prefabricated home factory in the nation dedicated to sustainable construction, materials, processes, and operations. All Plant projects are prefabricated in the company’s 62,000-square-foot home factory in Rialto, CA, with a patented building system that reduces build time by at least 50% over traditional construction while minimizing construction’s negative impact the environment. Plant was born out of LivingHomes, the award-winning design agency Glenn founded in 2006 that now serves as Plant’s in-house studio. Glenn’s ultimate goal is to define a new standard in residential home design and construction, helping individuals, architects, and developers alike efficiently design and build high-quality, cost-efficient, healthy homes. Glenn holds two patents and his company’s work has garnered many of the industry’s top honors, including the AIA Top Sustainable Award and the Sustainable Quality Awards Grand Prize. Twenty-seven LivingHomes have been certified LEED Platinum and five more LEED Gold, making the company one of the most experienced designers of homes at the highest level of LEED certification. The company has also received other awards including Architizer’s Jury andPeople Choice Awards, Green Builder Magazine’s “Home of theYear,” Business Week’s “Architectural Wonders of the World,” and Steve has been deemed Clean Tech “CEO of the Year,” “Environmental Entrepreneur of the Year” by LA City Council/Faith2Green, and Huffington Post “Greatest Person of the Day.” Steve also sees prefab building as the solution to the country’s affordable housing crisis. Plant built seven single-family, LEED Platinum certified homes in LA’s Atwater Village and has also built homes for the Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans and the Ft. Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. A recent collaboration with Brooks + Scarpa Architects was chosen as a winner in the LA County Housing Innovation Challenge, seeking scalable housing projects to address the county’s homeless population. Before LivingHomes and Plant Prefab, Glenn was founder and CEO of PeopleLink, a leading provider of enterprise e-community solutions; founding partner of idealab, a business incubation firm that raised and invested $1 billion in a number of successful companies; co-director of the Virtual Reality Studio at Walt Disney Imagineering; and co-founder of Clearview Software, which was sold to Apple Computer in 1988. Glenn is also a co-founder and chair of the Sustainable Business Council, co-founder of the Kaia Parker Dance Endowment, and a co-founder and former board member of Hope Street Group and the Brown University Entrepreneur Forum. Glenn holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Brown University, studied Urban Planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design, and was a Coro Fellow.  Show Notes:Nest Project w/ Brooks + Scarpa - https://www.plantprefab.com/models/brooks+scarpa-nest-livinghome-toolkit

Gary Gene Olp was one of the handpicked students admitted to the University of Cincinnati known for Michael Graves and other prestigious architects. He received a chapter AIA award for his first professional project, a new clubhouse for a century-old revered country club in Ohio. Gary has been designing residential projects since the mid-1980s expressing his contemporary architecture in organic shapes, smooth surfaces, and accentuated by the warm tones and textures of the steel struts, beams, and elements allowed to oxidize. His homes are sited to capture the southeasterly breezes and soft east and north light and to shield the harsh west sun.   Show Highlights Learning how to use a hammer (and its symbolism) and scavenging for materials Co-op program at the University of Cincinnati The story of building his first house The story of three all-nighters and a better design that resonates with a structure Passive Solar vs PV Solar power  The first LEED Platinum certification in Texas Designing for zero ecological footprint The importance of preparing from the eyes of the builder “You can't build with bricks until you understand the brick.” -Louis Kahn   Full Transcript Show Resources   Gun, Germs, and Steel The Botany of Desire The Devil in the White City Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright Architecturally Significant Homes Gary on LinkedIn   Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2020 GBES

Looked upon as the “go-to” expert for all things re building and beyond, Scott's been interviewed by a wide variety of talk and news shows. From building “green” or conventional to “fire-proofing” your home, to spiritual/metaphysical to scientific to luxurious lifestyle and empowerment. His path to where he is now with a multimillion dollar company and aligning himself with premier AIA architect William Hefner (Studio William Hefner), is also quite an inspirational success story…overcoming obstacles, holding to his vision. Scott has not only redefined what a home should be, but his vision has reached millions, stretching what we thought was the norm for simple construction. Scott's vision, creativity and mission reach farther than mere construction. Unlike other building contractors, Scott has a fresh, inspirational, unique perspective and knowledge about life, building (residential/commercial) and how it all really affects our lives...what we can do to be proactive in making changes to improve the quality of our lives...mentally, emotionally, spiritually. He brings you to a new level of awareness, which is not only an eye-opener, but entertaining as well. He applies his expertise and insight to every jaw-dropping, creme de la creme, multi-million dollar property including LEED Platinum certified home of noted actor-environmentalist, Ed Begley Jr. Scott is a favorite among a long list of billionaires and celebrities (e.g., Paul Allen, Taio Cruz, actors Kevin James and Kevin Costner, John Paul DeJoria, London's Savoy Hotel, LA's AOC restaurant, San Francisco's Saint Francis Hotel, restaurants for Gordon Ramsay and Michel Mina. An articulate, unique writer and photographer, Scott is a continuing contributor for select publications including GLADYS and Builder & Developer national magazines. He's been interviewed and covered just about any topic from: DIYs to trends in building homes, remodeling, empowerment, sustainability, celebrities, home improvement, lifestyle, celebrity homes, architecture, metaphysics, interior design, health, repurposing, recycling, deconstruction, new technology, “green” ecology, building, design, cooking (yes cooking)…and building as an art form. GLADYS Magazine listed Scott as one of their top 100 favorite influencers in their fall 10th Anniversary issue along with “A” listers such as Oprah, Gordon Ramsey, Martha Stewart, and Madonna! Scott also has a strong presence in other media platforms. Malibu's Choice Award for Green Construction 2017 Recipient, his unique approach to building has landed him guest and featured appearances in numerous, highly respected media outlets such as Hallmark Channel's Home & Family Show, Lifestyle Magazine TV, Studio 11 Fox News, Spectrum News, Hal Eisner's “In Depth,” “What The Hal?” CBS, TV, KTLA, HGTV, Adam Carolla Show, Evox Television, and national magazines such as Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Luxe, House Beautiful, Interior Design, Builder & Developer, Los Angeles Times, Metropolitan Home, Oprah, Going Organic, Traditional Home, Cliche, Milieu, Focus, Gladys and many more. At the age of 5, Scott spent his childhood inventing contraptions and experimenting on how to perfect a home. He was consumed with a fascination about the way things work and dreamed of becoming a builder. When Scott was 15 years old, after following his calling and wining numerous awards for his work, his teacher selected him for an experimental curriculum to immerse him in the world of architecture, construction and design. Following his passion at the age of 20, he earned his general contractor's license and launched his business building his client's home by day and designing them by night. Although his services were quickly sought after, he felt that a better understanding of design could elevate the final product. Scott temporarily put his clients on hold after he was hand-selected to study and work with one of the world's most influential designers, Barbara Barry. He focused for over five years learning the best-kept trade secrets of design, harmonies and mathematical proportions. He continued to gain even more valuable experience and further evolve his design insights while working at the prestigious Studio Hefner. After weaving 24 years of construction, architecture and interior design experience, as COO, Scott Harris co-founded Building Construction Group in 2005 with stellar AIA architect, William Hefner. The firm is based on placing the client's needs first and bringing a welcomed, well-rounded, luxury five-star product & service experience that has been sought out by many of Los Angeles' elite. This unique philosophy has quickly turned this company into one of the most respected construction firms in Los Angeles. Scott is deemed one the foremost building (general) contractors and the industry's noted “triple threat” (design, architecture and building) “go-to” experts for residential and commercial properties specializing in environmental (“green”), new technology, renovation, deconstruction, reconstruction, restoration and building as an art form. ABOUT BUILDING CONSTRUCTION GROUP: Building Construction Group was founded on the principals of building integrity, transparency and the revival of old-world honor and respect. Combining the lost art of construction and home in a modern, environmentally sensitive, luxury 5-star client-centric experience, BCG gives rise to new opportunities for clients and many of the finest craftsmen. The firm is one of the few that has an inherent sensitivity to design, as well as their client's vision and voice. They offer grounded guidance to their clients throughout the process and they relentlessly seek new ways to remain at the forefront of technological advancements, sustainable living and design. Building Construction Group's COO and co-founder, Scott Harris, is a multifaceted leader with extensive and comprehensive experience in design, architecture and construction management. This more rounded business approach has helped to create a more streamlined development of quality projects, ultimately creating a uniquely elevated product, earning them a place as one of Los Angeles' most respected and premier construction firms as well as Scott receiving 'Malibu's Choice Award' for Green Construction 2017.

Featured guest Kyle Pickett, Co-Founder and CEO of Urban Fabrick, a consultancy group that provides technical training and design for sustainable construction projects, joined The Water Zone to discuss water reuse as a design opportunity for new construction projects that want to achieve new sustainability levels. Pickett states that it is estimated the world needs $22 trillion dollars in water investments to ensure adequate water supplies in the years ahead.  He also describes one of his firm's most famous LEED Platinum projects, Building 181 located in San Francisco, and detailed how they helped the developer achieve a notable and sustainable facility. (Podcast recorded on March 12, 2020)

In the first episode of the second series, The Sustainability Report talks to Scott Jenkins – one of the founders of the green sports movement in the US.Throughout his career working on the operational side of sports management, Jenkins has made it his mission to make the stadiums he has been responsible for as sustainable as possible, and leverage that innovation to engage with fans and other important stakeholders.After spending time at Philadelphia Eagles' Lincoln Financial Field and Safeco Field of the Seattle Mariners, Jenkins now oversees operations at the newly-build Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta – one of the most sustainable stadiums in the world with the highest number of LEED points for a building of its type.The Sustainability Report sits down with Jenkins the day after Super Bowl LIV in Miami, the biggest event in the US sporting calendar. It was a game that the Mercedes-Benz Stadium hosted the year before, and Jenkins talks about the high-profile showpiece as a great opportunity to engage the public in the topic of social and environmental responsibility.During the episode, he discusses the work that went into creating a LEED Platinum stadium, the changing attitudes of fans and sponsors and how they are presenting the sports industry with new opportunities and challeneges, and the priorities of the Green Sports Alliance – an organisation that he chairs.“Everything about the Mercedes-Benz Stadium was done to redefine the stadium experience,” he says. “Whether it's the food and beverage programme, the security process or going cashless at concessions. The architecture is stunning, the technology in the building is the best in the world.“Everything we've tried to do is redefine what it means to the fans and bring it up another notch. And our focus on sustainability was no different.”

It's a value proposition both on the cost savings and potential time savings for the overall budget. PlantPrefab is the nation's first prefabricated design and manufacturing company dedicated to sustainable construction, materials, processes, and operations. It was spun out of LivingHomes, a sustainable design development company responsible for dozens of award-winning prefabricated homes, including the nation's first LEED Platinum-certified home under Amy's direction. Amy Sims is a founding member of LivingHomes and currently the Director of Design for PlantPrefab.  Over 10 years of experience in commercial office, sound studios and retail/restaurant design, allowed Amy to develop a core set of skills to apply to the start up of a studio dedicated to prefabricated structures. We explored following topics: Prefab homes are becoming increasingly popular these days.  Can you briefly define what “prefab homes” are, and perhaps explain the difference from what’s known as “manufactured homes”?Are most or all “prefab homes” considered “sustainably designed”?Are your customers mostly home owners building new homes for themselves or do you have a sizable business from developers? What are the benefits of building prefab as opposed to the conventional way of building?How does the process look like for PlantPrefab?  Do your customers have to know they want to do prefab before they purchase the lot, or can it be an after thought?What is your sense of the future of prefab homes and sustainably designed homes in coming years?  

Jeremy is a designer with a deep passion for sustainable building, social equity, and service-learning. As a Project Manager with BNIM, he completed the Bancroft School Apartments, a Kansas City development of 50 LEED Platinum affordable apartment units with a large community-center, built based on a public interest design process with the local Neighborhood Association. He has built on the lessons from this and other projects to transform the architecture industry through developing a network and standards of practice for Public Interest Design, a system which prioritizes community vision. Through his volunteer leadership with Historic Green and the US Green Building Council, he has helped residents throughout Kansas City and New Orleans to improve the efficiency of their homes while training hundreds of professional and student volunteers in hands-on preservation and sustainability techniques. Specialties: LEED certification system, Public Interest Design, LEED Online, Revit, Sketchup, Microsoft Suite (Word, Xcel, Powerpoint, etc), Photoshop, Acrobat, and many other programs.    Show Highlights Living abroad and learning about sustainability The importance of finding your passions in the industry No matter where you are around the world, we are experiencing similar problems Jeremy's green building journey and starting a recycling program within his company What Jeremy learned working in the lower 9th ward of New Orleans   Show Resources Jeremy on LinkedIn Seveneves Aretemis Pushing Ice   Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES Charlie on LinkedIn Green Building Educational Services GBES on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Like on Facebook Google+ GBES Pinterest Pins GBES on Instagram   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to www.gbes.com/join to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on iTunes.  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the Green Building Matters Podcast!   Copyright © 2020 GBES

3 Invaluable Lessons from Larry Eisenberg Building sustainably is not only environmentally friendly, it's extremely cost-effective. Tapping into new technologies is critical for creating sustainable and net-zero buildings. It's time to stop talking and start doing! Build sustainably and pursue net-zero energy on new and existing buildings.   This week, host Sue Dyer speaks with Larry Eisenberg, who is the Principal at Ovus Partners 360.  He has served as the Executive Director of Facilities Planning and Development for the LA Community College District (LACCD).  He directed the district's award-winning, $16 Billion Sustainable Building Program.    Larry’s Journey Into Sustainability and Starting Ovus Partners 360  (02:26) Growing up in Los Angeles, there were days of just too much smog to go outside.  That prompted Larry to think about what he could do about the bad environment.  He went to MIT to study city planning, and then to work for the University of Wisconsin system where he got into sustainability.  From there, moved to LA, where he worked for a board of trustees that was committed to making the largest green building program in the world.  Ultimately, he created Ovus Partners 360 to carry those ideas into the private sector, specifically focused on "net-zero" energy (creating as much energy as you use in a year).   Achieving the Sustainability Goal at LACCD  (05:07) Larry mandated that architects working on designing the buildings for LACCD be LEED certified Of the 85 buildings built, 20 were LEED Platinum During the projects, LACCD and Larry learned that LEED Platinum building is actually cheaper The rest of the buildings were Gold certified Two buildings were "net-zero" and two complexes were "net-zero"   Why/How is Platinum Certification Cheaper?  (07:10) Building LEED Platinum calls for certain things that are automatically cheaper (e.g., no drop ceilings, using concrete instead of flooring, etc.) Critical thinking and innovations that lead to cost savings   Cost Savings Leading to Lower Maintenance Costs (08:40) Able to improve facilities management Used sophisticated management solutions and software Strategic materials choices to reduce ongoing costs   Technology Changes to Improve Sustainability (09:52) Windows that make electricity Rooftop Wind Turbines Lighting Design – DC Electric service throughout buildings Inexpensive Control Systems   What’s New in Photovoltaics (11:20) Photovoltaics are becoming more efficient and much cheaper, from $8/watt installation initially to $1.70 today Sustainability is cheaper not just environmentally friendly There are technical advances in installations   Advice on Creating and Implementing a Sustainability Strategy (13:10) Understanding it's about economics: sustainability leads to lower operational costs Financing mechanisms available to spread costs over time Net-Zero energy outcomes leading to no bills   Payment Mechanisms Available (14:14) Power purchase agreements Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Net-Zero energy outcomes leading to no bills   Larry’s Other Sustainability Projects (15:40) Waste Management: Waste-to-Energy using Plasma gasification Net-Zero Energy projects, building projects net zero from the beginning Plastics Recycling   What Makes Larry a Successful Leader? (19:08) Supporting innovation and out-of-the-box thinking Surrounding yourself with bright people Communication and Feedback   Larry’s Biggest Mistake/Learning Opportunity (21:09) Leaving LACCD and the events that led up to that: a series of LA Times articles that had negative things to say about the program.  "The trauma and process were daunting, but the idea that one door closes, another one opens led me to create Ovus Partners 360."   The Very Best Advice Larry Has Ever Received (24:11) A statement from the former Governor of Wisconsin, Lee Dreyfus: "The thing you need to realize is that our democracy is governed by the exact reflection of our population."  There are bright people and not so bright.  You need to deal with people on an equal level the best you can.   Larry’s Favorite Piece of Tech (25:54) His laptop   Resources for Listeners (26:39) Recommended Reading: MIT Technology Review Magazine May/June 2019   Contact Larry Contact Larry on LinkedIn   Larry’s Parting Advice (29:42) It's time to stop talking about sustainability and start doing.  We need to make the decision to build sustainably, pursue net-zero energy on new and existing buildings.  Just do it!   Remember…Construction Dream Team drops every Monday morning at 4 am PST. Please join us next week when Sue will interview another industry leader or expert so you can learn how to create your Construction Dream Team!   Please head on over to ConstructionDreamTeam.com to sign up for our newsletter and don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify!

 Chatting With Sherri welcomes Master Builder, Green Architect and Interior Designer, Scott Harris!   Scott Harris received Malibu's Choice Award for 2017 green construction. After weaving 24 years of construction, architecture and interior design experience, Scott became COO and co-founder of Building Construction Groupis a favorite among a long list including billionaires and celebrities (i.e., Paul Allen, Taio Cruz, actors Kevin James and Kevin Costner, John Paul DeJoria, London's Savoy Hotel, LA's AOC restaurant, San Francisco's Saint Francis Hotel, restaurants for Gordon Ramsay and Michel Mina, creating elite and jaw-dropping crème de la crème estates including actor-environmentalist, Ed Begley Jr.'s new certified LEED PLATINUM home.

3 Invaluable Lessons from Geoff Neumayr Partnering is the glue that helps align chaos and keep it from being a negative thing. If you want to gain trust, you have to first remove fear. Expectations have to be in alignment and conversations must be had up front.   This week, host Sue Dyer speaks with Geoff Neumayr about building trust on projects, removing fear amongst your team, and aligning expectations both on construction projects and organization-wide. Subscribe to Construction Dream Team The following show notes are a transcription from the Construction Dream Team Podcast episode 19 audio interview between Sue and Geoff. Please join the Construction Dream Team LinkedIn Group to ask question and have a dialogue with the experts we have featured on the Construction Dream Team Podcast and with each other.  About Guest Geoff Neumayr (1:15) Geoff is the Chief Development Officer at the San Francisco International Airport and is currently leading a $7 billion construction program. The program is using the progressive Design-Build model which was developed at SFO. He is the member of the Design-Build Institute of America Executive Board and will be their president in 2020. Geoff also serves on the board of the International Partnering Institute and was selected as ENR’s Top 25 Newsmakers in 2016.  He is a civil licensed engineer and a structural engineer.   Geoff’s Journey to Running a $7 Billion Program and Becoming the Chief Development Officer at SFO (2:45) Geoff’s journey started in college where he was an architecture major and moved to structural design (3:00) Geoff understood how art, design, and architecture all came together and his first job was at an architecture/engineering firm (3:45) Geoff then spent 15 years as an owner’s representative (advisor) through different projects including projects at SFO (5:00) Geoff learned the role of partnering and all of his experience led up to him stepping into his current role at SFO (5:45)   How Teams Can Become More Integrated (10:00)   Integration depends upon where you want to place the bar and what success should look like, not just on time and on budget (10:08) You have to reset the norm to understand what extraordinary really looks like; it’s not just avoiding litigation, it is LEED Platinum buildings, totally resilient buildings, facilities that bring smiles to people’s faces, things that enhance education, and wonderful passenger experiences (10:45) On your project, you should look at what’s possible, not just how to prevent fighting with each other (12:00)   The First Steps to Progressive Design-Build  (13:00) The first stage, you have to ask yourself the question as an Owner, “Do I really want to get to a better place – do I really want to do more?”  (13:20) You have to have internal alignment in the organization (13:41) In the second stage, Stakeholders should be allowed to be involved in the process from the beginning which brings a lot more people into the mix – more chaos (14:30) We have to have tools that help us identify issues, not problems; they seem similar, but they are not.  A problem, everyone knows about and the damage is already done.  Issues are usually just in certain people’s heads and hasn’t happened yet so no one has been hurt (15:45)   What You Can Do to Increase Trust Levels and Identify Issues (19:55) If you can take time to observe what people are afraid of and then remove that fear, all that will be left is trust. One example of removing fear at SFO:  Everyone obviously sees a change that needs to be made.  It is easy to write a Change Order for x price, the Change Order is written and received, but the people don’t do the work.  Why?  The reason they don’t do the work is because they are afraid that they won’t get paid within a month of doing the work because it took “months on end” to perfect and finish the Change Order. Once the group was assured they would get partial payment within weeks of starting the work, that the fee could be added to the next Pay Application, then they started the work.    What Are Some Exceptional Results You’ve Seen? (24:40) The Air Traffic Control Tower had to be designed to a seismic standard where the FAA could occupy the tower during a major earthquake.  The team looked at numerous alternatives, they were given time so they could dream big but not be rushed to a single conclusion, and they were trusted that they could come up with an extraordinary result.  The team came up with a one of a kind vertical post tension structure, the tallest one in the U.S., and satisfied the criteria beyond what the FAA could even imagine.  This was only possible because the Engineers trusted the airport enough to follow a different way of doing business and that the airport would fairly compensate them for the time and extra analysis.   What Role Does Structural Collaborative Partnering Have in Progressive Design-Build? (28:00) Progressive Design-Build was originally a way to avoid litigation but partnering came in to produce extraordinary results. There’s nothing you can do to fix the “go, go, go” mentality, but a structural collaborative partnering process will fix it because it helps identify stumbling block issues for the program. The rest of the team must then make a commitment to one another as to how they’ll deal with conflicts.   The Biggest Frustration Geoff Has Faced (34:45) The biggest disappointment and challenge Geoff faced was the quality of the work at SFO a long time ago under a Design-Bid-Build project. Throughout the project, it was difficult to get the quality promised in the contract and there were empty promises and disappointments on discrepancies with quality. Geoff learned that the problem can’t be fixed at the end of a project; expectations have to be in alignment from the beginning.   The Best Advice Geoff Has Ever Gotten (39:00)   To marry his wife! But professionally, to go out to the field and ask the person who actually has to do the work what to do when you need help - this was Geoff’s first experience with collective wisdom.   Resources for Listeners   Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury   Contact Geoff Geoff’s LinkedIn Profile Email Geoff: Geoff.Neumayr@flysfo.com   Geoff’s Parting Advice (44:55) Take one thing and try to do it better today than you did it yesterday. The only way you can get to tomorrow is to get through today.     Construction Nation! Dream Teams don’t just happen they are built one step at a time. Why not send out this episode to your team, so they can help you. The more people you have helping – the faster you can build your Construction Dream Team. You can’t have your dream until you build your team! Please head on over to ConstructionDreamTeam.com to sign up for our newsletter and don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify! Remember…Construction Dream Team drops every Monday morning at 4 am PST. Please join us next week when Sue will interview another industry leader or expert so you can learn how to create your Construction Dream Team!

Nada Taryam joined Bee’ah as Director of Civil and Architectural Projects in 2013. The responsibilities of this position require planning, execution and closing of large-scale environmental projects with the company’s biggest clients. Nada is accountable for creating clear and attainable project objectives, building the project requirements and managing the constraints of the project management and ultimately accomplishing the stated project objectives to the highest quality.Nada utilises her leadership capabilities to liaise with clients of Bee’ah, in order to determine and implement the exact needs of the project, drawing on her knowledge of the company and the experience she has accomplishing detailed and specific environmental targets. Leading some of the biggest projects at Bee’ah, Nada has consistently used her expertise to meet targets and satisfy the needs of the clients, acting as a driving force for transforming Sharjah into the environmental capital of the Middle East.Prior to joining Bee’ah, Nada Taryam gained extensive experience both through her employment history and through a variety of internships and study visits.Nada graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, United Kingdom, in 2012, with a Master’s in Architecture and Urbanism, and from the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, in 2008, with a Bachelor of Architecture (with a Minor in Urban Design).Nada sat down with us to discuss the upcoming Bee’ah HQ and the sustainability minded approach taken into consideration from concept to construction.Enjoy the show!Show Notes:01:15 – Studying Architecture in the UAE and London02:00 – Her research-based studies around materials, innovation and technology in architecture02:45 – The school of thought of around material research and inheriting from nature for architectural design03:45 – Architecture & Other Things architectural practice04:30 – Bee’ah’s HQ concept and meaning06:15 – Locally sourced materials for the HQ07:00 – Having a portion of the Bee’ah HQ open for the public to visit, from research lab to an auditorium08:00 – Working with Zaha Hadid Architects10:00 – Aiming to achieve LEED Platinum certification for the Bee’ah HQ11:30 – Bee’ah’s waste management, recycling facilities and upcoming Solar PV project12:45 – Looking to Zaha Hadid as a role model15:00 – The environment as inspiration16:45 – Coffee as the only daily standard ritual17:15 – Recommending biographies to friends18:45 – The importance of letting people know about the Bee’ah HQ19:45 – Inspiration from Singapore’s landscape; building around the environment21:00 – Thoughts on commercially driven projects22:15 – Demand more from your built environments See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Margaret Cavenagh is a Principal at Studio Gang and leads the firm’s interior architecture practice, working closely with Jeanne Gang on all interior, renovation, and architectural projects. Margaret has experience designing a wide range of project types and scales including multi-family, mixed-use projects; work space design; and custom residential design. Guided by expert observations of how people use space, Margaret consistently delivers award-winning interior designs while attaining some of the highest sustainability ratings, including LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge certification. She has lent her design expertise to projects such as the Conservation Center, Maisonette, Columbia College Media Production Center, Shoreland, Harbor Point Residence, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, City Hyde Park, and Writers Theatre. Margaret holds a Master of Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia. She has juried and served as a guest lecturer for the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In this episode, Margaret shares with me her journey to becoming Principal at Studio Gang, what the design and research process is like at the firm, and dives deep into some of her favorite projects. We also discuss that never ending push and push between the interior and exterior of a building. Aside from all the architecture talk, Margaret also gives great advice on how and why you should advocate for change, not just for yourself, but for your peers and for your profession.

This week on Terra Informa we take a visit to the Primed Mosaic Centre, Alberta’s first net-zero and LEED Platinum-certified building. This one-of-a-kind commercial building is located in Edmonton, Alberta and has won awards for building engineering and Innovation. Now formally known as the Primed Mosaic centre due to its recent change in ownership. The Primed company is a local medical products company that put there values to actions when they decided to invest in the LEED building. We hope this story will inspire any and all businesses to look at more sustainable work sites - if not for the solar panels, than for the live plant walls!

Today we have a special episode of Sustainable Nation. We're talking sustainability in sports and the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference. Consistent with its reputation as the conference of champions, the PAC-12 is the first collegiate sports conference to convene a high level symposium focused entirely on integrating sustainability into college athletics and across college campuses. All of the PAC-12 athletic departments have committed to measuring their environmental performance, developing strategies and goals to reduce their impact and monitoring their progress in engaging fans and communities in greener practices. The PAC-12 sustainability conference signals in elevated approach to enhancing sustainability efforts within collegiate athletics departments, designing new collective initiatives and sharing best practices to transform college sports into a platform for environmental progress. Today we're interviewing two members of the PAC-12 sustainability conference committee, Dave Newport and Jamie Zaninovich. Jamie Zaninovich - Jamie joined the PAC-12 Conference as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer in July of 2014. He's responsible for all aspects of the PAC-12's administrative operations, including television administration, sports management, championships, football bowl relationships, PAC-12 global, compliance and officiating. During his first two years at the PAC-12, Jamie helped guide the conference through unprecedented governance changes, major increases in its international efforts, and continued high level success of its 23 sponsored sports. Dave Newport - Dave launched the first US college sports sustainability activation with corporate partnership for the Florida Gators when he was the University of Florida's director of sustainability in 2002. Later he became director of the University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center and founded the nation's first comprehensive NCAA Division One sports sustainability program, Ralphie's Green Stampede. Dave is also secretary of the Green Sports Alliance board of directors, former board secretary of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, an award winning publisher and editor and a former elected county commission board chairman. Jamie Zaninovich Jamie Zaninovich. Welcome to Sustainable Nation. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Josh. Looking forward to it. I gave the listeners some background on your professional life but tell us a little bit about your personal life and what led you to be doing the work you're doing today. College sports has been a passion of mine since my early days in Eugene, Oregon where I was a faculty brat, son of a faculty member who played basketball in college back in the day and used to take me to all the games at the old historic Matt Court and Autzen Stadium in Eugene as a kid. So that's really where my passion for collegiate athletics started, and I was not a good enough to be a collegiate student athlete, so of course, decided to be an administrator instead. That's how it works. I've spent the last 25 years working both on campus and in college athletic conferences starting at Stanford and then Princeton University, and now here at the PAC-12 for the past four years. Like I said, it's a passion of mine as is sustainability, so we're really excited that we're at least making some progress in putting those two things together here at the PAC-12. And now the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference coming up in July. Really the first sustainability focused conference put on by a collegiate sports conference, the PAC-12. Tell us a little bit about how that came about and what people can expect at this year's PAC-12 Sustainability Conference. It's really a reflection of our 12 schools who have taken a leadership position in sustainability, and sports sustainability more specifically, in the collegiate space. So when I came to the PAC-12 four years ago, Dave Newport is the sustainability director at Colorado, showed up on our doorstep and said, "Hey, I'm not sure if you knew this, but all 12 of our PAC-12 schools are members of the Green Sports Alliance. That's the only conference in the country that that's the case and you guys should really look at doing something in this space." So, we said, "Yeah, this is interesting." Myself and Gloria Nevarez, who formerly worked at the PAC-12, both have a passion for sustainability having grown up on the west coast. We sort of took Dave's lead. The PAC-12 at that point joined the Green Sports Alliance and started looking at what a plan could be for us to take a leadership position, really reflecting what our schools have already done. So we created an informal working group within our schools of sustainability officers and athletics department reps. They suggested having a first of its kind conference, so we did that last year in Sacramento at the LEED platinum Golden One Arena just ahead of the GSA annual conference, and that went very well. From there we started thinking about do we do this again and what could come next? So we'll have our second event this year in Boulder, July 12th. It's going to be a great group of on campus athletics reps, sustainability professionals and industry folks. We have some really great panels lined up including two former NBA players, in Jason Richardson and Earl Watson, two former gold medalists, in Arielle Gold who just won gold in snowboarding at the Olympics - he's a Colorado grad. And Mary Harvey, who's a former goalkeeper for the University of California, who's an Olympic gold medalist for the USA. She has also headed up, which is now a successful, 2026 World Cup North America endeavor, and she's heading up their sustainability areas. So, we're going to have some awesome panels. The folks that I mentioned will be augmented by programmers on our campuses that have submitted proposals in the areas of fan engagement, student athlete engagement in sustainability, and it's going to be a full day of great best practice sharing, networking and hopefully a lot of learning to move forward what is an important initiative. That's very exciting. Jamie, this is bringing together my two greatest passions in life, the environment and sports. So, I love what you guys are doing and really excited to be there on July 12th. Why have these professional athletes and gold medalists speak? What do you think that sustainability professionals or campus leaders can learn from these accomplished athletes? I think the philosophy of purpose plus sport, and the power of that, has never been more relevant than today with some of the societal challenges that we face. I think those in the sports industry, college or professional, understand that with privilege comes responsibility, right? And if you have the opportunity to make a positive difference, such as those that have had made their living in doing something like sports, then there is a kind of an obligation to find a way to give back. And I think the environment is very front and center. In a lot of respects, it's almost a bulletproof cause and those are sort of hard to find these days. It's one of those causes were there may be some people on the other side, but in general everybody's for a sustainable future. So I think those are the elements that sort of have gotten this into it and I think are there reasons why we're getting at least some attention, still very early days for us, but some attention from folks that want to be involved in it as an endeavor. At last year's conference you had basketball legend, Bill Walton, speaking at the event. If anybody has seen him speak, Bill is very passionate person. At the conference last year, Bill said, "Sustainability is good policy, good economics, and it's good for all of us." From a chief operating officer perspective, can you tell us why sustainability is good for business in the PAC-12? I'm very much a believer in this notion of both doing good and doing well. I think for a long time, issues of social based programs, whether it's sustainability or otherwise, have sort of been perceived as cost centers. Right? Here's something you spend money on and you measure it in the value of maybe the positive PR you get. But what I'm learning, and I think we'll have some interesting news around this at our conference, just to tease that a little bit, is the commercial value around this space in sustainability and purpose based sponsorship and engagement more broadly is robust. And so if you could find the right partners that align with your values, you can drive great commercial value to them and to you, whether that's endemic partners that might be specifically involved in sustainability, or just the DNA of some larger corporations that understand that this is important for the future. I think this has never been more relevant. And what we're seeing in our campuses is this is really market driven. There are students coming to our campuses are not saying, "Oh great, there's a recycling banner. Oh cool, we have solar panels." They are saying, "Hey, where are the solar panels? Where are the recycling bins. We expect this. This is our generation speaking." So part of this is really serving that market as well and aligning interest that way. Absolutely great points. And I think you can kind of see that happening in professional sports. Some of these leagues like the NHL a NASCAR are really stepping out and leading in sustainability. It's pretty clear that they understand the long-term business benefits of sustainability and visible sustainability programs. Is the PAC-12 conference looking towards those professional sports leagues and learning from what they're doing? I think certainly. I think they've taken the lead with their green platforms. I think we want to learn from what they've done and put it in the appropriate context for collegiate, which is similar yet different. But I think one of the advantages we have, honestly, is we have these great institutions that are leaders in research and thought leadership. And it's really about leveraging the power of our campuses around this because they tend to be where great ideas start. In our case we happen to have 12 elite research institutions all in the western part of the United States, in centers of innovation. We want to align what we do with their DNA. So we see that as a real opportunity, If anyone is interested in learning more or attending the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference, where can they go check that out? So just go a PAC-12sustainabilityconference.com or put it in Google and the website will come up. You'll get the full program there. You can register online. We have hotel partnerships in Boulder that are available and we hope to see everybody there. I think this is a really unique space and it's going to be another great conversation. Last year we had an oversubscribed room and Bill wowed them last year. He's a great ambassador. Bill won't be there this year, we're giving them a year off. But we do have some exciting speakers as I mentioned before, and look for a reasonably big announcement in the sustainability space at the conference as well. So I'll tease that up. That's exciting. Jamie, we like to end the interview with a final five questions. What is one piece of advice you would give sustainability leaders? Think big and expand who your partners could be. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I think this notion that we can create a commercially viable platforms that bring together sustainability partners and athletics leagues and teams and schools. How about a book recommendation? Do you have one book you could recommend for sustainability professionals or other professionals? Well, this is a little bit off the radar and it's probably been read by most, but Cadillac Desert is one of my favorite books related to sustainability and the history of water in the western US. So that's a must read. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that you use that really help you in your work? I think it's just people. I'll go back to finding the right partners. Our best resources are our best thinkers and our best people, and that's why our campuses are so valuable to us. Whether it's student athletes, sustainability professionals, university athletic directors etc. And finally, we mentioned where people can go to learn about the conference, anywhere else you'd like to send people where they can learn more about you and the work that you're leading the PAC-12, We have a PAC-12.com website and I'd also encourage people to tune into our PAC-12 networks, which is linked from there. We have a lot of great stuff in terms of what we're involved in, including soon, a link to our sustainability platform. Jamie, I'm very much looking forward to the conference in July and that big announcement. I think everyone's excited about that now. It's so great to hear about the wonderful things the PAC-12 Conference is leading in sustainability. It's just so important to have that top-level support when committing to sustainability, so it's great to hear from you and hear about your passion. Thank you for making the world a better place, Jamie. Well, thank you. And thanks to people like yourself and Sustainable Nation for making this publicly available. We really need that contagion to catch on in this area even more to do well this way. Dave Newport Our next guest is Dave Newport. Dave launched the first US college sports sustainability activation with corporate partnership for the Florida Gators when he was the University of Florida's director of sustainability in 2002. Later he became director of the University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center and founded the nation's first comprehensive NCAA Division One sports sustainability program, Ralphie's Green Stampede. Dave is also secretary of the Green Sports Alliance board of directors, former board secretary of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, an award winning publisher and editor and a former elected county commission board chairman. Dave Newport, thank you for joining us. It's great to have you on to chat about the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference, which we'll get to in a second, but first tell us a little bit about you. I gave an introduction on your professional life but tell us a little bit about your personal life and what led you to be doing the work you're doing today. Well, I guess most people in sustainability come from very diverse backgrounds in terms of their career and their interests, and I'm certainly no exception. I've been a little bit in the environmental arena, one way, shape or form, for a long time. I think personally, what led me to sports sustainability is the inevitable search for leverage. That is, what's the multiplier effect of the work you do? How many people does it affect? How many people can it potentially effect? And of course, sports, there's no bigger platform on the planet then sports. So moving into sustainability in sports was natural from that analytical point of view for me personally and professionally, but like yourself, Josh, I grew up playing sports. I love sports and love sustainability, so let's combine fun with work and boom, here we are. That's what got me here. That's great. And I understand it all kind of started down in Florida when you were at the University of Florida, director of sustainability, you launched the first US college sports sustainability activation with a corporate partnership for the Florida Gators. Tell us how that came about and how it all started for you. Yeah, that was cool. It was 2002, and I was getting the sustainability program running on the giant University of Florida campus. Had lot of support and a great president to work with, and one day said, "Hey, let's see what we can do in The Swamp, the Florida field. I mean, there's no bigger icon of American College football, then Florida Field and Florida Gators, and we can make a statement that would be great." I went to see the athletic director, Jeremy Foley, a legendary AD for Florida, and he liked it. He didn't see any downside to it, but what we'll do is due diligence as smart guys do. And so he pulled a lot of people and talked it all through. He said, "Yep, let’s go with it and we're going to reach out to our fanbase well in advance and let them know what's going on." So he put in place a great communications effort. The corporate partner at the time was a petroleum marketer. So talk about our odd bedfellows, but it was a petroleum marketing company that has a series of stores across the Southeast and the Midwest, and as far as Texas, called Kangaroo stores. They had a very progressive CEO who was trying to move basically out of the oil business and into the renewable energy business, believe it or not. So they wanted to do build some stores in the Gainesville area that were the first LEED certified convenience stores in the United States. They put in bio diesel, and things like that. They were promoting their greenness so it was a good fit. We pitched them and they liked it. We did a pilot on homecoming, at the homecoming banquet, which was huge, and then in the clubs and suites of Florida Field during the homecoming game. I walked around with the AD there and we just visited with the fans, alumni of the Gators, and asked them how they felt about all this stuff. We got 500 comments back and 499 of them were like, this is really cool. The grumpiest comment we got back was from this one old alumni gentlemen who said, "Yeah this is great. How come we haven't been doing this all along?" So that was the worst comment we got back, and after that everything was golden because athletics figured out, hey, there's no downside of this. People intuitively like it and once you get past the inevitable startup problems in implementation and all the operational stuff, which we solved, the fans like it. And so fan engagement is key and has been part of why we've done this right along, is that fan engagement element is very strong. Sure, that's great. Especially the college level it's mostly young folks and these are the people that are really passionate about the environment and that's great. And then eventually you left and now you're the director of the University of Colorado Boulder Environmental Center. And you founded the nation's first comprehensive NCAA Division One sports sustainability program - Ralphie's Green Stampede. Tell us a little bit about that program. So, at Florida we started the first zero waste program in the NCAA, and then when we got to Colorado we came first comprehensive one. So we do it in all sports, and it's not just a zero waste, it's zero carbon, zero water, zero net energy in new buildings, no pesticides, local food and a few other things I can't remember. We've got four LEED Platinum athletics facilities, which is half of the number of LEED platinum buildings on the entire campus. And we've got the lion's share, like 90 plus percent, of all of the installed solar on athletics facilities. So, the University of Colorado Athletic Department is the most sustainable department on campus, a fact that bugs the heck out of the environmental science people, but it is what it is. When I got to Colorado and told them both to the Florida story, it got me a meeting with the AD at the time, Mike Bohn.  He listened to what I had to say and he said, "Okay, we can do that here." It was about that easy. So I said, "Hey, you know, this was awful easy. How come you said yes so fast." And this I will carry with me the rest of my career. His response to me was, "Dave, what you don't understand is people don't come here on Saturday for football. They come here for community. And sustainability is all about community. So this will work." I will tell you that that is a lesson in how to engage fans and what is really going on in sports, that I now see everywhere. I checked it out, I worked on it and we've done research on it. And indeed, sports is a bonding moment for our fans. That's why you come. That's why everybody's singing the same songs, wear's the same shirts, looks at the same environments and all that kind of stuff. Because we are communal species and we want to be part of the community. So, that added to my repertoire of ways to approach this thing and leverage that fan engagement we were speaking of. That's great. And so now we have the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference coming up July 12th and that's going to be at the University of Colorado Boulder, is that right? Correct, and come on down. Absolutely. So, tell us about that conference. How did it come about and what can we expect? From the time when I started working at Florida and then Colorado in sports, many sports organizations have moved into this space, especially at the pro level and increasingly at the college level. I'm seeing the value of: A) Saving money through operational sustainability and B) Engaging your fans through this leadership. However, no athletic conference or sports network has moved into the space of promoting it as sort of a behavior and a lifestyle, as a conference and as a league, until the PAC-12 showed up. And Jamie's great leadership with PAC-12, and Larry Scott the commissioner, I've met with both of them, and Larry is 100 percent behind this because they get everything I just said. They get the savings, they get the leadership and the fan engagement. And so, they're now talking about this in game. They're talking about it as a conference. They're talking about it as a leadership position, as consistent with the Conference of Champions and other people have taken notice now. So, their leadership is really a game changer in terms of taking it to the next level and using the sports platform to engage fans to be more sustainable at home, work and play. That is the mission. Running a recycling system in your stadium is great. Using that as an influencer to influence those fans that show up for that community every Saturday, as part of being a good fan of their favorite team, to live the life and to embody that as part of their fandom. That's the strategy. That's what the sustainability conference is all about - How do we do our operational stuff better and how do we use it to influence fans? You guys have some famous accomplished athletes who are going to be there speaking as well. Professional athletes and Olympic athletes. Tell us a little bit about who will be there. It's a really good group. We have Arielle Gold, a professional snowboarder and one of our students AT UC Boulder, and part of our Protect Our Winters, and is touring the hallways of Capitol Hill and other places to talk about climate change and how it affects our lives and our sports. So she's obviously our millennial target athlete. Mary Harvey, who I have the pleasure of working alongside of the board of the Green Sports Alliance. She is just fabulous in terms of her overall acumen. She's won gold medals, World Cups, she played with Mia Hamm, she's worked for FIFA back in the day and now she's working with the World Cup, a group here for the United States that successfully landed the World Cup bid for North America in 2026. There's some other great athletes as well. Obviously Steve Lavin, a fabulous coach, ESPN commentator and a spokesman for UCLA. Jason Richardson, another NCAA Championship basketball player and retired from the NBA. Last year you may recall we had Bill Walton show up and give us a keynote and some life lessons, and that was entertaining. I think I've missed a couple, but there's obviously more detail at the PAC-12sustainabilityconference.com. And Jason Richardson retired and left the Golden State Warriors a little bit too early. He kind of missed out on all the fun. Oh boy, those guys are something else. So, Dave, some people may not see the connection, but I actually think there's a strong parallel between sports and leading sustainability, having passion and perseverance, cooperation, teamwork, team building and strategy. What do you think sustainability professionals who were leading sustainability can learn from these accomplished professional athletes? Yeah, I think you said it well, Josh. I think that's exactly right. One of the things that sustainability professionals do is basically giving credit away for everything, and being all about teamwork and not really trying to be a showboat or anything. They're much like hockey players. Where do you hear of an arrogant hockey player? Most of them were like, "Oh man, my team is so great," and all this stuff because they know it's all about teamwork. I think likewise, as you said, in sustainability it's the same thing. We want everyone to be part of it. And so when you do it inclusively and you bring people together to have a conversation about moving forward sustainably, then you bring in people that wouldn't normally be part of that team, and that's the key. That's how you grow the scope of what you're doing, by getting beyond the usual suspects and getting into folks where this may not be what they get out of bed thinking about every morning. But it's important to them when they have the opportunity to be influential in it. And so allowing for that influence, allowing for people who are doing other things, to be part of this and really bringing them in and getting those ideas, that's how you grow the team. That's how you move towards sustainability. And that is all a process. It is not an end game. Sustainability is not an end game. It's a process. The process is the product. And the process is inclusion and teamwork. Very well said, Dave. For any of our listeners who would like to attend the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference, where can they go to find out more and to sign up. So, PAC-12sustainabilityconference.com, or just Google it and it'll take you there. The website is up and running and accepting your reservations. Come on down. We've got all kinds of fun things to do in Boulder on the 11th and 12th of July. And then that weekend, the Grateful Dead are going to be in our stadium playing. So, come for a conference and stay for the concert. Sounds great. Dave, before we let you go we're going to end on our Final Five Questions. Are you ready? Five Questions. Who used to do that? It was the original Daily Show guy. Craig Kilborn. Funny thing about Craig Kilborn, who was actually a great athlete himself and played some college basketball. He's from Hastings, Minnesota, which is the same small town that I'm from. His mom was my middle school English teacher. I remember the first day of class I had with her, she had a picture of Craig on the back of the classroom and said, "That's my son. He's in radio and learn from him. He's a great communicator." Then about a year later I saw him on Sports Center for the first time and I was like, "I know that name somewhere." And it was him, Craig Kilborn. So, he's one of the few famous people to come out of my small town. He's funny and he was really good at it too. And when he left I thought, "he's going to be a hard act to follow." Yeah, he was great. So, what is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Don't think of anything. Have other people think about it and have it be their idea. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? How fast it's growing. I'm old, so I've observed the beginning and there was nobody. There was five of us doing this job when I started at Florida back in the nineties, and now I've lost count. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? If you don't read any other book in your entire life? You have to read Natural Capitalism. Excellent. And we had Hunter Lovins on as a guest a few weeks ago, so everyone can check out that episode of Sustainable Nation. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? Being a member of AASHE and using their website and their member community is a daily thing. I'm looking at their email right now. I think AASHE, again, didn't exist when we started. Now it's booming and all the many people that I've never even heard of are now offering information and gaining information through their website, aashe.org. And finally, where can people go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at the University of Colorado Boulder, Green Sports Alliance and/or the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference? I'm on LinkedIn. Let's just go with LinkedIn. They will find you on LinkedIn. Excellent. Dave, it's so great to learn about all the work you've been doing and how this sustainability in sports movement really got started all the way back in 2002. I very much look forward to seeing you in Boulder in July. Thank you so much for joining and thank you for making the world a better place. And thank you for hosting us today, Josh. Look forward to seeing you in boulder.  

In this episode, I have had the pleasure of speaking with Mike Williams, a professional engineer who has spent his career specializing in sustainable design, green standards compliance, carbon reduction, and developing energy efficiency strategies. Mike has been a key contributor to some of Canadaʼs greenest buildings, including the CANMET Materials and Testing Laboratory in Hamilton, and the Elementary Teachersʼ Federation Headquarters in Toronto, both of which earned LEED Platinum certification and set new standards for sustainability in their communities. I’ve known Mike Williams for many years, and recently I have had the pleasure of collaborating with Mike on developing a Low-Carbon Roadmap for assisting our higher education clients to set and meet low carbon emission goals for their campuses. In addition to being one of the most highly regarded sustainability engineers in Canada, Mike is a lot of fun to work with! He is an innovative thinker and is great at bridging the divide between the big concept and the nitty gritty of implementation. I hope you enjoy our conversation! You can find show notes at: http://bit.ly/Mike_Williams_Pod Please Support this Podcast: The Twenty First Century Imperative podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on user support. If you find it valuable please consider supporting us by becoming a patron at our TFCI Patreon Page.  

Testemunho de Sergio Crema, presidente do Sinduscon Paraná, sobre a construção do novo prédio comercial do Sinduscon que busca certificação LEED Platinum e certificação Zero Energy.

KEVIN CAVENAUGH After completing architecture school at U.C. Berkeley and a 2-year stint building schools and homes for the Peace Corps in Gabon, Africa, Kevin moved to Portland, Oregon in 1993.  Kevin designs and develops small commercial and residential buildings.  He uses inexpensive materials and always attains high energy efficiency in his work.  His Burnside Rocket building has earned a LEED Platinum rating. From hip restaurants to creative offices to wonderful residential renters, Kevin has been fortunate to turn his good buildings into great buildings by virtue of the tenants.  And because he builds with the intention of keeping each project, he also learns directly how his designs age as he maintains them year by year. Kevin was a Loeb Fellow in 2007-2008 at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.  His current projects include micro restaurants in The Ocean, experimental lenticular art along 100% of the façade of The Zipper, social capital-turned-architecture in an adaptive re-use livery stable 4-plex (Dr. Jim’s Still Really Nice), and corridor-free creative office spaces in the Fair-Haired Dumbbell. Kevin's current obsession (and possible upcoming project) is to create a better version of subsidy-less affordable housing.

Gill Holland’s curiosity has led to careers as an independent film producer, building developer, and former lawyer. Holland is changing the landscape of Louisville’s East Market District. He coined the term New Lou for the formerly economically depressed area, turning it into a thriving and sustainable arts district. This is where he opened the Green Building, certified LEED Platinum, which is recognized as the greenest commercial building in Kentucky. Holland is also the founder of the group Entertainment LLC, which includes a film production company, talent management division, music company, and art gallery. He has produced more than 70 feature films, including “Hurricane Streets,” the first film to win three Sundance Film Festival awards. Holland founded sonaBLAST! Records featuring CDs made from recycled plastics with cardboard cases. He has also authored two fundraising books for children and serves on many local cultural boards. Louisville magazine named Gill Holland the 2009 Person of the Year.

As winemaker for Silver Oak, Nate Weis is the steward for one of the most prominent and recognized brands of Cabernet in the US.  In this episode of the Inside Winemaking Podcast Nate shares how what may be considered an old-guard brand of California winemaking, Silver Oak, is actually on the cutting edge of innovation and is now the first wine producer to have taken an oak barrel cooperage in-house.  After rebuilding the Napa winery due to a fire in 2006, Silver Oak has drawn from its experience in winery  design and is now building its Alexander Valley facility with the goal of being LEED Platinum certified by its debut in 2017.  Part of Nate's role is to oversee winemaking for the Twomey brand, which was created to produce Merlot, but now has a full range of wines including Pinot noir from Willamette Valley in Oregon.   Those interested in working a harvest vintage in New Zealand are encouraged to apply to the Doug Wisor Memorial Scholarship, which provides funding and a job placement at Craggy Range Winery.  After working for Doug when he was in New Zealand, Nate now helps aspiring winemakers discover this opportunity to honor a man who was one of his own mentors.  

“Think BIG” is the theme of the Ambassador House – ideally situated between Zurich and the airport and opening its doors starting in the spring of 2017. Here you will find one of the most spacious areas in Switzerland, measuring over 50,000 square meters. And everything you need for a successful workday is within reach. Office floor dimensions, efficient floor plans and optimal vertical and horizontal access offer tremendous flexibility in space utilization and efficient layouts for modern workplace design concepts. The Ambassador House offers its own concierge service, a fully equipped conference room center, an inviting employee restaurant, cafés and sandwich bars for visitors and staff along with numerous other amenities. Alongside unrivaled access to public transportation – the airport is just nine minutes away, for example – the Ambassador House is also the only location in the greater Zurich area to offer over 1,100 parking spots in its private parking garage. Visit http://www.ambassadorhouse.ch or call us at +41 44 226 30 00 for more information.

“Think BIG” is the theme of the Ambassador House – ideally situated between Zurich and the airport and opening its doors starting in the spring of 2017. Here you will find one of the most spacious areas in Switzerland, measuring over 50,000 square meters. And everything you need for a successful workday is within reach. Office floor dimensions, efficient floor plans and optimal vertical and horizontal access offer tremendous flexibility in space utilization and efficient layouts for modern workplace design concepts. The Ambassador House offers its own concierge service, a fully equipped conference room center, an inviting employee restaurant, cafés and sandwich bars for visitors and staff along with numerous other amenities. Alongside unrivaled access to public transportation – the airport is just nine minutes away, for example – the Ambassador House is also the only location in the greater Zurich area to offer over 1,100 parking spots in its private parking garage. Visit http://www.ambassadorhouse.ch or call us at +41 44 226 30 00 for more information.

„Think BIG“ lautet das Motto des Ambassador House, das ab Frühjahr 2017 an optimaler Lage zwischen Zürich und dem Flughafen die Pforten öffnet. Hier finden Sie auf über 50'000 Quadrat-metern eines der grössten Raumangebote der Schweiz und haben alles in Reichweite was Sie für einen erfolgreichen Arbeitstag brauchen.Die Abmessungen der Bürogeschosse, effiziente Grundrisse und eine optimale Vertikal- und Hori-zontalerschliessung ermöglichen eine grosse Flexibilität bei der Raumnutzung und effiziente Lay-outs für moderne Arbeitsplatzkonzepte.Einen eigenen Concierge Service, das komplett ausgestattete Konferenzraumcenter, ein einla-dendes Personalrestaurant, Cafés und Sandwichbars für Mitarbeiter und Besucher bietet Ihnen das Ambassador House ebenso, wie zahlreiche weitere Einrichtungen.Neben der perfekten Anbindung mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln Sie sind beispielsweise schon in 9 Minuten am Flughafen - verfügt das Ambassador House mit mehr als 1100 Parkplätzen in der privaten Tiefgarage über ein einmaliges Angebot im Grossraum Zürich. Für mehr Infos besuchen Sie http://www.ambassadorhouse.ch oder rufen Sie uns an unter +41 44 226 30 00.

„Think BIG“ lautet das Motto des Ambassador House, das ab Frühjahr 2017 an optimaler Lage zwischen Zürich und dem Flughafen die Pforten öffnet. Hier finden Sie auf über 50’000 Quadrat-metern eines der grössten Raumangebote der Schweiz und haben alles in Reichweite was Sie für einen erfolgreichen Arbeitstag brauchen.Die Abmessungen der Bürogeschosse, effiziente Grundrisse und eine optimale Vertikal- und Hori-zontalerschliessung ermöglichen eine grosse Flexibilität bei der Raumnutzung und effiziente Lay-outs für moderne Arbeitsplatzkonzepte.Einen eigenen Concierge Service, das komplett ausgestattete Konferenzraumcenter, ein einla-dendes Personalrestaurant, Cafés und Sandwichbars für Mitarbeiter und Besucher bietet Ihnen das Ambassador House ebenso, wie zahlreiche weitere Einrichtungen.Neben der perfekten Anbindung mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln Sie sind beispielsweise schon in 9 Minuten am Flughafen - verfügt das Ambassador House mit mehr als 1100 Parkplätzen in der privaten Tiefgarage über ein einmaliges Angebot im Grossraum Zürich. Für mehr Infos besuchen Sie http://www.ambassadorhouse.ch oder rufen Sie uns an unter +41 44 226 30 00.

There aren't many solar success stories from the Southeast, making Raleigh, NC, stand out in a region with low-cost electricity and modest sunshine. With just over 2 megawatts of solar on public property––providing close to 7% of municipal building peak demand––Raleigh's solar success comes despite state rules preventing city from buying electricity from any non-utility entity. In April 2015, John Farrell talked to Robert Hinson, renewable energy coordinator with the City of Raleigh, NC. In lieu of third-party power purchase agreements, Raleigh has pursued solar in three ways: by leasing space on public property to solar developers; owning solar and selling power to Duke Energy; and net metering a city-owned solar array. Read more about Raleigh and other cities putting solar on their own property in Public Rooftop Revolution A Twist on a Traditional Lease The lease arrangement for Raleigh is a bit different than used elsewhere. Instead of the city leasing the solar array from a third party, the city leases the land for the solar array, and the solar developer sells power directly to the utility. The city's economic benefit is from the lease payments. Hinson says that the lease agreements allow the city the option to purchase the solar project at a reduced price after seven years, in which time the solar developer will have realized tax credits and depreciation. The city would assume the power purchase agreements and continue selling electricity to Duke Energy. The purchase price is favorable, as the contracts were signed in the early stages of Duke's solar program. However, Hinson says the city doesn't yet know the purchase price and so it's unclear how profitable it would be to buy the solar arrays on leased property. The city has also purchased solar arrays to offset on-site energy use, using power purchase agreements or net metering. The city's first foray into solar was a 53 kW solar array on its operations facility in 2009 to see “what were the issues” with going solar. In this case, the city sold the power to the utility via a power purchase agreement. Another solar installation used net metering, but Hinson notes that net metering only works for relatively small systems. North Carolina's net metering law only protects projects 100 kilowatts and smaller from utility standby charges. The city's 75 kW array on its solid waste facility falls into that safe harbor. The project wasn't necessarily done for the economics, but in part because the city wanted to achieve a LEED Platinum rating. Expansion plans for solar on Raleigh municipal property will likely focus on small, net metered systems. The upside is better economics, but it also requires buildings with fairly significant on-site energy consumption. City staff will look carefully at “what the return on investment is.” They have one interesting concept for expanding solar at their wastewater treatment facility. In addition to a ground-mounted array, they are considering floating solar panels on the treatment reservoirs. This “float-o-voltaic” system could produce electricity and, by blocking sunlight from the water, reduce algae growth. Solar growth for the city has since slowed. When the North Carolina renewable portfolio standard was approved in 2007, the utilities (Progress and Duke Energy, before the latter took over the former) paid favorable rates to distributed solar generators. These incentives had investment groups and developers coming to Raleigh to site solar on city-owned land and rooftops. As “economy-of-scale” has taken over, the investment community has taken their dollars to larger solar installations and not municipal projects, says Hinson. Overcoming Barriers What barriers are there for city solar investment? Hinson says the biggest thing is the upfront cost and a failure to consider the retu...

David Gottfried is considered the father of the green movement, having founded the Green Building Council in 1993 which then expanded to over 100 countries with the Global Green Building Council.  You may have seen the “LEED” plaque on the side of a building?  That's the green rating system that David helped develop. David is also married to an incredible leader in the wellness field, my friend and author of “The Hormone Cure,” Dr. Sara Gottfried.  While his wife looks inward toward healing the body, David has spent his amazing life looking outward-- trying to heal the planet. In this show, David and I get a chance to talk about his new book, “Explosion Green.”  It's really a twenty-year memoir about a character… who happens to be David… on his quest to green the planet.  We also touch on a topic that sounds like science fiction, but is truly an essential component of healing ourselves and the planet:  Rewiring the brain for survival in the 22nd century. Here are a few highlights of the show: How healing your body leads to healing the planet. What drives even the greenest environmentalist to want a bigger house and a faster car? Why our survival instincts are killing us. Simple ways we can start living intentionally. The “bottom line” of being green. SHOW NOTES: David Gottfried is the father of the green movement, having founded both the U.S. and Global Green building Councils.  This GBC movement has reduced global warming and our eco-footprint more than any other organization in the world. David has a different perspective on the way the world works.  The pendulum is swinging in both the health and the sustainability movements.  According to David, the direction of the health movement is essential to what he refers to as the ecological triple bottom line:  planet, economy, and society. His relationship with Sara helped him realize that the third leg of the stool was somewhat absent in his approach.  To understand the societal component, he had to focus on how the people inside the green buildings were living.  “If you are toxic, what good is a LEED Platinum, net-zero home?” Sara got David looking at food, stress, anger, meditation and neuroscience to manage his own health.  But it's all interrelated:  David feels that what the green movement can bring to the individual is hope. David believes that he is here as a change agent, that he was tagged for a higher purpose.  There's a saying in Judaism:  Tikkun Olam, to heal the world.  It's our purpose to put the divine light back into the leaky vessel. How can focusing on our own health change the world?  Health and wellness isn't necessarily about getting ripped abs, although it can start there.  Once you approach health from a place of divine intent (you find your “why”), you start to believe in real food, in permaculture and local food.  You eat grazed meat and organic produce.  You become empowered by your natural intelligence.  That intent followed by those practices obviously have an impact on the environment. Where are we going in terms of the brain and the environment?  Back in the 1950's, Buckminster Fuller declared that technology had arrived, and that the have-nots could finally have.  So, why don't we all have?  It has to do with the wiring of our brains. “We are still harming nature, other species and each other.  We've got to wake up.”  But perhaps we can't do that without updating our brain's operating system. David started wondering why he still jumped for his bat when he heard noises in his house at night, or why he got road rage when another driver cut him off in traffic.  Well, it has to do with the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that says, “I'm a hunter.  I have to provide for my family and protect them.”  You can't come home after a hunt without food. As a result of this thought process, David came out with the E Revolution.  It's about taking the term human (to err is to be human) and adding an e:  humane.   He started wondering if eco-greens could work with health experts to look at rewiring our brains.  Can we change the wiring of our survival instincts that were necessary hundreds of thousands of years ago, but are actually killing us now?  What does that new operating system look like and how can we install it? How can we stack the deck when it comes to sustainability? The first step is to check your ego at the door.  We have to switch to a humane operating system which means being human to your own body and being humane to other people. Live with intentionality.  We all do things like buy homes, redecorate, paint, renovate, consumer energy, produce waste, use water, and use transportation.  There are small things to do that move toward positive change, such as: Buy paint without VOC's. Don't buy cheap furniture that smells like chemicals for months. Use carpeting that doesn't require toxic glues. Keep in mind, if something smells, it's probably bad for you. Take your shoes off at the front door.  Why? So you don't track in all of the environmental toxins. Tighten up your home's insulation:  Blow insulation in to attics, crawl spaces, and walls. Install good quality windows. Buy Energy Star appliances. Install low-flow faucets, shower heads, and toilets. Collect water in rain barrels for landscaping. Drive less and buy fuel efficient cars. Buy quality products. Obviously, true change requires a monumental shift in our behavior.  Is that shift a slow burn or one big push?  You can actually map the shift.  Paul Hawken wrote a book called “Blessed Unrest” that mapped the world's eco grass-roots initiatives.  He stopped counting when he reached one million.  But it's going to take a combination of things from ordinances for green building, to tax policy, to support for organic and local farmers. We have to shift into thinking, “If it's not green, it's not valuable.”  We need to change the mindset of the public into thinking that if something is unhealthy, it shouldn't make money.  If it depletes the soil, if it causes birth defects, if it sucks up our rapidly disappearing aquifers, if it makes us sick… it shouldn't be purchased. “Cheap” can be the most expensive thing you ever do.  One small example is in the cords I buy for my guitars and amps.  You can buy them for a couple of bucks on the internet.  But here's what happens:  They buzz and blow up in the middle of a show.  Then I have to replace them.  Then I get stressed out and ticked off, and I have to go and replace the cords.  After a few cycles of this, I could have just bought a $30 good quality cord to begin with.  Now I buy quality because it saves me money in the long run, it saves the stress, and it saves the environment because those many cheap cords aren't hitting the landfill.  The same goes for appliances, electronics, clothing, and the list goes on. Look at what you do with the dollars you're spending.  What is the eco-footprint of the things you're doing?  Plant seeds that will grow good in the world.  Learn lessons from your mistakes, because lessons are the juice of life. Check out David's new book, “Explosion Green!”  It will teach you an incredible amount about being green through story, and a healthy dose of self-deprecation. You can check out more on the Green Building Council at usgbc.org and worldgbc.org.