As the risks that the climate crisis poses to physical assets becomes clearer, more and more stakeholders in the real estate sector are looking to guidelines like the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and reporting platforms like GRESB to help them measure and reduce their exposure.  With carbon emissions emerging as a key indicator we talk with Fiona Cousins, a Director at Arup, about her work to bring solutions like carbon pricing to scale, and the emerging conversation around the impact of embodied carbon in the building industry.  A leader in the green building movement for decades, Fiona brings deep experience in the engineering of sustainable buildings as well as the digital infrastructure professions require to meet aggressive climate action goals.

Daniel Zarrilli, New York City’s Chief Climate Policy Advisor and OneNYC Director, is a leading force behind the City’s fight against climate change. Responsible for the OneNYC 2050 (http://nyc.gov/OneNYC) strategic plan, Dan has been at the heart of the City’s climate action initiatives for nearly a decade. His work spans the launch of a comprehensive $20 billion climate adaptation program, aligning the City’s emissions reduction targets with those of the Paris Agreement, committing to divest the City’s pension funds from fossil fuel reserve owners, and a host of other climate resiliency and adaptation solutions. BE-Ex welcomes Dan for a conversation about his role in charting the path towards a resilient and sustainable future for all New Yorkers.

As our buildings move toward full electrification and our grid moves toward 100% renewable sources, the interaction between the two will become increasingly complex.  Supply from the grid will fluctuate across the hours, while buildings will cease to only use energy, becoming both sources and storage for electricity.  Few individuals have as relevant experience in the interaction of these systems, and with the business side of making these relationships work, than H.G. Chissell. The founder and CEO of Advanced Energy Group, Mr. Chissell has also held senior positions as Co-Founder of GridMarket and SVP of Viridity Energy, and has a fascinating entrepreneurial background having co-founded the “first climate neutral certified coffee company”, Zero Carbon Coffee.  Join us for what promises to be a fascinating discussion on the future of building to grid interaction and other pressing issues facing our industry.

Brooklyn-based BlocPower has delivered clean energy projects to nearly one thousand buildings since their 2012 founding. With a special focus on heat pump technology, the organization backs healthful, cost-effective, and energy-efficient building improvements, often associated with large, high-profile projects, but historically out of reach for small and mid-sized buildings in New York City’s poorest communities. BlocPower’s Founder, Donnel Baird, and Chief of Engineering, Dom Lempereur, are working to close this divide. BE-Ex welcomes our guests for a discussion on the challenges and benefits of designing, financing, and delivering high-performance building systems to the City’s neighborhoods that need them most—and what the future may hold for the building industry, and New York City at large, as these strategies take hold.

For nearly thirty years, Ashok Gupta has dedicated his career at the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) to understanding policy related to global warming, energy efficiency, renewables, sustainable building design, and transportation. During the Bloomberg administration, Gupta was selected as NRDC’s representative to the Mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Board and Energy Policy Task Force to promote carbon reduction and energy efficiency. More recently, Mr. Gupta decamped to Kansas City, Missouri, where he supports the growth of building energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives across the Midwest. He holds a suite of awards for his accomplishments in the field, including the USGBC’s Leadership Award for Advocacy and, most recently, the ACEEE’s 2020 Champions of Energy Efficiency (https://www.aceee.org/press-release/2020/08/aceee-announces-2020-champions-energy-efficiency-buildings) in Buildings title. Join us for a conversation with Ashok on a remarkably impactful career dedicated to transforming the U.S. energy sector and cities across the country towards a more sustainable, energy-efficient future.

New York’s climate objectives cannot be met without widespread building retrofits. City and State initiatives like the NYC Accelerator (https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycaccelerator/index.page) and RetrofitNY (https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All-Programs/Programs/RetrofitNY) are focused on accelerating the development of a self-sustaining market for scalable high-performance retrofit solutions. But what role will finance need to play in order to support the required scale and pace of this market growth?  And how will that role vary across affordable and market rate properties?

Although water efficiency has been a prominent feature of green building programs for decades, the most dramatic improvements in water use have largely been relegated to regions where drought is common, like California and the mountain West.  But with the costs of water rising dramatically across the country, including New York City, our use of this critical resource is receiving increased attention.  Teghpal Sandhu, co-founder and CEO of Live Building Systems joins us to discuss how real time management of water use in buildings makes deep savings possible.  With a background as an MD, Mr. Sandhu brings a unique perspective to the fundamentals of water efficiency in buildings and what the near future brings in this increasingly important area of resource conservation.

In honor of Daylight Hour 2020, we welcome one of the foremost building science engineers in the US to Radio BE-Ex, Steve Selkowitz.  As the long time Group Leader of the Windows and Envelope Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Steve has driven the advancement of high performance building envelopes for decades and was a primary force behind the creation of FLEXLAB–the Facility for Low Energy Experiments in Buildings–a test bed facility that allows for the testing of energy efficiency technologies in a highly instrumented but real world environment.  BE-Ex was honored to partner with Steve and his team at LBNL on one of our early projects, the Living Lab: Advanced Daylighting Controls Demonstration Project, in 2014.  The recipient of numerous awards and accolades, Steve will join us to talk about his long focus on daylighting in buildings, the advancements he’s seen over that time and what we can expect in the near future.

The increasing influence of Passive House in the building industry has led to renewed interested in a host of building materials, from high performance windows to innovative air and moisture control systems, to insulation with very low embodied carbon.  Ken Levenson of 475 Building Supply joins our host, Yetsuh Frank, to discuss the application of these newly available materials and what other new materials or systems we might expect in the near future.

Although Passive House has been successfully applied to a huge variety of building types, it all started with small residential projects looking to push the envelope on interior comfort and energy efficiency.  What is it that makes Passive House such an ideal lens for small residential projects?  And how is this appeal different for architects, owners, and other stakeholders? In Cho of ChoShields Studio and Michael ingui of Baxt Ingui Architects join our host, Yetsuh Frank, to discuss the residential applications of Passive House and the various ways this progressive building performance standard can transform how both professionals and lay people experience buildings.