#96: Mainstreaming Passive Building Design in the USA, with Phius

[00:00:09] Welcome to The Green Urbanist, a podcast for urbanists fighting climate change. I'm Ross.

[00:00:24] Today's episode is a conversation with Katrin Klingenberg.

[00:00:28] My name is Katrin Klingenberg and I'm the executive director and co-founder of the Passive House Institute US.

[00:00:36] Also short, FIAS. We like to go by FIAS like Prius, you know.

[00:00:41] We're a non-profit organization setting standards for passive buildings, we train professionals, we certify products,

[00:00:49] and all that in order to facilitate the market transformation in the US mainly, but also we have international projects towards a renewable energy transformation.

[00:01:01] So today's episode is all about passive building design and passive house and adapting that to the USA context.

[00:01:08] For those of you who are less familiar with it, passive building design is essentially an approach to architecture and building

[00:01:15] that looks to make buildings as energy efficient as possible, makes use of things like high insulation standards,

[00:01:24] you know, very good high quality windows, etc. and natural ventilation to ensure that buildings don't need lots of external energy coming in to heat them.

[00:01:35] It's a passive house as a standard, it's mostly associated with Germany and temperate Europe and Scandinavia,

[00:01:43] but is now starting to spread around the world and is becoming very, very popular as we look for more sustainable ways of designing buildings.

[00:01:52] Katrin, as you may have guessed from her, her name and accent is from Germany, but in fact is based in the US.

[00:01:58] Katrin, as you may have guessed from the US, it's a global climate climate change in the US.

[00:01:59] And for the last 20 years has been pioneering the use of passive design principles in the context of the USA,

[00:02:07] where there's multiple different climate zones.

[00:02:10] So think about the difference between up in the north of the USA, which might be very cold,

[00:02:15] down to the south in places that have desert and more tropical sort of conditions.

[00:02:21] So there's a huge range of climate zones within the US, which means taking this standard that originated in Canada and Germany,

[00:02:30] you know, colder, more temperate contexts, and applying it across the US is not going to work very well.

[00:02:36] And we get into the conversation, in the conversation, why that is the case,

[00:02:40] and how they've had to adapt passive design principles to these different contexts within the USA.

[00:02:47] So that in itself is a really interesting part of the conversation.

[00:02:50] And I learned a lot about, you know, not taking this as a standard and applying it everywhere,

[00:02:57] but having to take a really context specific approach, which was great.

[00:03:02] We also go on and we talk about how FIAS, this organization, is working to mainstream passive design within the US

[00:03:11] and why that is, how that fits in with the wider net zero carbon picture and the decarbonization of the building industry

[00:03:19] and how it links in with things like grid decarbonization, etc.

[00:03:25] So it does seem to be taking off in a couple of places.

[00:03:28] And we talk about some of the states and some of the places that are really doing well with passive design.

[00:03:33] And we also talk about, from a systems point of view, what needs to happen to really get it becoming mainstream

[00:03:40] and get this sort of sustainable approach to building and designing becoming mainstream in the US.

[00:03:47] Really interesting conversation.

[00:03:48] I think even if you're not based in the US, you'll get something out of this

[00:03:52] because we talk about applying passive design to different climate contexts,

[00:03:57] such as very hot, arid places or very hot, humid places.

[00:04:01] So if you're in somewhere around the world like that, you might find this interesting.

[00:04:06] But in any case, you know, have a listen and enjoy.

[00:04:11] Just to note as well, we had a couple of technical problems with the recording.

[00:04:15] So the quality is not, the quality on Katrine's end is not, you know, as high as I would like it to be.

[00:04:22] But actually the quality of the conversation is very high.

[00:04:25] So focus on that instead of the quality of the audio recording and you'll still really enjoy this.

[00:04:33] Right at the end, we talk about if you're just starting off with passive design and you want to get some training.

[00:04:39] FIUS do provide a free foundations training, which is called the FIUS Passive Building Foundations Training course.

[00:04:47] And I've put a link to that in the episode description.

[00:04:50] So, you know, as you're listening, you can open that up or once you're finished, you can have a look at that if you want to get more training specifically for people who are US based.

[00:04:59] Speaking of training, I'm currently putting the final touches on my training program, which is called Sustainability Essentials for Built Environment Professionals.

[00:05:08] That is going to be going live in the next couple of weeks.

[00:05:11] There's a link to the course page in the episode description.

[00:05:15] If you just click on description or more info, you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see a link to the course.

[00:05:22] Do have a look there if that sounds like it would be of interest to you.

[00:05:25] And there's a space where you can put in your email address and you will be the first to know once it goes live and it's available.

[00:05:31] It's going to be a great course.

[00:05:32] It's basically the course that I wish I had when I first started my sustainability journey years ago.

[00:05:38] And I'm sort of putting everything I've learned into one place to help people who are at the beginning of their sustainability journey get a leg up and get started and get access to all of the key concepts and definitions and information that you need to just get cracking on your journey.

[00:05:57] So enough about that for now.

[00:05:58] I'll be talking more about it in the next couple of weeks when it's ready to go.

[00:06:03] But do check it out if you're interested.

[00:06:06] All right.

[00:06:06] Enjoy the episode.

[00:06:07] So we're all about the buildings and the building sector.

[00:06:15] We're trying to help facilitate the market shift towards high performance building on a large scale.

[00:06:22] So that's one of the reasons why we shifted to FIAS and stuff passive house institute because that is very kind of like distracting and the large scale architects, they don't like the term house so much.

[00:06:36] So, of course, we also have our eyes on the big buildings, not just on the houses.

[00:06:44] And as a non-profit organization, we are very well positioned to set high performance standards to passive building levels, to work with government, with code officials, to try to advertise and give them the tools that they can use to meet their carbon action plan.

[00:07:06] So that's really our main purpose, if you will.

[00:07:12] And also, we're also giving people the tools that they need through training, through like a modeling platform, through product pre-screening and databases and so on and so forth.

[00:07:26] And we're targeting all buildings, so not just houses, also commercial buildings in the US.

[00:07:33] That's great.

[00:07:34] That's great.

[00:07:34] And I mean, that's a good point about passive house.

[00:07:36] It has become a bit of a misleading title with the word house in it.

[00:07:40] Yeah.

[00:07:40] And people, sorry, people do these contortions, you know, like passive house building.

[00:07:44] I'm like, no, come on.

[00:07:49] Maybe take us back a little bit.

[00:07:50] And so passive house, from my understanding, comes out of Germany and has been, you know, well used in Europe and Northern Europe in particular.

[00:08:00] Why is it that it's, how are you needing to adapt it in a sense to the US?

[00:08:06] And why is this sort of a bit different what you're doing over there?

[00:08:10] Yeah.

[00:08:11] So actually, interesting fun fact.

[00:08:13] The Germans picked up what the Canadians did in the 1970s and the term passive house was actually coined in Canada.

[00:08:21] Oh.

[00:08:22] And here also in Urbana, Illinois were my houses in the US during the time of the oil embargo.

[00:08:29] That's when the DOE funded all kinds of research of like, hey, how can we build houses that don't need fossil fuels?

[00:08:36] So at that point, the very early presentations, all the principles, they were very, very well researched already.

[00:08:43] People started putting it together.

[00:08:44] They invented the heat recovery ventilator, early days and experiments.

[00:08:49] So pretty cool history.

[00:08:51] And the German Passive House Institute built on that.

[00:08:55] They got all the literature from the time when it was actually happening here in the United States.

[00:09:02] And well, it was a movement actually, like all the way up into the early 80s.

[00:09:08] People are kind of estimating about 30,000 of these super insulated homes, that's what they called them at the time, were built.

[00:09:17] Like people were really on it.

[00:09:19] They were going to make this happen.

[00:09:20] And then, well, unfortunately, politics came into play.

[00:09:24] And under Reagan, the energy efficiency efforts faded.

[00:09:29] And well, in 2002, when I built my house in Champaign-Urbana, we started like opening that new chapter again.

[00:09:39] We originally started with the Passive House Institute in Germany.

[00:09:43] At that point, they hadn't even like put out like an English modeling tool yet.

[00:09:50] And when I arrived on the scene, I was the first one who had built basically, I got the tools online and I used it because I speak German.

[00:09:59] I'm from Germany.

[00:10:00] But I had to translate everything into inch pound here for the United States.

[00:10:05] And so, yeah, that was a bit of an adventure.

[00:10:08] But that's how the journey started, where we experienced like, OK, like all the different tools, like what had been done in the US, what had happened in Europe.

[00:10:17] And we started putting it together.

[00:10:19] And as we were applying the German standard in all the different climate zones, we started working very quickly.

[00:10:27] People found us through our website.

[00:10:29] We didn't even have to advertise.

[00:10:31] And we started having like projects all over the place, like Louisiana, Arizona, California, all the way up north in Duluth, Minnesota, and even in Alaska.

[00:10:44] So at that point, we learned about different climate zones.

[00:10:49] And it turns out when you look at a climate zone map of the United States, it looks almost exactly like China.

[00:10:57] And I'm only mentioning China because, I mean, these two big countries have almost all the climate zones on the planet.

[00:11:04] And that's the cool part, right?

[00:11:06] So the only one when we started developing our climate-specific standards that we didn't have was like the really hot ones.

[00:11:13] So we had to calculate our standards specifically for RIOT, which was kind of fun, you know, because we didn't have any representative climate data in the United States.

[00:11:24] So yeah, in 2015, we put our kind of like flag in the ground and said, like, yeah, the one-size-fits-all standard does not fit all.

[00:11:33] And especially also when you go into bigger buildings, because bigger buildings are dominated by internal heat gains.

[00:11:41] So imagine a giant like multifamily building.

[00:11:44] Everybody has like appliances.

[00:11:46] And so heating really is no longer the driving factor for good design in high-performance construction.

[00:11:53] Because very quickly, cooling becomes your determining factor.

[00:11:58] And for that, the German tool is basically blind.

[00:12:02] Unfortunately, we had to find that out the hard way.

[00:12:05] And also, there's no good way really to look at humidity.

[00:12:09] So again, if you look at the climate map of the United States, one half is very, very humid.

[00:12:16] I was like, we have like some of the most severe weather in terms of like humidity and heat.

[00:12:21] And also in the Midwest, some of the most severe weather of like deltas from like super, super cold, like negative 40 to like in the summer, it gets up to like very, very hot.

[00:12:32] So negative 40 is also Celsius.

[00:12:34] So this puts a stake in the ground, but then also like very high temperatures, like 40 plus.

[00:12:39] So very different.

[00:12:42] And obviously that affects how we design for passive strategies.

[00:12:46] Can you explain, I suppose, just for people like me who, you know, I'm not an architect or an engineer.

[00:12:53] What are some of the problems with using, we'll say a traditional passive house standard in somewhere, maybe like Florida, you know, or Phoenix, which is just a totally different, different climate zone?

[00:13:03] What would the building do?

[00:13:06] So now you pick to some really interesting extremes, right?

[00:13:10] Like Florida is like almost tropical.

[00:13:13] So there you have the heat and the humidity.

[00:13:15] And then in Phoenix, it's dry heat, as they say.

[00:13:19] It's just dry heat, but it's extremely, extremely hot, right?

[00:13:24] So yes.

[00:13:25] So down there, very obvious, like cooling is our dominating design criteria on our boundary condition.

[00:13:32] And at that point, like if you put on too much insulation, you'll keep the internal heat gains in.

[00:13:38] And that's not the idea.

[00:13:40] So it's really important that you have the right configured amount of insulation.

[00:13:45] We're not saying no insulation, but you need to really look at the specific conditions in that location to get the right amount.

[00:13:52] And that is really crucial because otherwise you're going to end up with a ton of overheating.

[00:13:57] And so the problem then is like, what do people do?

[00:14:01] They buy bigger air conditioners.

[00:14:03] Okay.

[00:14:04] Mission not accomplished.

[00:14:06] Because, okay, great.

[00:14:07] Like, yay, we have no more heating.

[00:14:09] Yeah, well, but you just increase your cooling load.

[00:14:11] And we're seeing that over and over and over.

[00:14:14] Not just in climates like Phoenix or Florida.

[00:14:17] We're also seeing this with big buildings in Massachusetts, right?

[00:14:20] Because the German tool is not really able to assess the cooling accurately.

[00:14:25] So everybody's like, yay, we crushed the heating.

[00:14:29] And because we're super insulating, we're buying triple pane windows for really big internal load dominated buildings.

[00:14:35] So what they're doing is like they're trapping all the internal gains.

[00:14:40] And I'm, again, not saying that we should not insulate, but it's really important to find that sweet spot between losses and gains in those more difficult situations.

[00:14:52] So, and I'm mentioning the high internal gain building, a big building in the north.

[00:14:58] It behaves almost like as if it was a building in like a southern climate, you know, because of that fact that its internal load dominated.

[00:15:06] And at that point, the system needs to focus on cooling strategies.

[00:15:11] And unfortunately, the passive toolbox does not have that many knobs to turn for cooling.

[00:15:18] So we're quite limited.

[00:15:20] But the good news is that in that case, the air tightness is really a change.

[00:15:25] And that's not only to reduce the cooling mode, but also to actually control the humidity.

[00:15:32] So you mentioned Florida, a very air tight, air tightly sealed building.

[00:15:39] At that point, we, yeah, that we manage heat gain.

[00:15:47] Of course, we manage like heat losses or cooling losses and we manage all the humidity.

[00:15:53] Interesting. Interesting.

[00:15:55] So what would you, I suppose in simple terms, what would you do differently?

[00:15:59] Would it be less insulation, more ventilation or something if you're in a warmer climate?

[00:16:05] Actually, you want to ventilate right.

[00:16:08] Insulate right and ventilate right.

[00:16:11] So again, in the warmer climates, it's really critical also to minimize your ventilation rates to what you really only need.

[00:16:19] Because if you over ventilate, it's hot outside, it's humid outside.

[00:16:23] You bring in all this moisture that you then have to kind of like basically take out of the air again.

[00:16:28] And then you need humidifiers and humidifiers use energy.

[00:16:31] So it's a really quite delicate balancing act.

[00:16:35] But once you have the tools to do that, and we developed a modeling tool for that,

[00:16:40] that has like basically our climate specific targets built in.

[00:16:44] So every location has basically their own custom targets to get at that delicate sweet spot.

[00:16:51] And it also has a special target for different building typologies.

[00:16:55] Again, big buildings active among small buildings.

[00:16:58] And that tool allows you to do that.

[00:17:01] Like if you were trying to guess, like no chance.

[00:17:05] So, yeah.

[00:17:07] Is this being used on a master plan level or sort of thinking about multiple buildings

[00:17:13] and how they might interact together in terms of the urban form?

[00:17:16] I suppose I'm thinking about things like traditional urbanism in hotter climates.

[00:17:21] Buildings tend to be closer together so there's more shading and things like that.

[00:17:26] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:17:27] It all starts with city planning, right?

[00:17:30] Like urban planning and how the buildings shade each other, like solar right-of-ways.

[00:17:34] And in hot climates we're not only talking passive buildings anymore, passive principles.

[00:17:41] We're also talking active, photovoltaic, small storage systems.

[00:17:46] Because guess what?

[00:17:48] Like we're doing all this not only for energy efficiency but also for resilience.

[00:17:52] And in those hot climates the passive principles only go so far.

[00:17:58] So, let's say the power goes out and like we have a resilience calculator now where we measure how high does the temperature rise if the power goes out in a like five day period during the hottest period of the year in that climate.

[00:18:16] And in the cooling case, yeah, no, you need some backup because otherwise, especially if it's combined with humidity, you know, like humidity and temperature when they both get up to high, it's a deadly condition.

[00:18:34] Yeah.

[00:18:34] So, yeah, the cooling climates are definitely really challenging, especially in the wind climates.

[00:18:43] Yeah, the resilience point is really interesting because I think also even what we might consider cool climates or temperate climates are changing with climate change and seeing things like heat waves frequently during the summer.

[00:18:58] And I think we've all probably experienced that in the last couple of years at some point.

[00:19:02] So, is that sort of changing, I suppose, how you're thinking about passive design as well?

[00:19:09] Yes, absolutely.

[00:19:10] So, I think of the German standard a little bit as training wheels, you know, because it was developed for a very like simple climate zone, actually, the central European moderate heating dominated climate.

[00:19:24] So, not too many complications like cooling or humidity.

[00:19:28] And so, where was I going with this?

[00:19:33] Yeah, training wheels.

[00:19:34] And then, so, in the evolution of fears, so we started there and then we looked at all the other climates.

[00:19:41] We came up with a solution of custom climate zones for each location and for each building typology.

[00:19:48] And then from there now, we're actually looking at is this even like now, so we're doing all this, of course, as a baseline for zero, right?

[00:19:57] Like, we have to get to absolute zero, we have to get our buildings to absolute zero, and therefore, we need the sweet spot for high performance and energy efficiency.

[00:20:06] But, so now, like everybody's getting so good at this, they're like looking at the embodied carbon, they're like, okay, now we need to take that into account too.

[00:20:15] And we're currently developing a standard.

[00:20:17] We already launched it as our retrofit standard, Revive 2024.

[00:20:21] We're like, well, wait a minute, is this even a good idea to use EUI or like the energy use intensity per square meter per foot as a guiding kind of target?

[00:20:34] Maybe we should think about it as the resilience is really what we're after.

[00:20:40] So, this is why we developed these calculation protocols and algorithms for the summer and the winter for worst case scenario climate data.

[00:20:49] And, so, at that point, we can actually then even try to optimize the insulation even further.

[00:20:55] So, can we reduce the insulation?

[00:20:57] How far can we reduce the insulation that still maintains survivability?

[00:21:01] That's the key.

[00:21:02] And, at that point, we're optimizing for both, for operational energy and for embodied energy.

[00:21:07] And, at that point, we got a calculation tool that hopefully allows us to take the building sector to something that I would have to call absolute zero, actually.

[00:21:19] Really, really good point.

[00:21:20] And thanks for coming on to this point of zero carbon because I think it is important for people, I suppose, people who are maybe newer to this topic, to remind them that Passive House and Net Zero or zero carbon are not the same thing.

[00:21:33] And BREEAM and Net Zero are not the same thing.

[00:21:35] LEED and Net Zero are not the same thing.

[00:21:37] So, it's important to sort of know what the different terminology is.

[00:21:41] But equally, people who are maybe a bit more in this world, they may be aware of criticisms about Passive House being quite high in embodied, sometimes being quite high in embodied carbon.

[00:21:52] So, that's interesting to hear that you're thinking about – we still want to aim for good operational energy, of course, and things like insulation and the right materials will be part of that.

[00:22:04] But it's like, let's not overdo it beyond what is necessary.

[00:22:08] Exactly.

[00:22:08] More is not necessarily better.

[00:22:12] We want to reduce it to what we need, but not more.

[00:22:16] Make it simple, but not – make it simple, but not – how does this go?

[00:22:22] Make it simple, but not too simple.

[00:22:27] And does the type of materials you're using play into this as well?

[00:22:32] Yeah, no, absolutely.

[00:22:33] So, and our community is super enthusiastic about new materials that are showing up in the market.

[00:22:40] Like, I know Europe has done this for a while, the kind of like wood fiber products for insulation.

[00:22:48] And it has taken a really long time to inspire people over here to do the same, the mass timber.

[00:22:54] But now people are really positioning themselves, and it's coming on very strong.

[00:22:58] So, we have now a semi-rigid wood fiber insulation board.

[00:23:03] We have – you can even use that under the slab.

[00:23:05] So, there are plenty of people who are now trying to really get the entire envelope down to, like, ideally positive carbon.

[00:23:15] Kind of tough pick to do.

[00:23:16] You still need windows.

[00:23:18] But, again, like, that also, again, that speaks to, like, we need to use the right standard because currently, if you use the German standard on a high-rise in – or, like, even just, like, a mid-rise multifamily building in Massachusetts,

[00:23:32] it will tell you you need triple-pane windows, like, in really big buildings.

[00:23:35] And we would say, like, no, you only need really good double-pane windows.

[00:23:40] Again, to, like, there's this balance, like, double-pane windows allow for some losses.

[00:23:45] And if cooling is your design condition, then that every little bit helps.

[00:23:51] So, if you can save a third pane of dust, yay, you know?

[00:23:55] Like, we're making progress in our optimization from body curve.

[00:24:00] I remember ages ago, probably in, like, one of the early episodes I did, another sustainability – well, an architect with a sustainability specialization said to me the exact same thing.

[00:24:13] He said triple-glazing is not worth the embodied carbon most of the time.

[00:24:18] That's why he specifies double-glazing.

[00:24:19] That's really funny that that has come up again.

[00:24:21] Well, I don't entirely agree because it makes a big difference in very cold climates and small building typologies.

[00:24:27] And even in super-hot climates, it might pan out all right.

[00:24:32] That's why we need a tool that can actually look at all these different elements in body carbon, operational carbon, and start optimizing all these things against each other.

[00:24:42] And we have fears, by the way, also we use cost because cost is the ultimate deciding factor.

[00:24:48] If you come up with, like, a system that nobody can afford, like, woo-hoo, great, nobody's going to do it.

[00:24:55] Yeah, and Passive House within the UK has come along to a point now where there's architects that specialize in it and do deliver larger schemes, multi-family apartment buildings and that.

[00:25:08] They're able – you know, I've seen them report that actually the costs are a tiny, you know, a fraction more than doing it in a conventional way just because they've –

[00:25:18] they've – it's, I don't know, the supply chains are there, they've done it enough times, they're designing it properly.

[00:25:23] So actually it's barely any more expensive now, which is fantastic to hear.

[00:25:28] That's what we're seeing here too.

[00:25:30] Yeah, great.

[00:25:33] Something else that I think is interesting on the material aspect is you're dealing with such a large area, you know, of the US,

[00:25:40] and what sort of materials you might have locally available will be quite different, won't it?

[00:25:46] I mean, I imagine if you're in – I'm going to use Arizona again as an example.

[00:25:51] You know, you probably don't want to be importing timber from California as a sustainable way of building your building.

[00:25:58] No.

[00:25:59] So, well, that's again the great thing about passive hours.

[00:26:02] Like, what about German or passive building or our version?

[00:26:05] You really can – like, it's material agnostic as long as you hit your performance targets

[00:26:13] and as long as you hit now also as we're starting thinking about carbon-year-carbon reduction targets.

[00:26:18] So it's all about math and physics in the end.

[00:26:21] And that's the greatness.

[00:26:23] No, this is really great.

[00:26:24] We're in the age of computer and high-performance computing.

[00:26:27] Come on, let's do this.

[00:26:30] Well, what do you – how do you feel passive hours – well, I'll stop saying passive hours, but fierce.

[00:26:38] How do you feel fierce is in the US at the moment?

[00:26:42] It sounds like it's getting more mainstream.

[00:26:46] But what do you think needs to be done to sort of get it from there to, well, much more mainstream, I guess?

[00:26:52] Well, it's – well, there's a really good news part to that and maybe, like, challenging part of the news.

[00:27:00] So we've been working for two decades now to try to talk to code people and policymakers.

[00:27:08] And they finally – kind of like – it took a long time to establish credibility in the market.

[00:27:13] We worked a lot with the Department of Energy, with the National Labs, with our past building standards for different climate zones.

[00:27:19] So that all kind of, like, backed it up, right?

[00:27:21] Like, worked with the Building Science Corporation, like, very well-established building science people in the United States that gave us credibility.

[00:27:29] And therefore, then, the code people felt comfortable to write it into their often stretch code in Massachusetts.

[00:27:35] And that is really the biggest development at the moment because they are pioneering a model, a combination of incentives of the right high-performance standards.

[00:27:47] And they also did a test run before.

[00:27:51] They had, like, eight fierce buildings built and then compared the cost.

[00:27:55] And on average, that came out to about 2% over, like, a regular code building.

[00:28:00] And at that point, they said, like, OMG, we can't afford not to do it, right?

[00:28:05] So at that point, they wrote it into the current open stretch code.

[00:28:09] And now all multifamily buildings larger than 12,000 square feet have to meet festival standards.

[00:28:16] So that's huge.

[00:28:17] And word has it that next year we're going to see about 280-plus projects out of Massachusetts alone.

[00:28:25] And these projects are big.

[00:28:27] Like, they're really, really big because you see why it's also in the housing crisis.

[00:28:31] People are building a lot of multifamily, large-scale buildings.

[00:28:35] A lot of them are affordable, which is also good news because people are getting really high-quality, great buildings,

[00:28:42] hopefully helping to kind of, like, dispel a little bit the reputation of affordable housing.

[00:28:49] Like, let's get that righted and we'll get to the renovations too.

[00:28:55] But if you build new, build right from the get-go.

[00:28:59] So where are we at that?

[00:29:04] We are making progress.

[00:29:06] We are in, I think, 20-plus qualified allocation plans across the country.

[00:29:11] So we're trying to roll out this model Massachusetts has pioneered over the United States.

[00:29:18] And, like, we work with different states, Minnesota, Michigan, Chicago, California, Colorado.

[00:29:25] And we try to basically bring people along, look at this example of Massachusetts.

[00:29:30] They're doing really great and it's really not that hard, da-da-da.

[00:29:33] Well, this is easily said.

[00:29:35] But if somebody now throws this, like, code change on the building industry, this is a shock to the system.

[00:29:41] That's what we're experiencing right now in Massachusetts.

[00:29:44] People really need to get trained up, the workforce development.

[00:29:48] So it takes all these different parts to play together.

[00:29:52] The complex network, we're working as fast and quickly as we can to train up the building industry.

[00:29:59] Like, now we have people sign up, like, the entire staff, like 40 builders.

[00:30:03] Like, they send 40 people at a time to build us training.

[00:30:07] They train their entire crew.

[00:30:09] It's pretty wild.

[00:30:12] So in that sense, the question, I think we're doing really well.

[00:30:16] We're pioneering how to mainstream it in Massachusetts.

[00:30:20] Thank you, policymakers in Massachusetts, that you were willing to jump.

[00:30:27] But if and when this is successful, which I believe it will, I think the rest of the country will follow.

[00:30:32] And, of course, there's lots of activity in New York State, too.

[00:30:35] But they started out strong initially.

[00:30:37] That's where we were the strongest.

[00:30:39] And then Massachusetts looked to New York and said, like, we can do this better.

[00:30:43] So a little competition never hurts anyone.

[00:30:47] Interesting that it's Massachusetts that has been the frontrunner.

[00:30:50] Do you think there's any particular reason for that?

[00:30:54] Good question.

[00:30:56] Very smart people live in Massachusetts.

[00:30:58] I don't know if that's due to all these universities.

[00:31:01] Yeah.

[00:31:02] They're like, yeah, that's what we want, you know.

[00:31:06] So that's my best guess.

[00:31:08] They have always been telling your heads on.

[00:31:11] Really?

[00:31:12] Yeah.

[00:31:13] That's interesting.

[00:31:14] I think it's an interesting, I guess, case study in how sustainability transitions happen in different industries.

[00:31:24] It's, you know, they can be painfully slow.

[00:31:28] And, you know, I think that story of you starting with your one, you know, building your home with the standard in the early 2000s.

[00:31:34] Right.

[00:31:35] And, you know, sort of almost 20 years later, it's now starting to peak and hopefully accelerating now to becoming much more mainstream.

[00:31:43] And that's exactly what we're seeing, right?

[00:31:44] Like this hockey stick curve.

[00:31:46] Yeah.

[00:31:46] I was so impatient.

[00:31:48] Like, I'm like, okay, there's one, there's two, there's five, you know.

[00:31:51] So for like a long time, it was really flat.

[00:31:54] And then all of a sudden, it went up.

[00:31:56] But I, and I have to tell you, like the exponential growth started with the climate-specific standards because people did consider the climate, the non-climate-specific German passive standards as too extreme.

[00:32:12] Which it is when you look at it from an optimization perspective, right?

[00:32:17] Again, I said this earlier, more is not necessarily better.

[00:32:21] So, so we were able to actually make it better, reduce the investment costs, reduce the embodied carbon by these new standards.

[00:32:30] So, yeah.

[00:32:32] And, and once we did that, like people were like, okay, cool.

[00:32:36] Now we can go.

[00:32:38] And in terms of the net zero carbon piece, in terms of, you know, obviously the goal we need to get to is all new buildings being net zero carbon, I guess eventually true zero carbon.

[00:32:51] What, what do you think are the missing pieces in terms of making that happen alongside what FIAS is doing?

[00:32:58] We're feeling our way forward on that one.

[00:33:00] I know there was the energy sprung initiative, right?

[00:33:05] And that's still going in Europe.

[00:33:07] The Rocky Mountain Institute way back when, 2016 brought the leaders of that movement over for a stakeholder workshop.

[00:33:15] And then there were a couple of projects that got kicked loose in the United States.

[00:33:20] The DOE invested a whole bunch, a bunch more money into a follow-up project that's called the Advanced Building Collaborative.

[00:33:30] And that was aimed at like developing large scale industrialized construction for high performance buildings.

[00:33:38] So they are working on that end, like from the really big end.

[00:33:42] I see our standard like, again, coming up from like maybe more like grassroots, like here the tools, you know.

[00:33:47] And we were part of that initiative.

[00:33:51] And they are, we will be experts who are supposed to set the level of energy efficiency for these industrialized construction techniques.

[00:34:01] And the report that came out by RMI at the end of the first phase of this project actually did recommend FIAS for almost all like construction,

[00:34:10] new and retrofit throughout all climate zones.

[00:34:15] So that was pretty great.

[00:34:20] But that has not really been put into practice as a program that they are rolling out.

[00:34:27] So I'm not entirely sure what the next step is because it's pretty daunting.

[00:34:33] Massachusetts, again, is ahead of everybody else.

[00:34:35] They're starting to write a similar stretch code for retrofits.

[00:34:40] And they're incorporating our standards in that one as far as I know.

[00:34:43] So we'll see.

[00:34:45] That's pretty much all I can say.

[00:34:48] I know, I know we have to do it.

[00:34:50] And that will be the big challenge.

[00:34:53] That really will be the big challenge.

[00:34:56] Absolutely.

[00:34:56] Absolutely.

[00:34:57] I mean, retrofit is such a huge, huge topic.

[00:35:01] And I think can be contentious.

[00:35:05] And I think some people feel it might be too much state intervention.

[00:35:09] And there's so many tricky issues around it.

[00:35:12] And yet, go back to physics again, from a purely physics point of view, we know it needs to be done in many cases.

[00:35:20] Maybe just focusing on the worst performing buildings or the most vulnerable people if we can't do everything.

[00:35:28] Well, and then also the other knob we can turn is further decarbonize the grid, right?

[00:35:35] I think initially we're all so laser-focused on the buildings.

[00:35:38] They have to do it all because this is the biggest savings potential.

[00:35:42] But there has been so much progress on that other end, too.

[00:35:46] So things are constantly changing.

[00:35:48] We need to keep up our optimization algorithms to respond to that.

[00:35:53] And then maybe things will get easier.

[00:35:55] Then we'll not have to do all of the buildings.

[00:35:58] Maybe we can just do the worst performance.

[00:36:00] And the rest will do over time.

[00:36:02] And the grid has decarbonized already enough.

[00:36:05] So I'm not pessimistic about it.

[00:36:08] I'm pessimistic about trying to retrofit everything in no time, right?

[00:36:12] In a e-sprung, we need like 1,000 units every day.

[00:36:15] I'm like, how is this possible?

[00:36:18] So we just need to let ourselves off the hook, I think, a little bit.

[00:36:22] We don't need that pressure.

[00:36:24] We need to do it right.

[00:36:26] And count on the other guys.

[00:36:27] It's the grid renovators and decarbonizers.

[00:36:35] Yeah, yeah.

[00:36:36] It's an interesting one because it is multiple industries having to change simultaneously and interacting with each other.

[00:36:42] And I think there's these interesting ripple effects where if you start to put forward a standard like FIUS, what does that start to tell to supply chains and to other suppliers?

[00:36:54] And how they respond to that is difficult to sort of predict all of that and control it all.

[00:36:59] But it sounds like everything is moving in the right direction.

[00:37:04] Yes, I'm hopeful.

[00:37:06] Yeah, yeah.

[00:37:08] Well, before we finish up, I can't believe how quickly our time has gone.

[00:37:12] I was really enjoying the conversation.

[00:37:14] But in terms of people who might be listening who are architects or developers or planners, what sort of advice can you give to them in terms of starting to bring some of this into their work?

[00:37:25] Well, excellent question.

[00:37:27] We are at Greenbuild this year, the International Greenbuild Conference in Philadelphia.

[00:37:31] We have a track in there.

[00:37:33] They took notice of us and they said, like, we want to bring your knowledge to our community.

[00:37:38] And we wanted to do it because there are a lot of architects out there who have not kind of had an opportunity to get introduced.

[00:37:46] And it might be a little daunting at first if you have not been, like, seen, if you have not seen anything like it.

[00:37:54] So we're trying to very carefully, like, lead people to the topic.

[00:38:01] And I think it'll be intuitive, hopefully.

[00:38:07] We've come far.

[00:38:09] So it's no longer, I don't think people still have to worry that they are being experimented on.

[00:38:14] We have a proven system now, and that's what we need to communicate.

[00:38:19] And then they can do great work, right?

[00:38:22] Like, they're part of the solution and no longer part of the problem.

[00:38:25] So I'm actually looking forward to broadening the stakeholders.

[00:38:30] And then also we just created a new training set online.

[00:38:37] We call it the foundations training.

[00:38:39] It's not about building foundations.

[00:38:41] It's about passive building principles foundations.

[00:38:45] So it's a very high-level self-guided online training that if an exam is taken at the end, people will earn the fee as associate degree.

[00:38:57] But it is essentially you're taking it.

[00:39:01] You come away of the big picture, the whys and the main principles, the basic building science that goes into it, like the basic kind of products that people have to consider, how it intersects with, like, renewable energy.

[00:39:15] Like, again, with an eye towards, like, going to zero.

[00:39:19] It's a great introduction before people might commit to take the more technical trainings, like the certified passive consultant training or the certified builders training.

[00:39:28] So I would recommend starting with that.

[00:39:32] That's a very low-entry kind of just great overview to get your feet wet.

[00:39:39] Great.

[00:39:39] That sounds great.

[00:39:40] I'll put a link to that in the episode description so people can go and check it out if they're interested.

[00:39:45] That'd be great.

[00:39:46] And yeah, actually, a final question for you, which I might then edit back into the start, which is, are people, or is the, because you're looking at so many different climate zones, are those standards now being used in other countries that don't have their own standards?

[00:40:02] So we have been, we've been asked about exporting them.

[00:40:07] So the only partner we have so far is Japan.

[00:40:11] And they have, they have been doing really great work over there.

[00:40:14] They've translated our training into the Japanese language.

[00:40:17] They are offering certified passive-ass certified training.

[00:40:23] And so, but because the whole, like putting all the systems together was a little bit like building the plane in flight.

[00:40:31] I feel like now we've got the jumbo up in the air now that the challenge is to keep it up in the air, right?

[00:40:37] But this is why I've been really hesitant going into other countries because I came over here.

[00:40:42] I used the German thing and I implemented it here.

[00:40:45] And aside from like the, the differences in climate-specific construction that really had to get fixed, we ran into so much.

[00:40:53] You mentioned it earlier, different materials, different culture.

[00:40:58] There's just so much that needs to get translated.

[00:41:00] So we are sitting in the waiting position, holding position.

[00:41:05] We have a website set up for the people who have approached us, like who want to work with us internationally.

[00:41:10] We have essentially our climate-specific standards are for the ASHRAE climate zones, which is like worldwide, right?

[00:41:18] So we have that information.

[00:41:20] But really then the real challenge becomes like having a trustworthy partner who is strong in building science

[00:41:27] and knows about this transfer that is not necessarily building science, that is not necessarily like the guiding targets.

[00:41:35] There's more like culture and codes and materials available and all that kind of stuff.

[00:41:42] But we're getting close.

[00:41:43] So to answer your question, we have a handful of international projects.

[00:41:47] We're definitely in Canada and in Mexico and Japan, for sure.

[00:41:53] We have been asked by South Korea.

[00:41:56] We have a project in South Korea and China.

[00:42:02] But again, we want to make sure we have the system really, really nailed down before we export it anywhere.

[00:42:10] Because again, I learned the hard way.

[00:42:11] It was not right.

[00:42:14] No, like just use it.

[00:42:15] It works everywhere.

[00:42:15] No, not true.

[00:42:17] So I don't want to put anybody else in that position.

[00:42:20] This was a very hard lesson to learn.

[00:42:24] That's great.

[00:42:24] That's great.

[00:42:25] Yeah, that makes total sense.

[00:42:27] And that's sort of why I was interested in asking.

[00:42:29] Because yeah, I think we often, as urban designers, planners, architects, end up sometimes exporting our best practice to other cultures

[00:42:40] where it isn't actually really appropriate to do that with the best of intentions.

[00:42:46] So good to hear how critically I suppose you're thinking about that.

[00:42:51] Marvelous.

[00:42:52] I think that's it in terms of the questions.

[00:42:56] But if you had any final thoughts or comments or if you want to point anyone towards anything, you can let me know now before we finish up.

[00:43:03] Well, just like a little word of wisdom.

[00:43:06] Well, for one, I was in a passive house in London and I was totally impressed.

[00:43:10] It was super awesome.

[00:43:11] It was actually a high rise.

[00:43:12] It wasn't advertised as such, but I could see construction.

[00:43:17] Like, oh, this is super cool.

[00:43:19] So it's really great to see how the zero energy ready construction high performance is taking off and is becoming mainstream in Europe, much more so already than over here.

[00:43:33] But I would like to encourage, especially you guys in the UK.

[00:43:36] And like I know Scotland is looking at a passive house like a passive house standard.

[00:43:42] I would encourage you to look at the climate specific standards and see what you can get out of that.

[00:43:48] We developed those for the Department of Energy Renewable Energy Laboratory.

[00:43:52] All the information is out there.

[00:43:54] It's publicly available.

[00:43:56] It's free.

[00:43:57] Anybody who wants to read it, use it.

[00:44:00] It really helps to optimize for embodied carbon operational energy, the buildings that should be the baseline for all zero energy renewables.

[00:44:08] Energy creation.