The Grace Period is Over Zero at No Cost by 2030

00:00:02:29 - 00:00:24:24
Mike Collignon: You know, we're in the middle of National Business Women's Week. Lucky for us, we've got one on the program today. And let me tell you, we're getting down to business in this webinar. The business of net zero. We're going to explore how to reach net zero in the housing sector by 2030 with sustainable design and construction practices and on site microgrid renewable energy generation.

00:00:24:25 - 00:00:52:09
Mike Collignon: Now, who is this we I'm referring to? Well, the first of our duo today is Sarah Goodman, co-founder and CEO of Green Builder Media. Sarah is a former venture capitalist and graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College and holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Finance from the University of Colorado. She's going to lead us through some cognition, smart data and market intelligence about net zero energy, water and carbon trends, including consumer demand preferences and purchase patterns.

00:00:52:10 - 00:01:20:01
Mike Collignon: Now, the other person in our super duo is Sameer Ashkan, former chief architect at the Department of Energy and founder of the housing 2.0 program. And that includes his latest book, housing 2.0 A Disruption Survival Guide. Now, today, he's going to explain how a zero energy ready can be accomplished with one simple federal government policy change at no cost to the Treasury, while yielding massive economic, environmental, job growth and health benefits to the nation.

00:01:20:05 - 00:01:47:09
Mike Collignon: Now, before we go any further, this is National Business Women's Week and all I need to tell you about some companies that employ some dynamic business women. They also happen to be our sponsors. The first is Mitsubishi Electric. Mitsubishi Electric promote sustainable building through the electrification of residential and commercial heating and cooling products. Their mission is to advance technologies that reduce waste output, promote sustainable resource cycles while increasing energy efficiency, and eliminate dependance on fossil fuels.

00:01:47:12 - 00:02:26:01
Mike Collignon: Next is Westlake Royal Building Products. They are the North American leader in the innovation, design and production of a broad and diverse range of exterior and interior building products, including siding and accessories, trim and moldings, roofing, stone windows and outdoor living. For more than 50 years, Westlake Royal Building Products has many quality maintenance products, meets specifications and needs of building professionals, homeowners, architects, engineers and distributors while providing stunning curb appeal with an unmatched array of color styles and more information, please visit the website, which is Westlake Royal Building Products.

00:02:26:04 - 00:02:56:06
Mike Collignon: Com. We've also got Schneider Electric. They are driving the digital transformation of modern homes with smart and sustainable energy solutions for ultimate comfort and energy efficiency. They're connected home ecosystem of smart energy management solutions provides digital control of energy use throughout a home from the grid, either smart electrical panel they're connected wiring devices. This grid to plug solution makes it significantly easier to create smart solar power and backup power homes, both now and in the future.

00:02:56:09 - 00:03:22:20
Mike Collignon: And did you know that Panasonic Healthy Indoor Solutions is helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and cost effective indoor air quality solutions that provide a safer environment for home buyers. And Power Shifts by NV energy is a program that helps residential and business customers conserve energy and save money on their power bills. Power shift is a one stop resource to find energy efficient products and services.

00:03:22:21 - 00:03:30:11
Mike Collignon: For more information on their program, please visit n d energy.

00:03:30:14 - 00:03:54:19
Mike Collignon: Finally, we have our newest sponsor, DuPont. Performance Building Solutions is a global innovation leader in the building and construction industry, providing products and materials for all six sides of the building envelope by developing solutions for managing the air, water and thermal performance of buildings and residences, and helps their customers build energy efficient, resilient and durable shelters in a rapidly changing world.

00:03:54:25 - 00:04:18:12
Mike Collignon: Backed by unmatched insight, building knowledge and technical support, as well as third class brands such as Tyvek, Tire and Great Stuff. Their products and services portfolio enables customers to focus on what they do best, no matter where and how they choose to build. All right. Did you know you can submit questions for Sara and Sam? You can simply use the questions box in the go to webinar control panel.

00:04:18:12 - 00:04:32:01
Mike Collignon: I'm going to review those questions and pose them to Sara and Sam during the Q&A time set aside after the presentation. Sara. Since it is the National Business Women's Week, it is only appropriate. We start with you.

00:04:32:03 - 00:04:59:05
Sara Gutterman: Thank you so much, Mike, and thanks to everyone here in attendance. Really always happy to have the opportunity to present Green Builder Media Insights and Cognition Smart Data. And thank you so much to Sam for joining forces with us on the housing 2.0 program. And then a special thank you to Mary Kestner, our production manager, who's the wizard behind the curtain making it all happen.

00:04:59:07 - 00:05:31:11
Sara Gutterman: I want to just note, Mike, that was a rather lengthy intro with all of our sponsor information. But clearly what that shows is that there are not only exceptional companies and utilities that are supporting our work, but are really helping to transform the housing sector in the building industry. And so, Sam, again, really shout out to you for conceiving of the housing 2.0 program and joining forces with us to launch and disseminated.

00:05:31:11 - 00:05:56:18
Sara Gutterman: And again, thanks to all of our attendees, because you're the proof point that housing transformation is here, and that what we're discussing today and every day is of paramount importance and very much supported at all levels of the industry. So I'm going to start off with some information about net zero, the concept, what it means, why it's important and why it's really inevitable.

00:05:56:18 - 00:06:16:11
Sara Gutterman: And then I'm going to try to speed through my part fairly quickly and pass things over to Sam so that he can take the bulk of our time to talk about some of his thoughts and insights, which are pretty extraordinary. So when people think about net zero, I would say most often we think about net zero energy. That's kind of the default and the low hanging fruit in some respects.

00:06:16:11 - 00:07:07:13
Sara Gutterman: But when we talk about net zero, we really look at net zero energy water waste decarbonization. So net zero carbon. And so that really broadens this discussion about what net zero is and how we can get there and what we have to do to get there in the built environment. And that all of a sudden becomes a lot more comprehensive a discussion if we're looking at things like carbon emission cycles and everything in terms of the net zero roadmap, from expedited renewable energy adoption to the electrification of the built environment, and that should say, transportation, the complete transformation of our manufacturing and industrial processes, different land use approaches and processes, and then certainly shifting valuation

00:07:07:13 - 00:07:42:26
Sara Gutterman: metrics and lending practices. So why do we even care? Why is getting to net zero in the built environment important? Here are some statistics that Sam and myself and others that talk about this regularly cite quite often in terms of energy use, electricity use, carbon emissions. To me, perhaps the most daunting stat on this slide that we all cite a lot is just the fact that over the next 35 years is expected that 2,000,000,000,000ft² of built space will be constructed every 35 days, right?

00:07:42:28 - 00:08:06:27
Sara Gutterman: So that's the equivalent of basically the size of New York City. And so you can understand why getting to net zero energy, water and carbon is of paramount importance. If basically we're going to have a chance not just evading our climate goals, but really of survival. So, right, that's the sense of urgency. That's the level of urgency that we're talking about right now.

00:08:06:29 - 00:08:38:28
Sara Gutterman: So when we think about getting to net zero, we have to start by considering sustainable design. And this isn't just about orientation and looking at passive house strategies, but it's really about designing based on a changing climate. Designing for climate responsiveness. In our cognition smart data, we collect a lot of data around climate related sentiment and purchase drivers.

00:08:38:28 - 00:09:08:15
Sara Gutterman: And we recently just finished a survey where we asked home owners and home buyers about the climate related aspects that impact them the most when making home buying decisions and extreme temperatures was the number one response. And so we need to start designing with extreme temperature and other climate related disasters, whether those are wildfires in the West or super storms and flooding in the East.

00:09:08:15 - 00:09:37:00
Sara Gutterman: With all of those things in mind. And then we can go to proper orientation and thermal mass and building envelope and duct losses and things like that. We also absolutely cannot talk about net zero, of course, without talking about energy efficiency. Fortunately, the main point here, without going into all of the details and the stats on this slide, is that the numbers are penciling out, especially if we're looking at full cost rather than first cost.

00:09:37:00 - 00:10:15:11
Sara Gutterman: I think we can all agree that first cost is no longer a relevant valuation metric, and we shouldn't be building homes that are just based on lowest upfront cost, because all that means is that we are building the homes with the worst performance that are not healthy, not connected, not resilient, not renewable energy powered. But if we look at that full cost and we look at how we're going to actually end up saving homeowners money, making builders more money on the front end because of that value proposition, all of a sudden this becomes a no brainer.

00:10:15:13 - 00:11:04:16
Sara Gutterman: The pathway to net zero also has to go through electrification. Unfortunately, we're seeing jurisdictions from coast to coast either require or incentivize electrification. And then that's being followed by incredible advances in electrification, enabling technologies, net zero enabling technologies. So everything from solar plus storage to super high performance HVAC, water heating systems, induction cooktops, dryers, demand side energy management systems, which are optimizing energy use within the home, but then also helping to reduce grid stress by doing things like peak load shifting and shedding.

00:11:04:18 - 00:11:34:23
Sara Gutterman: Also things like electrical vehicle to grid technology, which allow EVs to be kind of that backup power source, either in times of peak load to reduce that grid stress, or in times of, you know, when the grid's down or emergency. But again, we have to look beyond energy to net zero water. We are seeing water tap fees explode across the country.

00:11:34:24 - 00:12:17:28
Sara Gutterman: Here where I am in Colorado, water tap fees have increased by up to 400% in some municipalities along the Front Range. And, you know, we're really seeing the price of access to water and kind of halting developments and communities. And, you know, let's be honest, if there's no water, there are no permits. We are also starting to see a lot of municipalities across the country require net zero water impact plans and studies that have to be submitted by builders and developers before they actually get a permit or before they get approved for communities and developments.

00:12:17:28 - 00:13:01:11
Sara Gutterman: Now, fortunately, we're also seeing a lot of advancements on the water innovation side, everything from low flow plumbing fixtures and appliances, which is just the baseline, right? That's just a no brainer and should be in every single home. But all the way through to, you know, big increases in adoption of leak detection and water monitoring systems, we're actually seeing movement on the water utility side to drive those types of systems greywater systems, smart irrigation systems, roof and rainwater capture systems, things like structured plumbing and then hot water recirculation switches, which also have huge impacts on water use and also energy use from water heating.

00:13:01:11 - 00:13:29:27
Sara Gutterman: And then some really cool technologies that we have our eye on, like atmospheric generators that pull water out of the air for potable water. And these are now not just for more human climates, but they've actually some of this technology has been created by the the Department of Defense for very arid climates as well. And then, of course, you know, we need to shift the whole discussion to net zero carbon.

00:13:29:27 - 00:14:00:14
Sara Gutterman: And this is looking at that entire life cycle of carbon emissions, from raw material extraction to transportation to manufacturing to more transportation to use in a building all the way through to end of life. We are starting to see net zero carbon codes getting adopted, like in Oregon, that are pretty aggressive in terms of carbon reductions in both new and existing buildings.

00:14:00:16 - 00:14:35:25
Sara Gutterman: And then, of course, we've got the Inflation Reduction Act, which is obviously going to provide a tremendous amount of funding in rebates and incentives for everything from electric heating and cooling systems, water heating, induction cooktops, heat pump technology, renewable energy. And so, you know, we aren't totally clear on how building professionals and homeowners are going to be able to access those funds.

00:14:35:25 - 00:15:12:19
Sara Gutterman: Those guidelines are expected within the next I don't know, let's say 2 to 8 weeks. Sam may have a clearer line of sight into when we'll kind of really start finalizing, you know, kind of those allocations of those funds. But suffice to say, I do think that the Inflation Reduction Act is going to really create a sea change in terms of the cost efficacy of net zero energy, water and carbon upgrades and technologies in the built environment.

00:15:12:21 - 00:15:48:13
Sara Gutterman: Now beyond the IRA, we are starting to see more incentives, like municipalities offering reductions on property taxes for net zero and all electric homes. Certainly we're seeing a greater adoption of technology, sustainable design and building science best practices. We're also seeing a lot of performance modeling and metrics, both on the front end with that modeling, as well as on the back end with diagnostics and data collection that are creating data and proof points for net zero.

00:15:48:15 - 00:16:22:24
Sara Gutterman: You know, I'd like to see a lot more net zero reporting at the point of sale. And the energy piece is pretty easy. The water piece is pretty easy. The carbon piece is a little bit harder still. We green Builder Media is pulling together an S working group of. Anyone is interested in participating in that. We've got an awesome group of building professionals and building industry organization representatives, investors, folks from manufacturers.

00:16:22:24 - 00:16:50:20
Sara Gutterman: Sam's on our group as well, but we're trying to figure out the carbon measurement element for the built environment, because that's still a little bit obscure. And then, of course, you know, we are still facing the labor challenges, not only in terms of labor shortages, but the challenges with respect to certain types of building professionals and contractors, kind of not really adopting new types of technologies and being a little bit afraid of change.

00:16:50:22 - 00:17:19:02
Sara Gutterman: Other challenges and getting to net zero really include utility readiness, right? We don't actually have the utility infrastructure to transition to a fully net zero all electric environment. And who's going to pay for that? You know, that's really the big question right now. Is it the homeowners that are going to pay? Well, the utilities actually pay to upgrade the infrastructure to, you know, update their transformers and their conductors and service panels?

00:17:19:04 - 00:17:46:00
Sara Gutterman: Will they continue to add more renewable generation sources? I think that one's an inevitability. I do also think that those utilities are going to continue to promote rebate programs for things like smart thermostats, home energy assessments, demand side energy management technology, and then, of course, on the water side, the leak detection and water monitoring use. So, you know, we're starting to see more movement in this direction.

00:17:46:00 - 00:18:20:07
Sara Gutterman: And hopefully those funds from the Inflation Reduction Act will help to solve some of these challenges in terms of who's going to pay, how we're going to allocate those funds. But at the end of the day, you know, I think what's most important here is that we have to not only implement the policies around net zero, which Sam's going to talk about in just a minute, but we have to leverage net zero as a business opportunity where higher performance, healthier and more resilient, smarter solar powered homes.

00:18:20:08 - 00:18:50:16
Sara Gutterman: Our absolutely consistent with better value homes that actually yield a greater return for building professionals and provide more comfort for homeowners. Because all of those things are intricately linked, right? We cannot disassociate those anymore. And that's particularly important because we have this huge gap in missing middle homes, about 3.8 million missing middle homes, probably even more than that.

00:18:50:18 - 00:19:25:03
Sara Gutterman: And, you know, that's why we think that the housing market, despite the fact that some prices are going down in most markets and there's high interest rates and of course, inflation, you know, there's still this huge gap in or a huge deficit in the amount of homes that we actually have. And so we have to look at net zero again as something that's transformational in terms of how we can change the housing ecosystem and look at homes as a panacea for health and wellness and as a way to actually create generational wealth.

00:19:25:04 - 00:20:01:03
Sara Gutterman: Right. We're creating higher performance, better homes that can pass from homeowner to homeowner or generation to generation in a way that actually does help accumulate family wealth, but also in terms of solutions that are sustainable, minimize waste, optimize quality control, solve for labor challenges, etc.. And that, of course, also plays into rethinking the way that we use our land, our financing vehicles, our lending approach, our appraisal approach, etc..

00:20:01:05 - 00:20:21:26
Sara Gutterman: So the last couple of slides that I have really have to do with why. Net zero is truly an inevitability, and that's because of market demand. We all know, I think at this point, the millennials and older Gen Z or the top influencers and the housing market spending more money on buying and remodeling homes than any other audience segment.

00:20:21:26 - 00:20:47:17
Sara Gutterman: And their number one concern is failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change more so than Covid, more so than economic or social instability, more so than terrorist activity or gun violence. I wish that water was higher up on this list. I wish it was second, because I believe that water is the absolute, you know, kind of critical topic of our moment.

00:20:47:17 - 00:21:11:12
Sara Gutterman: And, you know, we've kind of solved for energy. Now we need to solve for water. But you can see, you know, climate change is is very real and top of mind and is impacting consumers. You can see here this is from a recent cognition survey. We ask we asked how much our consumer audience is willing to spend on these various different sustainability upgrades.

00:21:11:12 - 00:21:58:18
Sara Gutterman: And you can see, you know, there's a pretty high percentage that will spend up to ten grand on energy efficiency upgrades, renewable energy, water conservation, healthy home. These are all areas that our consumer audience tells us they will spend money on. Now, when we ask our builders a related question in terms of what their clients are willing to pay for, you can see, you know, there's definitely willingness to spend some money on solar PV, battery storage, demand side energy management, smart thermostats, energy efficient and water efficient appliances, etc. when we ask if folks would buy a net zero home, you can see over half of our audience said yes.

00:21:58:20 - 00:22:29:14
Sara Gutterman: When we ask what the biggest benefits are to buying a net zero home, reducing environmental footprint, having a healthier and higher performance home, those are all top of mind. And then you can see again, high level of interest in investing in things like heat pump heating and cooling systems and water heaters, solar systems, smart thermostats. And you know, again, when we ask if it's important for homes to be energy efficiency, this one's a no brainer.

00:22:29:17 - 00:22:51:00
Sara Gutterman: And then also same thing at this point with we asked our consumer audience whether we think they think it's important to have solar panels and battery storage. And again, the level of awareness about these things is, well, the numbers speak for themselves. So that's all I have. I've got my email address on here. If anyone has any questions, feel free to shoot me an email.

00:22:51:00 - 00:23:01:01
Sara Gutterman: We may have some time at the end for questions, but with that Sam, I'm going to kick it back over to you and take it away, please.

00:23:01:04 - 00:23:33:25
Sam Rashkin: Okay. Thanks, Sarah. I'm going to share my screen now and I think we'll be good. So welcome everyone. I call this session zero. It's not just for buildings. And this is kind of a very personal presentation for me. It's based on a lot of what I learned running national programs, programs and then extrapolating to opportunities, how we could do get to zero so much more efficient efficiently with so much less waste.

00:23:33:25 - 00:24:00:09
Sam Rashkin: So this is a pretty 30,000ft level presentation. I'm going to start with the leadership imperative. Then go to the zero imperative a little bit. Overlap with what Sara just presented. Very little. But then the efficient government imperative and see if we can see some outstanding opportunities just to be better. Getting there is another thing. We'll just talk about that as well.

00:24:00:09 - 00:24:35:04
Sam Rashkin: So let's start with the leadership imperative. And this for me begins by understanding the journey to wisdom. You know it all starts with collecting data. But data is just raw measurements. And they may or they may not be useful. But we're so obsessively focused on collecting data. And data is just not good enough. What we want to do is if we can identify trends, convert the data into information, and that's insight based on the assembled data that we can put in buckets or find some way that they group.

00:24:35:04 - 00:25:01:10
Sam Rashkin: So we have a better understanding of subject matter that we're looking at. But if we can then look at those trends and be able to construct principles, we now have knowledge which becomes subject area expertise based on the information, so we can do better in the field of endeavor that we're setting. But the ultimate peak of the pyramid is when you apply experience.

00:25:01:11 - 00:25:30:28
Sam Rashkin: Now you have wisdom, which is really leadership based on the combination of knowledge and experience. And what's really important here is that in the absence of wisdom, things can usually go wrong. Knowledge is knowing tomatoes of fruit. Wisdom is knowing that to put it in a fruit salad. So although this is a small attempt at kind of a bit of humor here, this is the degree with which you can go wrong just with knowledge.

00:25:30:28 - 00:25:56:19
Sam Rashkin: And so wisdom is so important. I'm going to suggest it's it's often missing in these big critical times you have right now to just protect our planet or our our political concerns we have. And so just to give you a sense of this, you know, I can want to take a trip from New York to London and just be a few degrees off and wind up in another continent.

00:25:56:19 - 00:26:29:20
Sam Rashkin: And just these significance of this is just a small little miscalculation in applying wisdom and leadership gets us into a completely wrong outcome. So let's start with moving forward with this understanding of just leadership, the zero imperative. And as Sarah said, we're kind of stuck. There is no planet B, there is no way we're going to get 8 billion, 9 billion, 11 billion people by the end of the century.

00:26:29:21 - 00:26:58:15
Sam Rashkin: We're in right now to another planet. This is the best planet we got and we got to make it work. And when we measure the Earth system units, the various parts of our ecosystem on the vertical axis and then look at time, we have a consistent profile or curve that results. It's this kind of hockey stick where you have virtually a ever increasing magnitude in the number of units that are impacting our ecosystems.

00:26:58:15 - 00:27:25:27
Sam Rashkin: And as significant and more concerned as the frequency of change or the acceleration of change is so substantial that we are, in fact threatened, and scientists have basically identified what we call planetary boundary conditions. And those are basically limits. The Earth system unit limits that when you reach, it's almost irreversible to go back once you get too far past it.

00:27:25:28 - 00:27:53:25
Sam Rashkin: And so what's significant when we look at studies on the planet, there are a whole bunch of these Earth system factors climate change, biodiversity, including deforestation, biogeochemical flows and novel entities where we are past the planetary boundary conditions. Now, just of these, you know, climate changes along with most familiar with its measured in CO2. You know, we're we're just blowing up to 400 parts per million and past it.

00:27:53:25 - 00:28:19:21
Sam Rashkin: And so that's of a huge concern. And when we have debates about climate change, we always ask people just to look at just their lives. The past 20 years, 19 to the 20 hottest years on record, have occurred in the last 20 years. And very significantly, sea surface temperatures are higher in the past three decades than at any other time since reliable observations began starting in 1880.

00:28:19:21 - 00:28:50:14
Sam Rashkin: And when sea level temperatures are up. Now, your hurricanes that used to be a few hundred miles in diameter, are like 12 or 1300 miles in diameter diameter. And when hurricane ocean surges are 3 or 4ft in the past, now they're 12, 14, 16ft surges like we just had with Hurricane Ian. And that's because those warmer surface temperatures of the ocean are almost exponential in the amount of moisture that can evaporate into the atmosphere, and that's just pure physics.

00:28:50:14 - 00:29:28:24
Sam Rashkin: So climate change is really of concern. Biodiversity and deforestation of course. Very significant forests, grasslands, wetlands, other vegetation types are rapidly being converted to agriculture. And it's driving a lot of reductions in biodiversity and having dangerous impacts on water flows and our ecosystem. Half the species in critical risk of art in critical risk of extinction by 2100, with more than 1 in 4 species on Earth now facing extinction, that will rise to 50% by the end of the century.

00:29:28:26 - 00:29:53:10
Sam Rashkin: Unless urgent action is taken. And just for some more numbers, over 37,000 species, which are 28% of all the ones that were assessed, are directly threatened with extinction. And of course, you can take just one example, like the honeybees and how critical they are to pollinating plants. And it you kind of get the chain reaction that happens when we lose issues and how they all interrelate.

00:29:53:10 - 00:30:27:29
Sam Rashkin: And then on novel entities, those are a large array of these what are called forever chemicals and toxic substances, substances that when they get in the ground or they're forever synthetic organic compounds, heavy metal compound compounds, radioactive materials. Just again, these are now so much being dropped into our ecosystem. We're now blowing past the planetary boundary conditions. Then we have a bunch of these Earth system units that are right at the edge of the planetary boundary condition.

00:30:28:01 - 00:31:07:00
Sam Rashkin: Ocean acidification is a direct outcome of carbon emissions. About 25% of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere by human activities ultimately dissolved in the oceans, where it forms carbonic acid, and it decreases the flow of the surface water. This ocean acidity is already increased by 30% compared to it was pre-industrial time. This makes it really hard for organisms such as corals and shellfish and plankton species to grow and survive, and then as a result, it's disrupting all the other ocean ecosystems really drastically.

00:31:07:02 - 00:31:35:12
Sam Rashkin: Reductions in fish stocks. We keep hearing about dead zones the size of youth states all over the oceans. So again, the ocean acidification is a huge concern that it's approaching the planetary boundary condition. And Sarah mentioned just how critical fresh water is as well. 21 of the 37 world's major aquifers are receding substantially. Water demand globally is projected to increase by 55% between 2020 and 2050.

00:31:35:15 - 00:32:04:17
Sam Rashkin: Agriculture accounts for 70% of global freshwater use, while food production will need to grow by almost 70% by 2035 to feed the growing population. You kind of see we're in a one big freshwater drain globally and already at dangerously low levels. So you could just see all these threats to our planet are so serious, and they're all kind of interrelated and working together.

00:32:04:19 - 00:32:29:26
Sam Rashkin: And then you take this piece of land. This is a depiction of land that was sitting on the landscape for hundreds of thousands of years, pretty much as you see it depicted here. And then in the lip of time, this piece of land became this. The original depiction was done by the National Geographic Society. But here you go.

00:32:29:27 - 00:33:01:08
Sam Rashkin: That is basically evidence that any solution we have to save the planet must involve buildings. And as Sarah said, a stunning statistic is you take all the square footage of buildings in all five boroughs of New York City, and it's being constructed every 35 days, 2,000,000,000,000ft². There's no path to stabilizing and minimizing the tremendous risk we face in this planet that does not involve zero carbon buildings.

00:33:01:08 - 00:33:40:26
Sam Rashkin: And as Sarah mentioned, buildings account for 40% of all energy consumption and about 70% of all electricity consumption. About 70% of all electricity is produced with fossil fuels. So any solution to stabilizing our planet and meeting these planetary boundary conditions must involve zero buildings. And then we know that our country is just about 4% of the global world population, but we account for 14% of all the greenhouse gas emissions 3.5 x per capita than the global average.

00:33:41:02 - 00:34:15:03
Sam Rashkin: So there is no path where we don't involve the US as a major provider of solutions to efficient buildings. Any solution must involve the US. And also zero is really important goal. But we have to understand that there are limitations. There are climate conditions where there isn't adequate solar resources in some locations or buildings are located in urban centers where there's not a lot of access to some because of various building heights that shade other buildings.

00:34:15:04 - 00:34:39:19
Sam Rashkin: Or there could be other factors that make zero. Not possibly not not reasonable for a building. So zero ready is such an important way to frame what we need to do, because we can always provide renewable power to buildings over time. But we can't change the enclosures, we can't change the foundations, we can't change the basic infrastructure of the building.

00:34:39:19 - 00:35:04:14
Sam Rashkin: We have to get that right. So I like to suggest zero ready is an important solution because we must be inclusive. Every building must be able to achieve the zero target that we set, because the transformation to zero buildings is absolutely critical. And also we must understand how we get there. And we get to zero buildings by first optimizing energy efficiency.

00:35:04:22 - 00:35:30:14
Sam Rashkin: That's the very first critical step. We wanted the optimal, efficient solutions for the enclosure and everything inside our buildings. So then we want to optimize performance. It's going to be a fool's errand to have all this efficiency and have buildings that aren't comfortable, durable, safe. So we have to optimize performance as well. And then Sarah mentioned electric reading is an absolute essential.

00:35:30:16 - 00:36:03:10
Sam Rashkin: It's where every major solution to a zero carbon building sector has to go. So our buildings have to be electric ready. And the good thing is electric grid is easy to do for very low cost. And it avoids all these other huge cost increases that would have would happen in options of this readiness. And it happens also without disrupting the building when buildings are ready to go electric by matter of the simple details and features that are embedded in how it's built.

00:36:03:13 - 00:36:28:24
Sam Rashkin: When you have all this, you can get there with simple solutions. The Zero Energy Ready Home program from which I came, was all geared to providing this kind of complete package to make it so simple, and then you add resilience, which is an absolute must have as we face greater and greater climate risk, whether it's drought, greater intensity and frequency of storms and hurricanes and tornadoes, but it's wildfires.

00:36:28:24 - 00:36:53:22
Sam Rashkin: All these risks have to be managed because, again, it's foolish to build a high performance, super efficient building that can stand for hundreds of years only to be at risk to prevailing disasters that happen in their location. And lastly, we need to address embodied carbon. So just these are all the key building blocks that Sarah's laying out. And any solution must be simple.

00:36:53:22 - 00:37:26:21
Sam Rashkin: We must be very effective conveying what we're trying to achieve with zero in a way that something stood. We don't overwhelm and confuse people. So I like this very simple way to just logically show the path we have to take to get to zero carbon, and then we have to understand it. Amazing things are happening. You know, we have over 30,000 homes built by builders voluntarily that are certified to zero energy and zero energy ready.

00:37:26:21 - 00:38:00:27
Sam Rashkin: In the US and Canada, builders are really jumping in and demonstrating just how cost effective and how feasible it is to build zero carbon buildings are being the path to zero carbon buildings. Dozens and cities are enacting policies and and programs that promote renewables and zero carbon buildings. Seven states have committed to zero energy codes. 18 states have policies for 100% clean energy, renewable energy by 2030, 2035.

00:38:00:27 - 00:38:31:17
Sam Rashkin: And then we have nations are committing to amazing policies and and regulations that are moving their respective countries to zero carbon. It could be like in our US codes, we have the 2021 ICC, which is effectively a zero energy ready enclosure code. And there are also other policies like in the IRA and other things we're doing here in our country.

00:38:31:19 - 00:38:54:23
Sam Rashkin: Other countries around the world are following suit. So the zero movement has begun and the key is to support it, nurture it, and to keep building on this platform to get to zero carbon buildings. And here's the good news. And instead of just laying out all these scary risks about what happens, this is that same hockey stick curve I showed you earlier.

00:38:54:23 - 00:39:31:20
Sam Rashkin: This one's actually a more precise depiction of what happened with stratospheric ozone. As you know, the static stratospheric ozone layer filters out the radiation from the sun that has substantial impact on health, particularly skin cancer. And fortunately, because the actions taken as a result of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, we are on the path to stay within the planetary boundary limits and much, much better position to have successfully addressed the superior challenge to our planet.

00:39:31:22 - 00:40:04:08
Sam Rashkin: This is a demonstration that leadership is everything. When we follow wisdom, when we apply good leadership, we can address these challenges. It's not to be overwhelmed by everything you hear from Sarah myself. It's understandable you have an urgent situation, but action can make a difference with good wisdom and the right leadership. So let's move into how do we start applying that wisdom and leadership in government and suggest there's an efficient government imperative?

00:40:04:10 - 00:40:34:14
Sam Rashkin: So let's start with some background information about just the debt crisis. The left you have the spending of money committed to spend. This is based on 2011, a study that was reported on in the Bloomberg back then. And then on the right, you have all the receipts that are expected to flow in as a result. And have you have effectively back then in 2011, $12 trillion national debt just at that time.

00:40:34:15 - 00:40:57:24
Sam Rashkin: And unfortunately, when you look up all the receipts and everything is locked up and all the spending and receipts, that's going to flow into the future, what's really scary and what very few people talk about is that this is all compounding. And we have effectively a fiscal gap. At that time, that was $211 trillion. I can't even understand that number.

00:40:57:25 - 00:41:26:17
Sam Rashkin: I don't even know how to make any sense of it. It is so large. And what's really scary is now I went to the National debt dashboard today, and we're at $31.2 trillion of debt. We have a huge crisis. Eventually things have to happen. And the reason is because this is the curve that looks like the hockey curve, but it is for the US federal debt as a percent of gross domestic product.

00:41:26:19 - 00:42:00:01
Sam Rashkin: And you'll notice that the magnitude, again is going off the charts at the same time, it's accelerating off the charts. This cannot continue at this acceleration and this growth without things collapsing. At some point, government spending has to be managed and under control. And so I ask a question should we expect the same ultra efficiency and minimum wage we expect from zero carbon buildings from government programs?

00:42:00:04 - 00:42:26:12
Sam Rashkin: Now, that's not my question to this audience. And what I want to do is give you a personal journey to test out how much ultra efficiency and waste can be extracted, and I had an amazing opportunity to put that into practice. I could not have had a better job of a lifetime than to directly National Energy Star Certified Home program.

00:42:26:14 - 00:42:49:23
Sam Rashkin: And when we watching low pass 2 million homes, it was time for me to go. I wanted to work in a program where I could apply all the wisdom we had earned and gained running that program for 17 years, and see what would happen if we applied it to a new program, in this case, the Zero Energy Home Program at the Department of Energy.

00:42:49:26 - 00:43:15:26
Sam Rashkin: This is the very first job in a lifetime for I actually took a job and I knew how to do the job. Every other job was a fake it til you make it, but you all probably recommends. But I knew exactly what to do, and the question was how much efficiency and how much waste could be extracted with wisdom and leadership that benefited from everything we learned and what I first.

00:43:15:26 - 00:43:37:28
Sam Rashkin: And so I'm going to show you the investment in each program and the next savings that we extracted. So in terms of full time staff person years, there are about five full time P for energy staff. Certified homes are left. We ran from the very beginning zero ready home with 0.5. That was a ten x savings in just staff required.

00:43:38:00 - 00:44:02:13
Sam Rashkin: Of course, once you set up a program and have people working, you're locked into the program. Federal governments and any government can ever reduce people, even though the scope of work may diminish as a program has more efficiency opportunities then the contract dollars per year, or $2 million approximately. For Energy Star, there was a big technical contract and a marketing contract.

00:44:02:14 - 00:44:43:08
Sam Rashkin: All we have was one contract to do both was there ready for point 5 million. That was forex less cost even with ten x less space to run the program. Then the tracking system for Energy Star certified homes was about $2 million to developing. Maintain the zero energy ready home program completely ignored the tracking system that was used at Energy Star, and for a few hundred thousand dollars, we paid ResNet to modify their schema for the registry so we could extract all the certifications in real time from our builder partners.

00:44:43:13 - 00:45:07:03
Sam Rashkin: That was a ten x savings for a far superior outcome. We got more data. We got it in real time. We're getting all sorts of metrics we never could get just with the tracking system we spent millions of dollars for with Energy Star, and we didn't require hers raters every three months to put this whole spreadsheet together to compile all the certifications that they had done.

00:45:07:09 - 00:45:32:10
Sam Rashkin: There's zero reporting by the Raiders, zero burden, because we were just able to extract it from the ResNet registry we registered recognized, right or wrong, right on that. ResNet was developing it. We managed to operate manually for the first few years. And then when we could get ResNet to help us with a schema to modify the industry so we can extract data and pay them for it.

00:45:32:10 - 00:46:05:25
Sam Rashkin: This was a ten x improvement in savings for four for a better outcome. And then on the awards program, Energy Star was forced to use the Big Energy Star Partner of the year event. We rented a huge hotel ballroom. Hundreds of people had to come. It was all the costs of the food and the event, major production value, crazy amount of activity and when all the builders would come, we only gave out five awards or six awards to various categories.

00:46:05:26 - 00:46:32:02
Sam Rashkin: They there were no other builders to see the amazing work they were done. They were just in this big ballroom. And the cost that was allocated roughly for the Major Star Homes program was roughly about. I would estimate about $250,000, would probably cost about a million plus to the event each year. With zero energy ready home, we said, why not do it for free in a place where the whole industry could see the accomplishments of our leading builders?

00:46:32:02 - 00:47:02:16
Sam Rashkin: And we formed a partnership with IBA at their annual conference. All the. We would have our builders recognized by 500 other industry professionals, builders, graders, program managers, and seeing their great work. And it costs us nothing but the cost of food in cost us that. We were at the lunch for the conference, so we'd spend about $10,000 in logistics to make that happen, usually as a as a grant to IBA for supporting us.

00:47:02:16 - 00:47:41:18
Sam Rashkin: So that was a 25 x savings for a far, far better outcome. Our best partners being recognized for the best builders, being recognized by an entire industry group, not by a whole ballroom filled with people from 30 other Energy Star product categories who wouldn't recognize their excellence and be able to apply it in their own businesses. And the other thing we did was we increased the number of wards from five or 6 or 7 to about 25 to 30, because we want anyone that was deserving and a great ambassador for the excellence that could be accomplished in design and performance.

00:47:41:19 - 00:48:06:28
Sam Rashkin: We wanted to showcase. So amazing savings, amazing. Better outcome. Again, we're in multiple cost savings are significant department meetings per year. Costs were about 100,000 for Energy Star versus 1000 or 100 x difference energy Star. We put on this partner conference every year for of mostly utility partners. We come and again we would get a room somewhere. A lot of people fly in.

00:48:06:29 - 00:48:44:04
Sam Rashkin: It was tremendous cost for 2 or 3 day event, and it was from utility partners who weren't even the core partner for the program, the core customers and builders who label and the raters who are Salesforce delivering the label to the builders. So in contrast with zero zero home, did we use again the conference and the ResNet conference to gather the builders and Raiders to have roundtable meetings, and we set the meetings instead of just being kind of random discussions to get feedback how the program can be improved and then present a report card.

00:48:44:04 - 00:49:16:03
Sam Rashkin: Here's what you told us last year to do. Here's what we did a, B, C, D, f. And let's now work on what we need to do next year. So we had a constant feedback mechanism showing that we were listening and applying what we heard and hear, the results we got. And very and very tough scoring on ourselves and would great ourselves and show how we were trying to do better and better to meet our customers needs, the builders and the raters for 100 x less cost, just because we use the existing assets that are out there.

00:49:16:03 - 00:49:39:17
Sam Rashkin: And lastly, first rate of software, I'm estimating that the Energy Star Program home program spent about half $1 million for that. And we spend zero because it's not our core business. A later tool is not what we're in business to do. We're in business to move the industry to the next level of super high performance homes. So we would never spend that money developing a rate of tool.

00:49:39:17 - 00:50:12:10
Sam Rashkin: So you can just see from this chart, when you have the ability to apply all the wisdom that you learn from a program and how much savings you could extract, how much waste you can get rid of, it is staggering. All to suggest this is just one small, little, small or very small example of a of how again, how much more efficient you can operate that I believe can be extracted or applied to much, much, much more large program.

00:50:12:10 - 00:50:59:25
Sam Rashkin: So let me give you a proposal for a complete zero zero energy housing market transformation with the same 10 to 100 x savings in waste and gains and efficiency. And what I want to do is convert the mortgage interest deduction from a liability into an asset by tying it to zero energy ready new and existing homes. And so essentially, I stole this amazing expert from McKinsey and company who was on loan to Department of Energy, and I had him in two weeks, build a a model to calculate all the impacts from transformation, from transforming a market from code to zero ready, and making existing homes at least 30% more efficient.

00:50:59:25 - 00:51:40:06
Sam Rashkin: And the numbers are not important here. It was a model we did 8 or 9 years ago, and it was the guy who was absolutely brilliant. But it's the scale of the impact that I want to share with you that I think it's amazing. It was over $1 trillion of utility bill savings. If you could have a true market transformation, it was about a quarter trillion dollars of additional construction revenue to be available to the building industry is about $4.5 trillion of additional tax revenue to the US Treasury, about 9 million job years of work, about 2000 plus trillion BTUs.

00:51:40:07 - 00:52:13:13
Sam Rashkin: Energy savings, almost 8500 million metric tons of carbon equivalent in reduced emissions. And we would take the infrastructure issue that no one talks about the fact that 80 to 90% of the housing stock is substandard. It is not as healthy healthy as it should be, not as durable as it should be, it's not as affordable as it should be, and it would transform that stock to zero, ready by 2020 2035 and address a major infrastructure issue.

00:52:13:16 - 00:52:46:05
Sam Rashkin: That's the prize that's there for the taking. By converting the mortgage interest deduction into an asset instead of a liability. And why is it such a liability? This is a one chart I could find from all my digging that lays out what it costs the federal government for all the various tax exemptions, deductions, credits and loopholes. And you'll see that the second highest tax expenditure is a deduction for mortgage interest.

00:52:46:12 - 00:53:22:09
Sam Rashkin: It's over $104 billion a year. And what's also egregious about that tax expenditure is these are the various income levels on how that tax deduction expenditure is distributed. And you'll see about 3,070% plus of the mortgage interest deduction. Tax benefit goes to households with incomes greater than $100,000. Very income regressive. And so the second idea is to understand is that we have some stranded assets, the energy ready programs on the same kind of trajectory as Energy Star.

00:53:22:09 - 00:53:47:14
Sam Rashkin: But it's much, much more at the beginning of the exponential growth curve. And it's there for the taking to get homes 40% more efficient and more healthy and more durable than the 2009 IYC. And also the Apartment of Energy has a program called the Home Energy Score, and it's an asset score that can be used as a metric to target 20 to 30% energy savings.

00:53:47:14 - 00:54:15:24
Sam Rashkin: And the reason I call it a stranded asset is that the participations barely a ripple in the 100 plus million homes that are out there. And if we could leverage those assets, we can get amazing benefits in terms of persistent jobs, cleaner air, energy independence and stronger communities. So let's look at this transformation opportunity to convert the liability, the mortgage interest deduction into an asset by retooling it.

00:54:15:24 - 00:54:46:04
Sam Rashkin: And instead of eliminating it, you know, it's like that would be heresy. All we want to do is change the Treasury Department policy by adding two simple requirements for for the tax benefit. In other words, you have to earn the mortgage interest deduction. But reality, what you're doing is acting your own self-interest, because we all know that the ownership costs, including both the mortgage and the energy savings, is so far to the advantage with zero energy ready homes.

00:54:46:04 - 00:55:17:15
Sam Rashkin: Compare the homes. So the new home must be certified as your energy ready, and the existing home must achieve a home score of 7.5 out of the scale of ten as is, or you must achieve that score by either being at that level as is, or with an upgrade to be performed within a year. So if your home is already energy efficient, you're going to be rewarded because you you're selling a home that will qualify for the mortgage interest deduction.

00:55:17:16 - 00:55:40:05
Sam Rashkin: If it's not at a 7.5, all the owner has to do is upgrade within a year. And this is a deal to good reviews. It's about when you do the mortgage deduction calculator. It's about $6,000 a year. And over the average ten years of home ownership, that's that's a benefit that represents over $60,000. It's a deal to good to refuse.

00:55:40:05 - 00:56:14:16
Sam Rashkin: And so the strategy for doing this would be to target single family homes, because the easiest to implement with the least friction, the least cost and the least complexity, and the last thing you want with a tremendously substantial policy change is to have any early failures that will allow it to be rescinded. So you want easiest to implement for sure, and you have to allow adequate lead time to develop the design infrastructure, the verification infrastructure, financing, installation.

00:56:14:16 - 00:56:37:25
Sam Rashkin: And Sarah mentioned the utility infrastructure has to figure out how to work with these super low load, zero energy homes. So you allow the lead time for that. And then you were sure no additional borrower down payment or income. And that's simply by requiring underwriters to offer energy improvement mortgages, OEM's, or aims for existing homes and energy efficient mortgages aims for new homes.

00:56:37:28 - 00:57:06:01
Sam Rashkin: I think NVA already offer these Fannie Mae Freddie Mac users so used to. So we want just to get Fannie Mac, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back into the fold with aims and arms, and then you want to ensure equity. You're going to have massive amount of resources saved from the energy efficiency rebates, tax credits and mortgage income tax deduction to fund low income housing programs so they can be upgraded.

00:57:06:06 - 00:57:44:20
Sam Rashkin: So that's the basic strategy for implementation. And the savings would be roughly $500 billion, half a trillion for mortgage interest deduction over ten years. I did some back of the envelope calculation for how much we would say by not needing the 45 tax credit, that's about 25 billion. And I would submit that the 45 tax credit would be a small fraction of the market transformation you would get with a retooled mortgage interest deduction and assuming utility rebates, or would come in somewhere the same as the 45 tax credit, I add another 25 billion of of tenure savings.

00:57:44:22 - 00:58:22:29
Sam Rashkin: So that's a huge amount of benefit, again, as a resource to allocate in part to upgrading the loan from housing stock in the country. And the way you implement this is with a collective impact process. You create content and analysis to support a common agenda for revising the mortgage interest tax credit to almost kind of force decision makers to consider a much better tax policy, and you engage all the common interest in mutually reinforcing activities educating, advocating and influencing change.

00:58:23:01 - 00:59:02:22
Sam Rashkin: The federal programs that benefit Energy Star is already weatherization, high performance product manager, product manufacturers and associations that will have huge benefits to their industries in terms of increased demand for their products and services. NGOs who align with their their mission for why they exist. Underwriters who will be vested in homes that have far, far lower risk, and underwriting loans and mortgages, is all about selling a product that is driven by risk and tremendous risk reduction for them, and the same for the insurance industry.

00:59:02:23 - 00:59:38:00
Sam Rashkin: So you can get all these interested, all these concomitant interested interests are kind of corralled, heard the cats and get them aligned around a common agenda. And I'm sure there's a path to get us to act in our own self-interest. And why this would work is, again, the $6,000 a year tax benefits and offer two good reviews. We will estimate, you know, with that high a benefit at stake, 66% of home transactions or 40 million zero energy ready new and existing homes in ten years.

00:59:38:07 - 01:00:04:01
Sam Rashkin: If 40 million of the 100 million home housing stock is at that level, that will force and drag the rest of the industry to match, to be competitive jobs and for high paying jobs that cannot be outsourced. Persistence or locking energy savings and benefits for 100 years. With the new infrastructure, you'll have energy supply reliability with substantially reduced electricity demand and peak demand.

01:00:04:03 - 01:00:32:13
Sam Rashkin: That should also help stabilize the grid. Greater housing equity with the savings being invested from an income regressive policy into long term housing and rewarding good behavior. All the homeowners who've been taking prudent action to make their homes more efficient get rewarded because they now own homes that qualify for this tax benefit. It's so important government policy to reward good behavior, not bad behavior.

01:00:32:13 - 01:01:21:17
Sam Rashkin: And lastly, you optimize all this investment in innovation. You're going to accelerate the adoption of proven innovation in government from industry and get a return on investment from our taxpayer resources put into those innovations. So that's a huge reasons why I believe it should work. And the conclusion is by applying wisdom, we can result in negative government expense and a zero energy housing market market transformation that provides important social change, climate risk, equitable housing, good governance that realizes huge benefits for people, the economy of the planet, jobs, tax revenue, energy savings, carbon savings, better housing and accelerate innovate innovation, good governance, financing, technology.

01:01:21:20 - 01:01:50:19
Sam Rashkin: So here we are. This is where you want to be. And we have to start asking ourselves we electing are we appointing what we are? Our leaders bring this wisdom to their government positions. It's time to expect more from more wisdom from government. And I think we should challenge every vote we make, every decision we make to ensure we're getting to the best leadership leadership's everything.

01:01:50:21 - 01:02:18:07
Sam Rashkin: And so I want to thank you all for letting me just expand on these concepts. Again, a lot of the ideas and stuff that I like to present or derivative of the work we've done with the housing 2.0 program. Essentially, it's about extracting massive waste and optimizing efficiency at every facet of how and why we build homes not just for performance, but for community, for design, for quality, and even for the sales experience.

01:02:18:09 - 01:02:25:29
Sam Rashkin: Before, during, after sale. So thank you so much. I'm going to hand it to you, Mike.

01:02:26:01 - 01:02:51:12
Mike Collignon: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I'm going to pop back on here because we're now able to take your questions. You can use those in favor submitting them in the questions box or the chat depending upon if we've been dialoging or not. During this I do have one question that is that was sent in earlier, and it's most likely for Sarah.

01:02:51:14 - 01:03:05:14
Mike Collignon: Given that came in during her presentation, Sarah Billy wanted to know. Won't atmospheric water generation eventually affect weather, especially in the southwest?

01:03:05:17 - 01:03:11:02
Sara Gutterman: That is a great question, Billy.

01:03:11:05 - 01:03:37:09
Sara Gutterman: And the real answer is, I don't know that any of us have any idea what the impact is. I think that from what I have read about these technologies, they have they have been designed so that at least at this point, you know, they're not going to have a huge impact on whether or humidity, even in arid climates.

01:03:37:11 - 01:03:52:05
Sara Gutterman: And I just assume that's because of kind of a net effect of kind of pulling that air out of the water. But then, you know, having a release in other ways.

01:03:52:07 - 01:04:32:05
Sara Gutterman: The other thing is, you know, I don't know that these technologies will be deployed at such scale to have those impacts. I think that there will be other innovative water solutions that will be created on a community and a municipality scale. You know, we're starting to see some of those innovations emerge. I just started reading about some water storage systems, kind of like battery storage systems for energy, but water energy storage systems that are pretty interesting that'll, you know, have a positive impact in places like Nevada and California on municipality water availability.

01:04:32:07 - 01:04:52:28
Sara Gutterman: So I think, you know, I think we're also going to see some desalinization technologies again at kind of a municipal and state and regional scale just because we have to get there. So, Billy, I don't know that those those technologies will be deployed so widely that all of a sudden we're not going to have any moisture at all in the air.

01:04:53:00 - 01:05:10:14
Sara Gutterman: But it's a great question. And I mean, conceivably it could happen. And I suppose if everybody started relying on those and and especially here in the southwest where water is so precious, you know, we got to be thinking about that kind of stuff. So thanks for the question. I wish I had a better answer.

01:05:10:17 - 01:05:32:23
Mike Collignon: I think part of the concern to is if if the projections are correct and there's going to be more of a temperature drought than some of that, moisture doesn't get up into the atmosphere because, well, I guess things evaporate really quickly. So they will get up there. We'll see similar precipitation. But yeah, it's it's not an easy answer there, Sarah.

01:05:32:26 - 01:05:41:04
Mike Collignon: And it's something that I'd love to have a scientist on here to kind of walk through that sometimes. So maybe it's a future webinar for us.

01:05:41:11 - 01:06:15:25
Sara Gutterman: Yes. Or something that we can, you know, certainly look into and then maybe write an article or a blog about it. The atmospheric generator technology is something that we're looking into. I think, you know, for those of you who follow Green Builder Media, you've hopefully seen an initiative that we've recently launched called Transcend Communities, which are communities that that really utilize kind of leapfrog technologies like atmospheric generators and solar plus storage and really advanced kind of waste treatment.

01:06:15:25 - 01:06:47:15
Sara Gutterman: So that communities especially, let's say, in rural areas that, you know, are 18 miles away from the nearest utility or, you know, in areas where, say, utilities are already overwhelmed or, you know, like we talked about earlier, water tap fees are so high or there's, you know, energy grid pressure where we can start creating communities that, again, leapfrog our existing technology and kind of become their own microgrids, not only with respect to energy, but water as well.

01:06:47:15 - 01:07:26:24
Sara Gutterman: And we're starting to see some pretty cool things. I will kind of give a little sneak peek under the curtain and say, we're also working on some housing 2.0 communities with Sam to kind of showcase everything that he's talking about in the book and in his workshops that also use some of these leapfrog technologies. And I think that, you know, hopefully we'll be able to show some use cases and case studies in, you know, so that we can show that the numbers not only, you know, pencil out, but this actually becomes a cost beneficial approach.

01:07:26:27 - 01:07:53:13
Mike Collignon: We did have a question. Speaking of Sam, we do have a question for Sam from Karina. She was you know, what is the average cost of a zero home to build one either on a square foot basis or if you're doing something like a three bed, two bat. And I know that's going to vary depending upon the market you're building in, but you want to talk a little bit about just kind of some of those maybe maybe some ranges there.

01:07:53:15 - 01:08:41:17
Sam Rashkin: Yeah. This is not one of those questions where the famous two word answer will apply. It depends. Biggest thing I'll suggest is that, again, not to harp on housing 2.0, but our whole program is dedicated to extracting waste and optimizing efficiency so that you actually can build zero energy homes for lower cost and that higher cost. But taking credit for really good wisdom and how you design a home and how you get rid of square footage, you don't need how you integrate systems, so you avoid tremendous costs when systems are not integrated, how you how you use the right best choices for wall assemblies that are lower cost but are higher performing.

01:08:41:19 - 01:09:05:08
Sam Rashkin: We go through all these choices and details so that if you start with a blank slate, business as usual. How we build a house. You can build zero for a lot less cost. Generally, we're showing we can get 3,070% cost savings and added value just by applying the assortment of best practices to these homes, or 150 plus that would go over in the book.

01:09:05:08 - 01:09:32:04
Sam Rashkin: So the answer, the short answer is, is that if we optimize the entire home as a system, not just the performance, they're amazing ways we can do it for less cost. If you look at strictly the incremental cost to get to a zero energy ready level of performance, our analysis was showing on average, about 5 to $9000 per house of added costs.

01:09:32:05 - 01:09:53:26
Sam Rashkin: Now, if you look at today's mortgage rate, about 6%, you're looking at roughly 30 to $50 a month in the mortgage. And if you look at the rising energy costs, we're easily offsetting that mortgage increase by the energy savings. So again, I would submit you you're doing it. You're doing zero energy for lower cost rather than higher cost.

01:09:53:28 - 01:10:20:20
Sam Rashkin: If you look at the true cost of home ownership, which is always what we go after. But when you are, you know, first cost squirrel and you have to understand those first costs generally 5 to $9000. And the only thing I'll mention right now is that the 45 tax credit is a $5,000 rebate. So right there you have a huge offset to the extra cost first class.

01:10:20:20 - 01:10:26:26
Sam Rashkin: If you're not even looking at the true cost of ownership.

01:10:26:29 - 01:10:56:05
Mike Collignon: You know, Sam, I had a question for you. And by the way, this is the final call to our audience for questions in the proposal that you put forth in your presentation. And I apologize if I missed this, but how does it work if it's not your primary residence? So let's say I'm an investor, right? And I own 15 homes and ran out 14 of them and live in one.

01:10:56:07 - 01:10:58:29
Mike Collignon: Does this does it still apply in that kind of situation?

01:10:58:29 - 01:11:38:07
Sam Rashkin: Then the only way we get to our targeted goals for zero carbon buildings that can ensure our planet does not get over to irreversible Earth system factors, is by ensuring every home at transaction has to meet these new expectations for zero energy or zero energy ready. And so every home purchase that transaction would have to. So if you're building 15 homes to rent, if you're buying multiple homes just to be.

01:11:38:10 - 01:12:08:26
Sam Rashkin: In the business of whatever Airbnb or whatever you want to do, it makes no difference. Any home at transaction would have to meet those requirements. And again, it's at the end of the day, it's asking people to act in their self-interest to build a home that will live healthier, to home, that will have lower ownership costs, to build a home that will have higher future value, to build a home that will have greater durability and protection from Royster issues know everything that consumers want and homeowners want.

01:12:08:27 - 01:12:11:15
Sam Rashkin: So.

01:12:11:17 - 01:12:42:29
Mike Collignon: All right, well, seeing no more questions, I am going to go ahead and put a wrap on this one. And thank both you and Sarah for sharing your insights with us today. Thank you also to our audience. Always ask great questions and appreciate those. And thank you to Mitsubishi Electric, Westlake Royal Building Products, Schneider Electric, Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions, Powershift by N.V. energy and DuPont for the generous sponsorship of this program.

01:12:43:02 - 01:13:07:14
Mike Collignon: Now, if you enjoyed today's webinar and you'd like to learn more about this housing 2.0 thing that's been mentioned a few times, you can simply register now for our series three workshops. That's a six part online series that's going to begin on Thursday, November 3rd, and it starts around 12 p.m. eastern time. And we run, like I said, six, six weeks of that.

01:13:07:14 - 01:13:24:14
Mike Collignon: We will obviously skip Thanksgiving here in the United States, but join us. Sam is the is the main attraction. I just open and close to find out more. You can go to Green Builder, Mediacom.

01:13:24:16 - 01:13:28:12
Mike Collignon: Dash two.

01:13:28:15 - 01:13:49:20
Mike Collignon: To learn more and also to register. Now we're going to be right back here in three weeks for a webinar focused on the residential provisions of the 2021 IYC. With the massive amount of state and local level of financial incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, it's going to be vital to get up to speed on this code as quickly as possible.

01:13:49:23 - 01:14:09:07
Mike Collignon: Suffice to say, you're not going to want to test this webinar, so join us please. On Wednesday, November 9th, 2 p.m. Eastern Time, when we're joined by Shauna masinga of Masinga Group. I hope you all get a chance to enjoy some fall foliage while it's still on display. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy and take care of one.

01:14:09:11 - 01:14:09:23
Mike Collignon: Hold on.