Zero Carbon Homes Pioneering a Sustainable Future

00:00:02:23 - 00:00:25:13
Sara Gutterman: I am Sarah Gutman, I am the CEO of Green Builder Media and I am so pleased to be here with you today. For those of you who regularly attend our webinars, you know that our fearless moderator, Mike Collignon, is usually the first face that you see and voice that you hear. He is happily on a family vacation this week, so we're going to miss him terribly.

00:00:25:13 - 00:00:46:19
Sara Gutterman: I'm going to try to feel this one on my own. I cannot say that I'll be hugely graceful at the end, as I'm trying to field your question and answer them, but I'll do my best. I promise. Before we dive in, I want to first thank Mary Kestner, our production manager. I always like to call her our wizard behind the curtain.

00:00:46:19 - 00:01:05:17
Sara Gutterman: She makes it all happen. So, Mary. Thank you. I know you're listening in. We can't do any of this without you. Thank you all for being here. Thanks so much for your time and for your interest in such an important topic. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to talk with you about this topic today, but also thank you to our sponsors.

00:01:05:18 - 00:01:31:03
Sara Gutterman: We have power shipped by MD energy, Bosch Home Comfort, and James Hardie as our sponsors today. I will talk about them a little bit later, each of them in our in the context of the webinar. But for now, I'll just give a quick intro to all three of them. Power Shift by end is a program that helps residential and business customers conserve energy and save money on their power bills.

00:01:31:09 - 00:01:40:28
Sara Gutterman: Power shift is a one stop resource to find energy efficient products and services. And for more information, you can visit NB.

00:01:41:00 - 00:02:09:11
Sara Gutterman: Shift Bosch home Comfort is a leading source of high quality heating and cooling and hot water systems. Bosch is committed to reinventing energy efficiency and paving a path for home comfort electrification by offering smart products that can work together as integrated systems for full scale electrification. And James Hardie is the North American leader in fiber cement exterior designing solutions.

00:02:09:14 - 00:02:37:15
Sara Gutterman: Hardy products offer personalized design options with trusted protection, low maintenance, and long lasting beauty. As the number one producer of high performance fiber cement siding in North America, James Hardie offers siding and accessories for every home style. So thank you again to our shift by James Hardie and Comfort. We could not do this work without the support of our generous sponsors.

00:02:37:18 - 00:03:05:08
Sara Gutterman: Now shifting into the webinar. So part of the reason why I am so excited about this topic getting to net zero carbon in the built environment and zero carbon homes in particular, is because I have been doing this work for a couple of decades. Actually, I was in sustainability before co-founding Green Builder Media 20 years ago. You'll hear a lot from us next year as our 20th anniversary.

00:03:05:10 - 00:03:51:03
Sara Gutterman: We're so excited about it. But I have never seen the pace of change and the momentum towards a decarbonized, sustainable built environment that I am seeing today. In those two decades that we've been working at Green Builder Media, and the conversation is decidedly shifting from net zero energy, which I think we all know measures the operational emissions and energy use of a home or a building to net zero carbon, which is a much more robust assessment of embodied carbon and operational carbon from raw material procurement, product manufacturing to transportation, installation, packaging, shipping, operations of the building and then end of life considerations.

00:03:51:03 - 00:04:31:19
Sara Gutterman: And this transformation is being driven by really a perfect storm and a combination of an evolving regulatory landscape, mushrooming consumer demand, investor and lender requirements, and then just general shifting market dynamics and economics. We're going to talk about all of those things within this webinar. And what I'm also really happy to say is that builders are really actively exploring net zero carbon strategies as a key factor of differentiation in response to this surging demand and evolving regulations and mandates and requirements.

00:04:31:21 - 00:05:07:24
Sara Gutterman: In fact, you know, our cognition smart data shows that 75% of green builders are optimistic about the prospects, the near and long term prospects of the housing market because they see that the Inflation Reduction Act is and other market dynamics, again, which will explore are really shifting this demand and this drive towards net zero carbon. They see IRA funding both at the builder level as well as a consumer level, really pulling through electrification and energy efficiency and also net zero carbon demand and technologies.

00:05:07:24 - 00:05:33:28
Sara Gutterman: And we're also seeing an evolution and things like environmental product declarations and carbon offsets, again, all of which will get into in this webinar. But I want to start with the why. So we've hit 1.5°C warming in the past 12 months. We're going to two degrees in the next 12 months. So there is a very real environmental reality.

00:05:33:28 - 00:06:01:07
Sara Gutterman: And the reason why climate scientists set that two degree threshold of, of global warming is because they don't know how to model over two degrees. We get into 2.534 degrees. They don't know how to model what's going to happen because of what's called a threat multiplier with respect to climate change. And so that's why they set that two degrees threshold.

00:06:01:07 - 00:06:20:08
Sara Gutterman: And that's why it's so important for us to stay under them. Now there's a lot of climate science that shows that if we stay on our current trajectory, we are going to hit that two degrees in the next 12 months, as I said, and then getting to the 3 or 4 degrees in the next 3 to 5 years.

00:06:20:11 - 00:06:50:21
Sara Gutterman: And that is pretty scary. However, there's also a lot of climate scientists, if science excuse me, that shows that if we change our current trajectory, if we mitigate emissions, and if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then we can very quickly and fairly dramatically decrease the impacts of of climate change. There is still that threat multiplier. We really just don't know what's going to happen because we are in uncharted territory.

00:06:50:22 - 00:07:12:00
Sara Gutterman: However, it's not all gloom and doom, but it's also why we have to act quickly. And while 2030 commitments are awesome and we need them, I'm going to submit to you a little bit later in this presentation that that's actually not fast enough to act, right. It's too long. We've got to act quicker. We've got to act more swiftly.

00:07:12:00 - 00:07:39:13
Sara Gutterman: And there are some mechanisms that enable us to act faster. The other element about why zero carbon that is of paramount importance and is really kind of just breaking open as a social norm, we'll say, is, is that this social reality, a very high levels of climate anxiety? We see that millennials and younger Gen Z. A really concerned about climate change.

00:07:39:15 - 00:08:08:12
Sara Gutterman: In fact, climate change is their number one priority, global priority more so than gun violence and economic or social or political instability, more so than even, you know, other types of top global concerns. And we see that, again through cognition, smart data, that 77% of millennials and Gen Z consider the future to be brightening. 56% say that they think that humanity is doomed.

00:08:08:12 - 00:08:42:16
Sara Gutterman: And so there are some very real social concerns that are driving this demand for net zero carbon buildings. And then, of course, we have the blend of investor and lender and supply chain demand, where investors are certainly now requiring whether it's ESG reporting or more transparency in climate risk disclosure and emissions reporting. We're also starting to see and I'm going to talk about this in a minute, more climate risk disclosure requirements.

00:08:42:16 - 00:09:17:01
Sara Gutterman: For example, the state of California recently passed two climate laws that are going to require scope one, two and three emissions. The SEC, of course, recently passed their climate risk disclosures that are going to require scope one and two emissions reporting. And now more and more, we're also starting to see municipalities literally from California to Massachusetts, starting to require not just net zero energy and net zero water plans, but actually net zero carbon plans when builders and developers go to submit permits.

00:09:17:01 - 00:09:46:13
Sara Gutterman: And they are also asking questions about low carbon products, say that heavy as well as they're starting to look at requirements for embodied and operational carbon reporting to enhance that accountability and that transparency. Now, net zero carbon is particularly important in the built environment because of how conspicuously consumptive the building sector is. I think we all know know these stats.

00:09:46:13 - 00:10:15:01
Sara Gutterman: But according to the Doe, US homes and buildings account for about 40% of our nation's energy use, 70% of our electricity use, and 40% of our total emissions. And the UN tells us that emissions from buildings must be reduced by 50% by 2030, and 100% by 2050 if we're going to stay under that two degrees warning threshold. But unfortunately, not even 1% of our existing buildings are net zero carbon tech.

00:10:15:04 - 00:10:45:05
Sara Gutterman: Now, with all of this said, I mentioned just shifting consumer demand and market dynamics. And I think that again, when we survey our early adopter and first mover audience, the majority of whom now are millennials and Gen Z homeowners inspiring homeowners, we see that there's really no question within this young, these younger generations, the decarbonization is a positive thing.

00:10:45:08 - 00:11:17:28
Sara Gutterman: It's helpful to business. It results in enhanced innovation. It generates positive brand equity, yields greater financial returns and mitigates risks for companies. We also see that there is a growing level of importance that millennials and Gen Zers report to us in terms of living in a net zero carbon home. So you can see here kind of broken out by generation, that we asked pretty consistently to our audience about how important is living in a home.

00:11:17:28 - 00:11:46:14
Sara Gutterman: And you can see that the orange and the turquoise are very important and, you know, highly important. And the yellow is is important. So and all all of the generations are shifting from less important to more important in general. We also see something that's really interesting. And we started seeing this even before the pandemic with millennials, as they became more active homebuyers.

00:11:46:20 - 00:12:09:21
Sara Gutterman: And they are now they they're now, you know, over half of all home purchase applications, Gen Z are just starting to hit the scene with respect to home buying, but their numbers are going to grow in a hockey stick like fashion over the next handful of years, because about 45% of Gen Z say that they want to own a home in the next five years.

00:12:09:21 - 00:12:53:22
Sara Gutterman: Home ownership is something that they they want and is very meaningful to them. And an interesting differentiation for millennials and Gen Z's relative to traditionalists, boomers and Xers is that there's a greater willingness to look at full cost as opposed to just upfront upfront cost, first cost, or lowest price per square foot. And consistently, when we ask our consumer audience, younger generation say that they are more willing to invest in sustainability upgrades like energy efficiency and electrification than older generations and those younger generations.

00:12:53:25 - 00:13:32:29
Sara Gutterman: At least their purchase intent is consistently higher than what our builder audience thinks that they will invest over time. And I think that that this is really because, you know, 85% of our millennial Engine Z audience say that they have been directly impacted by climate change, and they feel responsible for their impact on the environment. In fact, cognition data shows that about 64% of these individuals report that they feel guilty about their environmental impact, 61% report feelings of sadness and anger and powerless and helplessness when it comes to mitigating the impacts of climate change.

00:13:32:29 - 00:14:06:09
Sara Gutterman: And so I think that's partly why these younger generations are looking for a blend of attainability, certainly, and sustainability. So when I say a, that's my word for affordability, just because we know that affordable housing is a very strict definition. And while affordability is absolutely top of mind, these younger generations absolutely are looking for ways to to increase their total value of homeownership and their and lower their total cost of homeownership.

00:14:06:11 - 00:14:56:11
Sara Gutterman: And they're definitely willing to forego some of the fancy bells and whistles and even extra space in favor of upgrades that drive towards a net zero carbon built environment, that lower monthly utility bills that keep them healthy and enhance the resiliency of their homes. When we talk with our builder audience, they I mentioned this earlier. About 75% of our builder audience feels that the incentives and the rebates and funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will have a positive impact on their business because of things like provision 45 L, which provides them $2,500 per home for Energy Star certified homes and $5,000 per home for Zero energy ready homes.

00:14:56:11 - 00:15:26:11
Sara Gutterman: And it's also pulling through energy efficiency and electrification upgrades. Now, keep in mind our builders and our audience, they are just like our consumer audience, their early adopters in their first movers. So they are the builders that are already building above code, even the more stringent codes, and they are the ones that are committing to go full zero energy ready certified or in some cases even full zero energy, net zero energy.

00:15:26:11 - 00:15:55:09
Sara Gutterman: And now, more and more interestingly, they are starting to commit to going. Net zero carbon. And so when we survey our readers, our builder readers audience, we do see an increased demand. They tell us that they're seeing an increased demand from their home buyers for everything from energy efficient and so energy efficient insulation, windows and doors, lighting, smart home controls, heat pump technology, solar and storage, and so forth.

00:15:55:09 - 00:16:33:19
Sara Gutterman: And they are absolutely interested and willing to embrace net zero carbon technologies, ranging again from demand side energy management systems to cool roof systems, hot water recycling systems, high performance building envelopes systems, windows and doors. And then beyond the the homes and the projects that they are building. Our builder audience also tells us that they are enhancing the sustainability not just of their own businesses, but of their supply chain.

00:16:33:19 - 00:17:06:10
Sara Gutterman: So everyone that provides products to them and services and even contractors. And that's really to enhance the accuracy and the reliability of their own reporting so that they can address their own scope. Three reporting. Frankly, it's also to help them develop innovative products and solutions. It's in response to pressure from investors and consumers, and also to prevent greenwashing claims and enhance transparency.

00:17:06:12 - 00:17:39:29
Sara Gutterman: Now another aspect beyond the consumer demand and the builder response that's driving us towards a net zero built environment is the shifting regulatory landscape. And so net zero carbon, folks, it is an impending reality. And I'm so glad that you're here listening to this today, because that means that you are future proofing your own business. And again, it's really because of this combination of investor requirements, lender conditions, consumer demand and now evolving regulations.

00:17:39:29 - 00:18:05:21
Sara Gutterman: And there are some recent announcements and milestones that serve as important indicators that this transition transition to net zero carbon is well underway. And I want to talk about a few of them. So the first I mentioned earlier, climate risk disclosure requirements. And for those of you who aren't familiar with this term, it's really transparent and accountable and reliable reporting on emissions from companies.

00:18:05:21 - 00:18:39:10
Sara Gutterman: So there's three types of emissions. There's scope one, which are direct emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by a company. There's scope two, which are indirect emissions from purchased power, electricity, heat, heating and cooling, etc.. And then there's scope three emissions, which is basically everything else. And scope three emissions comprise generally about 80 to 90% of a company's carbon emissions because it it entails.

00:18:39:10 - 00:19:24:03
Sara Gutterman: And it it's comprised of all of the company's activities like purchase goods and services, business travel offices, operations, employee commuting, waste disposal, investments, leased assets, and even end of life product considerations. So scope three is a big one, and it's one that we're getting our arms around. The biggest driver here is that last October, the state of California passed the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, or SB 253, which was a landmark climate rule mandating that large companies report climate emissions.

00:19:24:05 - 00:19:52:13
Sara Gutterman: It also enacted SB 261, which requires disclosure of climate related financial risks. Now, these climate laws represent an important inflection point in state and federal climate legislation, really because California, which is the world's fifth largest economy by GDP and home to tech industry behemoths like Apple and Google and Microsoft, all of which, by the way, support this climate legislation.

00:19:52:15 - 00:20:27:20
Sara Gutterman: But California, I think, as we know, certainly in the building industry, has been the harbinger for climate and environmental policies, really across the entire economy, but particularly building related codes and mandates. And so right now, other states like New York and Colorado and Massachusetts are really keeping a keen eye on what's happening in California. And so this Climate Accountability Act, as I mentioned, requires scope one, two and three reporting from public and private companies that do business in the state and make more than $1 billion in annual revenue per calendar year.

00:20:27:20 - 00:21:12:14
Sara Gutterman: Now, a lot of the big companies that do support, like the tech companies that do support this legislation, are actually kind of already monitoring and measuring and reporting on their scope one, two and three emissions. Now, critics of this climate disclosure law say that actually, the largest burden of these regulations actually will be on the smaller companies and the service providers and the vendors to the large companies who aren't already reporting on their missions and are going to have to because they will be required to report their emissions scope one and two and probably ultimately scope three emissions to the larger companies.

00:21:12:17 - 00:21:46:12
Sara Gutterman: So what this legislation does is it's a really big push forward towards climate disclosure for companies of all sizes, not just the ones that meet the $1 billion revenue threshold, but also the ones that sell to interact with and service those levels of companies. And so it's important that companies that do business in the state of California, or with businesses in California that start thinking about the measures needed to comply with this ultimately inevitable shift in climate disclosure regulations.

00:21:46:14 - 00:22:19:05
Sara Gutterman: We also, again, see this shift in SEC regulations, which are now requiring that publicly traded companies report on their scope one and two emissions, as well as providing disclosure on how extreme weather events and other natural occurrences can impact the financials of the company. We've also seen a few other things. So, for example, the Department of Energy put out a zero emissions building definition, defining zero emissions buildings as highly energy efficient.

00:22:19:06 - 00:22:54:11
Sara Gutterman: They do not make greenhouse gases directly from energy use, and they're powered solely by clean energy. So they're kind of putting some guardrails around what zero emissions buildings are. We're now seeing also voluntary carbon offset guidelines that were recently released by the Biden administration that put some guardrails around understanding what high quality carbon offset projects look like. I'll get more into those those elements in a little while when I talk specifically about carbon offsets.

00:22:54:13 - 00:23:26:17
Sara Gutterman: But then we also saw that there was a new code in California that went into effect at the beginning of July this year that requires owner requires owners of new buildings that are 10,000ft² or larger to calculate embodied carbon emissions, use low carbon products and materials, implement procurement policies that prioritize environmentally responsible sourcing of products, and utilize offset, modular, and prefab construction as much as possible to minimize on site waste and emissions.

00:23:26:17 - 00:23:59:09
Sara Gutterman: And then finally, the Boston Planning and Development Agency, the BP, a approved zero carbon emissions requirement for certain types of buildings that are a permanent after July. July 1st of next year, 2025. And these new zoning requirements will also require real estate developers to report on their projects. Embodied carbon, which includes raw material procurement for products, manufacturing, transportation, construction, demolition and waste disposal.

00:23:59:09 - 00:24:26:07
Sara Gutterman: So the writing is on the wall. These are just a few examples. There are many others that I could sight, but clearly we're moving in the direction of zero carbon. Now, I am not a green builder, I am not a building scientist, and I am not a sustainable architect. However, I've got good friends who are they? Instruct me on how to build net zero carbon.

00:24:26:10 - 00:25:05:13
Sara Gutterman: That is not the focus of today's webinar. We have awesome, awesome content through our housing 2.0 program with Sam Raskin, who's former chief architect at the Department of Energy and considered to be the father of Energy Star. I highly recommend, if you haven't gone through the housing 2.0 curriculum, please check it out. It's fantastic. We're doing a vision House project, one of our demonstration projects with Peter Pfeiffer, who's considered to be one of the OG, is one of the original sustainable architects here in this country, is an AI fellow, and totally focused on net zero carbon and climate responsive, sustainable design practices.

00:25:05:13 - 00:25:31:22
Sara Gutterman: So you can learn a lot through our current vision House Austin project about sustainable design to get to net zero carbon. And we've got all kinds of content on our website at Greenville Media to inform you more about sustainable design, building science and green building best practices to get to that zero carbon built environment. However, the fundamentals are pretty straightforward.

00:25:31:22 - 00:26:04:27
Sara Gutterman: First, you know, we've got to look at design that is climate responsive, that uses passive design strategies where windows are shaded in the summertime and collect heat in the winter time. That's critical. We also need to look at taking advantage of what Peter Pfeiffer talks about as the gospel of ambient energy deploying climate responsive design, passive heating, cooling and ventilation strategies, and building science best practices that enhance energy efficiency, resiliency, durability and thermal comfort.

00:26:04:29 - 00:26:34:21
Sara Gutterman: We also, of course, need to look at electrification. Actually, I'm on the wrong side here I am. So here's the slide. I really want to be talking to you right now. We also need to look at electrification. So we are seeing not just advancements in technologies like heat pump technologies for heating, cooling water heaters, clothes dryers. We're listening.

00:26:34:27 - 00:27:10:03
Sara Gutterman: Advanced to air to water, water to water, heat pumps for all climates, even cold climates. We're seeing demand response features for water heaters and heat pump technologies. And then we're also starting to see companies like Bosch as a great example, becoming a one stop shop for home comfort installation service. So, for example, Bosch has smart thermostats that interacts with all of their products and does demand side energy management and peak load shifting and peak load shedding.

00:27:10:06 - 00:27:47:17
Sara Gutterman: They also have control boards that have proactive performance analysis and other sustainable solutions, as well as partner programs where contractors can register products for points and rewards and get lead gen. Then, of course, adopting renewable energy is just a no brainer at this point, particularly because the economics really makes sense. And then my good friend Steve Easley, who's a building science consultant, tells me that it is a paramount of paramount importance that we inspect, test and measure performance all along the way.

00:27:47:18 - 00:28:15:04
Sara Gutterman: Right? Not just after a home or a building and running. Now, I want to go back to this evolving economic slide because this is really important. I mentioned this earlier, but we have seen in the last couple of years that our audience, again, early adopter and first mover consumers are shifting from looking at focus, excuse me, from first cost to full cost and looking at that total home ownership value.

00:28:15:04 - 00:29:05:01
Sara Gutterman: And so that is really important when it comes to a zero carbon built environment, because they're looking at the long term impacts again is of paramount importance. I get that especially in today's economy. But there's some different buying considerations now by home buyers. Another element that is driving towards the zero carbon built environment are those incentives and rebates I mentioned 45 oh for builders under the Inflation Reduction Act, where they can get $2,500 for Energy Star certified homes and $5,000 for Zero energy ready homes, and as well as, again under the Inflation Reduction Act, the homes and Hero programs for homeowners.

00:29:05:01 - 00:29:34:09
Sara Gutterman: So kind of on top of those 45 L incentives which help the economics work out better for builders, we're seeing a whole suite of incentives and tax and rebates for consumers for heat pump technology, smart electric panels, electrical wiring, water heaters, upgrades like insulation, your ceiling and ventilation, windows and doors, etc..

00:29:34:11 - 00:30:00:09
Sara Gutterman: Now, in order to get to a zero carbon environment, first we need to start with what I mentioned in terms of sustainable design practices, building science best practices, and green construction best practices. Next, we have to look at the meticulous specification of low carbon products. And this is really interesting. And I put this copy on here even though there's a lot of words.

00:30:00:09 - 00:30:32:13
Sara Gutterman: But specifying low carbon products within homes and buildings is challenging because there are about 20,000 product inputs in about 450 SKUs in a typical American home, and only a small pool of available low carbon products to choose from. Fortunately, the demand for and the response the demand for environmental product declarations or and the response from manufacturers is really, really growing in momentum.

00:30:32:13 - 00:31:31:03
Sara Gutterman: So an is a standardized document that communicates the environmental performance and human health impact of a product over its lifetime, follow specific international standards to ensure that the reporting of environmental data is consistent, transparent and reliable. So, for example, they follow the ISO 14 zero 25 and the 15 804. I won't go into those details what those are, but certainly, you know, the process of creating an involves third party verification to ensure accuracy and reliability and really add the credibility and transparency claims made by the manufacturers about their products so that consumers can make or buyers can make more informed decisions, and also so that they can compare products by one manufacturer versus another, are

00:31:31:03 - 00:32:13:13
Sara Gutterman: based on products lifecycle assessments or LCAs, which measure potential potential environmental impact from natural resource acquisition to production and use stage and ultimately to end of life disposal or recycling. Now there's a couple kinds of. One is a cradle to gate EPD, which is basically, you know, raw material procurement to the installation of that product versus a cradle to grave EPD, which actually measures the life cycle all the way through to, let's say, reuse or recycling or end of life considerations.

00:32:13:16 - 00:32:45:29
Sara Gutterman: There are, fortunately, a growing number of companies with and one of our sponsors for this webinar, James Hardie, is an excellent example of a standout company with. In fact, I recently learned that James Hardie generates 94% of its revenue from products that actually having these. And that's pretty incredible with respect to the level of commitment to EPs and the number of that, just manufacturers in general have.

00:32:46:01 - 00:33:22:04
Sara Gutterman: James Hardie, as I said, is really stand company in this area. And so to James Hardie and EPD is a way to really offer, you know, kind of insight into how the company creates, markets and disposes of their products. There are cradle to grave, not just cradle to gate. And it includes, for example, reference to a process of Riccarton, which is a natural process where their fiber cement products react with the air and actually reabsorb CO2 gradually over the lifetime of product.

00:33:22:07 - 00:33:53:19
Sara Gutterman: And so those and the process of actually getting those have led James Hardie to develop what they're calling a low carbon cement technology roadmap, which is super important given the high intensity of cement and concrete and the low carbon cement technology roadmap for James Hardie involves a 50% reduction in related CO2 emissions by 2030. With the development of lower carbon cement with better representation processes.

00:33:53:21 - 00:34:23:05
Sara Gutterman: So beyond the though, it's really important when you when builders and consumers and architects and other specifiers are looking for low carbon products, not just to look at product information but also company information. So looking at corporate sustainability and climate commitments, looking at ESG strategies and reporting, looking at one at scope one, two and three emissions. Do these companies report on those scope one, two and three emissions?

00:34:23:05 - 00:34:41:27
Sara Gutterman: Do they even know what those scope one, two and three emissions are? I will say that many companies that I talk with have a handle on their scope one and two emissions, but scope three is a different story entirely. I think we're seeing a lot of movement towards companies, manufacturers in particular, trying to get their arms around scope three emissions.

00:34:41:27 - 00:35:05:25
Sara Gutterman: They're not quite there yet. And then are they already disclosing their climate risk, either because they have to because they're publicly traded and they're now required to buy the SEC, or they hit that revenue threshold in California, or because maybe they do, you know, maybe their European company and the EU already requires scope one, two and three emissions for larger companies.

00:35:05:25 - 00:35:38:21
Sara Gutterman: So I think that again, this is really an inevitable kind of transformation of the built environment. Now, we recently put out a survey to our builder audience about and came back with some pretty interesting insights. So about 67% of our builder audience are very familiar with EPD. And they tell us, you know, 50% say that they look for all that's not a deal breaker.

00:35:38:25 - 00:36:01:15
Sara Gutterman: Where's about 40% are saying now that are really a must as they start specifying products, which is a big change in the last couple of years. In fact, I just saw a chart this morning and I meant to include it in this slideshow. I just didn't have time to cut and paste it. But if you're interested in this data, I have my email at the end and you can email me and ask me for this.

00:36:01:15 - 00:36:35:13
Sara Gutterman: But Eco meetings, which is a database of, kind of EPD and other green products certifications, just release some data that says that now are the number one type of certification that their users are actually searching for. And it wasn't the case. That wasn't the case. Even just a couple of years ago, more people were searching for, say, Energy Star certified products or water sensor, but now it's products of EPs.

00:36:35:15 - 00:37:04:20
Sara Gutterman: And, you know, 85% of our builders now specify products with. That's not necessarily across all of the products that they specify in their homes, because there just aren't that many. But then you can see here very high levels, you know, 50, 50% of our builders tell us that it will become a factor in the next year if they're not already specifying products, and about 45%, 45% say yes in the next few years.

00:37:04:23 - 00:37:09:08
Sara Gutterman: We also know that.

00:37:09:11 - 00:37:35:12
Sara Gutterman: Are important to our builder respondents, so that they have a product roadmap so that they can meet regulatory requirements, and then also to meet consumer demand and ESG goals when specifying our builder audience say that they rely on a blend of industry average and product specific ends. The majority do. And then, you know, a little bit less than that.

00:37:35:13 - 00:38:26:08
Sara Gutterman: Look for those products specifically. So you're on this webinar or listening to it afterwards. And your manufacturer are important. And products Pacific needs are becoming more and more important. And then our builder audience tells us that are considered during the product specification stage as well as during the design phase for the most part. And then we are seeing that, you know, 65% of our builders say that they're their home buyers, and consumers are increasingly demanding products, and about 20% say that consumers are familiar with, but they're not familiar with, excuse me, that term in particular, but they are asking for product certification and they're now moving on.

00:38:26:08 - 00:38:55:15
Sara Gutterman: Another incredibly important aspect of getting to a net zero carbon building is looking for products that can be imported into the circular economy, which is, you know, if we look at our current, you know, in contrast to our current take and waste model, a circular economy is designed to decouple growth from consumption of finite resources by sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials, natural resources, products and energy.

00:38:55:15 - 00:39:40:14
Sara Gutterman: So in the built environment, this means, you know, using products and materials without breaking them down or degrading them. We are starting to see more and more material passports being required in Europe, which are really a record of materials, products and components that go into homes and buildings, and they help stakeholders kind of along the way, understand what goes into a building or building, and then how to either extract those products and reuse them, or kind of deal with them, disassemble and kind of get them back into a biological or a technological loop as opposed to taking them to a loan film.

00:39:40:17 - 00:40:10:14
Sara Gutterman: Now, one of the most important aspects of getting to a net zero carbon building environment quickly in those at Green Builder Media, we are huge advocates of carbon offsets because, look, we must decarbonize our economy through the electrification of buildings and transportation, the adoption of renewable energy modification and manufacturing, the deployment of regenerative agriculture practices. But these things take time.

00:40:10:14 - 00:40:44:13
Sara Gutterman: And so while those 2030 goals that I mentioned earlier are paramount importance, and we can't we're just not going to meet our climate goals if we just stick with those 2030 commitments, which inevitably leads us to the conclusion that carbon offsets have to play a vital, vital role in helping us reach those climate goals. So for those of you who aren't familiar with carbon offsets, carbon offset is a transaction basically that removes carbon from, you know, another greenhouse gases from the air.

00:40:44:13 - 00:41:27:11
Sara Gutterman: So one carbon offset is the equivalent of taking one ton of carbon out of the air and the most carbon. The most common carbon offset projects today include forest management and conservation, biodiversity protection, emissions reductions. So landfill gas capture, biochar, direct air capture, looking at, for example, landfill to waste technologies and opportunities. And, you know, I think that carbon offsets are of paramount importance, really, because they help us get what I'm calling to the last mile, right?

00:41:27:12 - 00:41:52:24
Sara Gutterman: So we have to have the performance first. But those carbon offsets help us get help us get the rest of the way to a net zero built environment. And I'll get into a little bit more of that in a second. But first, unfortunately, the voluntary carbon offsets market has been kind of rife with challenges and has a little bit of a bad rap.

00:41:52:29 - 00:42:24:01
Sara Gutterman: And to be clear, so highly emitting and polluting companies are required to purchase carbon offsets. The rest of us engage in what's called the voluntary carbon offset market. And there's a big chasm between high quality and low quality carbon offsets. And I mentioned earlier that the Biden administration just put out some guidelines for what really defines a high quality carbon offset project.

00:42:24:01 - 00:42:49:15
Sara Gutterman: And so those things include addressing additionality. So they're doing something that wouldn't have been done otherwise. They provide robust and timely data and reporting. They eliminate double accounting. This was actually one of the biggest issues with the voluntary carbon offsets market, is that there were companies or carbon offset projects that were, say, planting a tree and then selling that tree to, you know, 10 or 100 people.

00:42:49:17 - 00:43:32:29
Sara Gutterman: They're permanent. They ensure the permanent removal of carbon. They create, you know, they have third party validation, and they also offer well-defined pricing and benefits, and they really can articulate what their environmental impact is. We are seeing that there's a high level of interest in carbon offsets, which is great. You can see the numbers here. Again, these are from cognition, where nearly 100% of building product manufacturers that we ask if they're interested in purchasing carbon offsets, they say, yes, you know, 72% of building professionals are interested in 89% of consumers or homeowners are interested in purchasing carbon offset to offset the homes and life.

00:43:33:02 - 00:44:02:16
Sara Gutterman: Now, the biggest concern about carbon offsets is that they help enable greenwashing. And that's certainly true if there's a highly polluting company that buys carbon offsets and says they're carbon neutral, then that's greenwashing. Just as if a builder builds a poorly performing home and slaps carbon offsets onto it and says that it's carbon neutral, that's greenwashing too. However, as I said earlier, there just simply are not enough low carbon products.

00:44:02:19 - 00:44:28:19
Sara Gutterman: Net zero carbon transportation options, installation practices, operational practices to create net zero carbon homes and buildings. So we have to use carbon offsets. We just have to be very realistic about where we are and what the options are available to us. And so again, Green Builder Media has decided just to, you know, go all Elon Musk on this marketplace.

00:44:28:19 - 00:45:27:03
Sara Gutterman: And we just redid the the voluntary carbon offsets marketplace. So instead of buying offsets from exchanges or doing a bunch of research to look at different carbon offset projects, we have crafted a partnership with a company called cNOT who has a fleet of PhDs, that is vetting carbon offset projects for us and creating high quality, science backed, Oxford based carbon portfolios of carbon offset projects for us that differ a little bit in pricing, just based on the permanence of the projects, they're all very high quality, but what we have decided to do is just basically streamline access to high quality carbon offsets for builders, manufacturers and consumers, distributors and other stakeholders in the built environment.

00:45:27:03 - 00:46:00:22
Sara Gutterman: So we're specifically focused on carbon offsets for the built environment. We also provide training and education. We provide, of course, a certification. We provide marketing materials and collateral. I'm here to talk about net zero carbon homes and buildings, not to give you a sales pitch, but we're incredibly excited about this, not only because we get to streamline that access to carbon offsets, but really more importantly, we're putting together a network of builders and building professionals, manufacturers and other stakeholders who are leading the charge to net zero carbon.

00:46:00:22 - 00:46:37:13
Sara Gutterman: So again, if you're interested in learning more about that, please let me know. You know, shoot me an email after this webinar and we can talk some more. Now I want to shift into talking about how we measure carbon. There's kind of two aspects of carbon emissions for the built environment. There is embodied carbon, which encompasses everything that you know from raw material extraction, transportation, manufacturing, more transportation, installation, packaging, waste, and, you know, an on site construction activity.

00:46:37:13 - 00:47:23:07
Sara Gutterman: So the way that I look at it is embodied carbon is measures the carbon of a home or a building up until this just use homes for this purposes of this conversation. Up until that home is sold the day that home sold operational carbon then measures emissions from the ongoing operations of that home. And so while Embodied carbon looks at things like concrete, you know, highly emitting, highly intensive products that are used in that home, like concrete and steel, even solar, all of those things, certain types of insulation, those drive up embodied carbon solar, interestingly, actually decreases operational carbon.

00:47:23:09 - 00:47:55:02
Sara Gutterman: And so, you know, but but other types of energy using products like HVAC, water, heating appliances increase the operational carbon. So there's a couple of different ways to measure embodied carbon. First, it's really important again to look at what those high intensity materials are. You can use those iPads to obtain emissions information, sometimes called emissions factors, for each material and product used in the home.

00:47:55:02 - 00:48:27:07
Sara Gutterman: You can conduct the lifecycle assessment using software tools like Beam, EC3 or one click LCA. I have been told that beam, which is free, tends to be a preferred tool. I am simply sharing insight provided to me by my builder, friends and colleagues who have used various different tools, and for accuracy and credibility. You might want to consider having embodied carbon assessments verified by third party auditors.

00:48:27:09 - 00:49:12:07
Sara Gutterman: Our friend Chris RMI just headed up a technical committee on behalf of the to create what will become an Ansi standard for embodied carbon measurement. I'm told that's about a year out, but that will really kind of set a standard literally and figuratively for the measurement of embodied carbon. And then in the meantime, for builders and developers and other professionals that want more in-depth LCAs and maybe don't have the time to use those tools, there are some great companies, like Construction Instruction, that are working with builders to do LCAs on homes so that they can really do an in-depth analysis and body coding for operational carbon measurement.

00:49:12:11 - 00:49:36:06
Sara Gutterman: This one's also pretty interesting because, you know, you need to kind of look at not just energy use of the home. And, you know, does a home or a building have solar or solar plus storage? But also it's important to look at the power mix from the utility. So does that utility that provides energy to a home.

00:49:36:06 - 00:50:06:09
Sara Gutterman: If it's a good tied home use fossil fuels or does it have a renewable blend? So it's important to understand that that energy mix. Again, if there is grid power now, you know utilities like NB energy. I'll do a call out for them as well. They're really driving towards, you know, really creating a clean grid and a clean portfolio of of energy sources that they can provide to customers.

00:50:06:15 - 00:50:40:22
Sara Gutterman: In fact, NV energy in particular has reduced its carbon intensity by 50% since 2005. It closed its last coal power plant last year. I believe it's building out 12 major solar plus storage projects. Three of those projects went online in 2023 and provided 700. And excuse me. 478MW of new solar power and about 338MW of energy storage, which powers over 101,000 homes in the in their area.

00:50:40:23 - 00:51:01:16
Sara Gutterman: And, you know, I also like to call out some builders that are really leading the charge. And there's two that we get to work with. One is Thrive Home Builders. They are kind of what I like to call the California builders, meaning they're always the harbinger of like what's to come. And they're really looking at low carbon products and carbon.

00:51:01:18 - 00:51:36:05
Sara Gutterman: They're one of the only builders that I know right now actually purchasing carbon offsets. And then another builder I like to call out as Madam Homes, Philip Squires over there, is really being in charge and thinking very thoughtfully about low carbon products and then also looking at making decisions that optimize for low carbon. So for example, in Ontario, where they build, they actually don't install solar because the energy mix from the utility is so clean that it increases embodied carbon without providing other benefits.

00:51:36:07 - 00:52:02:03
Sara Gutterman: Of course, you can make the argument about resiliency and redundancy. That's a whole other conversation. Now, finally, I just want to talk about how to talk about zero carbon, because I think we've found over our decades of being in business that there are effective ways to talk about high performance home, healthy homes, you know, net zero carbon homes now.

00:52:02:03 - 00:52:32:23
Sara Gutterman: And there are ineffective ways. And, you know, I think that what's really important is in order to reach your customers, whether you're manufacturer or dealer, distributor or builder or other type of related stakeholder, you know, you got to communicate where people are at. And so, you know, I think what's important to communicate is that, you know, on a per capita basis, the US has one of the highest rates of carbon emissions.

00:52:32:26 - 00:53:06:10
Sara Gutterman: And this is really an injustice and inequity that a lot of millennials and Gen Z are internalizing. And, you know, so I think that being able to look at and talk about carbon emissions is something that's real and that's normalized. And by being able to deliver low carbon products and net zero carbon homes, you are indeed actually addressing some of these topics that are most important to home buyers in general, but particularly these younger homebuyers.

00:53:06:10 - 00:53:32:20
Sara Gutterman: So you're kind of future proofing their future. So another element that I think is really important is just the behavioral change. So we look at presenting different types of scenarios, whether that say heating and cooling scenarios, looking at a decrease in carbon emissions, if you know you set your temperature accordingly in winter and summer, or looking at kind of old tech versus new tech, right.

00:53:32:21 - 00:54:00:05
Sara Gutterman: How, you know, energy star refrigerator save, you know, about 0.5 tons of carbon emissions annually over older models. And then, of course, you know, kind of connecting carbon to real life, right? So a homeowner who does 100 loads of laundry a year can save 500 pounds of carbon emissions annually by using cold water instead of hot water. So there's, you know, some very simple and easy facts.

00:54:00:08 - 00:54:41:16
Sara Gutterman: Green builder media in our July August issue of Green Builder magazine, has a great article on kind of humanizing the conversation, kind of connecting CO2 to daily decisions and showcasing how home owners, home buyers, consumers in general can really make better carbon based decisions in their lives. Everything from, you know, looking at how they can access renewable energy to waste management, to, you know, buying electric vehicles, telecommuting, flying thoughtfully and buying carbon offsets for travel.

00:54:41:16 - 00:55:10:07
Sara Gutterman: So I encourage you to take a look at that article. Finally, the last thing I just want to say is, if all of this is interesting to you, we have so much more content. As I mentioned, you know, housing 2.0, it's free. It's a free educational course with Sam Raschke. And we also now have extensive content on our Cognition Academy platform, on everything from green building fundamentals, green product essentials.

00:55:10:07 - 00:55:45:06
Sara Gutterman: We have a whole course on net zero carbon building. We have courses on specific products like heat pumps and advanced demand side energy management systems. We've got courses on decarbonization, ESG circularity, and climate risk disclosure. So here's my email. Feel free to shoot me a note. Ask me any questions that you may have. I am going to look at the question and answer here.

00:55:45:06 - 00:56:04:11
Sara Gutterman: I think what I'm going to do actually, is because I ran a little late and I want to end on time. If you do have any questions that you'd like for me that you'd like to ask, just shoot me an email after and I'll respond that way rather than trying to take more of your time today. So with that, I'm going to wrap it up again.

00:56:04:11 - 00:56:26:17
Sara Gutterman: Thank you so much to Mary Kastner. Thank you all for being here. And a special thanks to Boston Comfort Group, James Hardie and Powershift and energy. Again, without the generosity of our sponsors, we couldn't do the work that we do. And we also appreciate their appreciate their innovation and their creativity. So thank you all so much and look forward to hearing from you.

00:56:26:17 - 00:56:46:05
Sara Gutterman: If you have any feedback in general about this webinar, this will be the first in a whole series of net zero carbon webinars and content that we provide. This is a big area of focus right now for green building media, and we look forward to seeing you all again soon. Thank you so much.