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Journalist Markham Hislop interviews leading energy experts from around the world about the energy transition and climate change.
Welcome to episode 306 of the Energy Talks podcast. I'm energy and climate journalist, Markham Hislop. Canada's building stock accounts for about 13% of national greenhouse gas emissions, But buildings are also one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize. Not only are there millions of them, but they're often old, graphy, and energy inefficient. New technologies like heat pumps are helping speed up building retrofit, but the challenge is still daunting.
Markham:To discuss why Canada should decarbonize its buildings and how it can be done, I'll be speaking to Pablo Laroche, global head of sustainable building design for Arcadis, an author of carbon neutral architectural design. Welcome to the interview, Pablo.
Pablo:Yeah. Thank you for inviting me, Markham.
Markham:Well, I'm really interested in this because, 2 years ago, my wife and I had a heat pump temporary climate. We're not, you know, like, on the prairies where you get 30, 40 below at some time. And then we we, changed out our hot water heater, so now we have, an electric, heater, instead of a gas. And the only thing left in our home right now is, the fireplace, and we'll soon phase that out at at some point. And I have to say, for us, because we had a 30 year old home, but it still had a good insulation, good windows, you know, it it, the energy auditor gave it a good rating.
Markham:The process for us wasn't too bad. But I understand, like, if we're gonna do this at scale where we're doing millions of these kinds of retrofits in a really a short period of time, I mean, that's really quite a challenge, isn't it?
Pablo:Yes. It is. It's quite a challenge, but I think it's it's possible. There's, the first thing that we have to think about is that there's no one single perfect thing to do. Right?
Pablo:It's a combination of strategies, and you've actually mentioned a couple of them already. I would say that I would group them in a in maybe 22 as 2 sets of things. 1 of them has to do with systems, like what you said about the heat pump, the water heater, appliances. Right? All of the stuff that uses electricity or uses gas, which we're trying to face away.
Pablo:Right? The other part of the strategy has to do with, actually, with the building itself. Let's say with architectural design of the building, the envelope, the materials that you have in the envelope. Right? How do we, control, heat gains and heat losses in the building?
Pablo:It doesn't make sense to put a heat pump in a building that is very leaky, right, in which you're gonna lose all of that energy. It's just gonna be a very expensive use of a heat pump. So you have to work on all of these things together. And just to add another little thing is really or not a little thing, but just to add another level is, what are the materials that you're using in the envelope? What is the embodied carbon of these materials?
Pablo:Right? So when we're talking about everything that you've mentioned so far, we're talking about operational carbon emissions that come from the building the building's operation. But the other part of it is really the materials that we use in the construction of the remodeling of the building.
Markham:That reminds me of an announcement that was made about 3 weeks ago by US climate envoy John Podesta. And I wrote about it and because there's been almost no attention paid to it in Canada. And it did make it did ruffle some, you know, create some waves in the US because I think that they're paying more attention to federal climate and energy policy there. But what Podesta did was he announced a task force, and the US is taking dead aim at embedded carbon in its imports. And the it is not hard to figure out that China is the main target here.
Markham:Mhmm. Right? Because they have so much coal in their electricity system, and, you know, they're building solar panels and EVs and batteries and so on for export. And so the Americans want to naturally manufacture many of those things themselves. And so one way to keep out the competition or make it more expensive is is to go after embedded carbon.
Markham:But that then raises the question, you know, what about embedded carbon in other areas? In shingles, in insulation, in sheetrock, in in the, you know, in lumber. Canada's a big producer of of lumber that goes down into the American market. So do you think that going forward, like, in the next 2 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, we're going to see countries around the world spend more attention looking at this embedded carbon and trying to squeeze those emissions out of their economies?
Pablo:Absolutely. We're we have to see that, and, we will see it, and we have to see it because the embedded carbon that we put in the buildings is happening immediately. Right? Let's say the the operational carbon you can reduce and it's gonna have an impact, But it's like in a year by year basis. Right?
Pablo:It's gonna have a little bit of an impact. Embodied carbon is, like, right away. Right? It's it's, like, immediately in in in in the building. So one thing that, that could be interesting to mention is actually many of the options for embodied, materials have to do with, let's say, bio based materials.
Pablo:Right? Things that you mentioned, timber, for example. Materials that actually, sequester carbon from the atmosphere and and put it in the material itself. So when you use these materials, you're actually reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that you have in the atmosphere. Right?
Pablo:It which is the opposite of steel or aluminum, which actually to fabricate this, let's say, a window made out of aluminum, you have to generate a lot of energy.
Markham:Right. Does that mean that currently, we're using a lot of materials that have a high amount of embedded carbon, and it sounds like if we shifted to more of these materials, like, we're already using a lot of timber. Every house, most houses have, you know, are made of 2 by fours, 2 by sixes, plywood, on and on. But more of that, these natural materials that have sequestered carbon, can we make a significant difference doing that?
Pablo:Absolutely. We can. And I think one of the key things that has happened lately in the last, maybe, 5 years or so is that we can measure this. Right? Since we can measure it, we can now determine the impact of this.
Pablo:And there are things like, EP environmental product declarations, right, in which you have global warming potential of different materials. Right? Simple things like this, you can actually see you can compare options, and you can see these EPDs are not perfect, but they're already getting more detailed as we go on. And, they provide an option to, for the designer to select the most, the the option with the lowest embodied carbon. So definitely, we're gonna see more and more of this, as as we get used to doing this as part of a workflow, as part of a design process.
Pablo:We already understand operational carbon. Right? It's been in our practice for many years. We have we see the connection between operational carbon and energy use. Now we're seeing the connection between the materials that we use and embodied carbon in our buildings.
Markham:Oh, isn't that interesting? That reminds me of an economist that I've been interviewing for years years, and, he now, he started out with IHS Markit and which then was bought by S&P Global. So, you know, it's big firm. And, Kevin Byrne has now become I believe he's the leader of their global team, a Canadian boy out of Calgary, but the leader of their global team, for measuring carbon. They're measuring emissions intensity.
Markham:And he and I have talked had conversations about this. And, you know, S and P Global believes that in whether it's crude oil, natural gas, whether it's timber, whether it's, you know, any of the materials that we're talking about in manufacture, In order to talk about those things or in order to tax them or price them properly, you need to first be able to measure them. And that means you have to have standards, and you have to have measurement technologies, and you I mean, it's not a it's not a simple issue Mhmm. At all. When I talk to when I talk to Kevin, there it comes it becomes, it's clear that it be be it is a very complex issue.
Markham:And are you seeing the emergence of this, within the industry of the people like Kevin and methodologies and teams and and services to do that so that we have a better idea of, you know, what we're talking about?
Pablo:Absolutely. I think, this is happening, and it has to happen. Right? We're, again, it's not a perfect size. It's the first thing I would say.
Pablo:It's not something in which you can measure it with 5 decimal points. Right? It's, but we are getting more accuracy as we get more data, and we can compare options. We have the methods to do it, which is really the first step. The next step is really the data.
Pablo:You know, how can we refine the data that is gonna be input into these processes to actually get accurate information? And and architecture and urbanism and arcades, we are measuring, operational carbon in most of our projects, and we're measuring embodied carbon in, more of our projects as we go on. And the goal is to measure embodied and operational carbon in all of our projects so that we can actually see how we're doing and to report this, data transparently to everybody and see how again, if we can't, measure it, we cannot improve it. Right? So the first step is really measuring and comparing and seeing how we're doing.
Markham:Maybe you could, for the per, benefit of my listeners, give us a little background on Arcadis.
Pablo:So Arcadis is a a large engineering firm, and we are part of, we have an architecture and urbanism division, which is it's a global firm. It's a global group. We have work all over the world. We we design our our group designs buildings. We we go from interiors of buildings to small retail to, let's say, to buildings, to urban plans, to landscape architecture, to all sorts of different things and all sorts of different scales.
Pablo:I would define it as anything that has to do with the built environment at almost any scale.
Markham:So is it fair to say that the, the industry is becoming very conscious of the emissions intensity and the embedded carbon and and these kinds of issues. And second a second part to this question is the role that data will play and the role that artificial intelligence and data centers will play in managing and crunching that data?
Pablo:So, it is absolutely very important, and we have to internal think how to frame this, because there's, like, several questions in what you asked. And I think I lost the first part. Sorry, Mark. And what was the first part of the question?
Markham:And It's okay. I knew when I asked that question, I that there were actually 2 questions in there, and that might cause you problems. So it's my fault. I'm really within the industry, it sounds like when you design new buildings, whether they be commercial buildings or residential buildings or small, you know, you know, industrial plants, whatever it is, that a more thorough accounting of the operational carbon and the embedded carbon is an important part of the design process. Is is that a fair thing to say?
Pablo:Absolutely. It's it's, it's it's it has to be, and that's what we're striving for, completely embedded in the process. And we and, the other thing I would say is it has to be done early. It's like everything in the design process. We as we design buildings, it's not that the first, design that we do is the building.
Pablo:Right? We we go through a process in which we go through multiple iterations. Right? We develop it, and we refine it. It's the same thing with carbon.
Pablo:We measure it, maybe with some the information that we have at early phase. We look at the big we call those hot spots. What are the things that are making a difference? For example, could it be structure? You know, something in the structure.
Pablo:Then we look at alternatives to structure. How do we optimize that? And that's where mass timber comes in, or maybe we're looking at concrete, and we're looking at different mixtures of concrete. So we look at, definitely during the process, what are the strategies and the options to reduce embodied and operational carbon? And we're measuring it, and we're using different tools that are integrated in the design process.
Markham:I'm I generally ask international guests questions about, the extent to which this is accepted and common practice, in international circles. And the reason I asked that question is because very often, the debate in Canada is, well, why should we do it? Well, you know, we'll let somebody else do it. Let China let China reduce their emissions. It's it's the there's a very low, understanding of the extent to which processes like, the world is just is very different than it used to be.
Pablo:Mhmm.
Markham:And this seems to be an example of that. And is this something that's just catching on? You know, maybe it's in the leading edge of practice in Europe, for example, or or in New York and Los Angeles, Or is this something that's, you know, becoming really commonplace throughout your business, the arch you know, the design and buildings architecture, throughout the world?
Pablo:Definitely, it's like, can I say it's like it's like everything? Right? There's, locations in which it's stronger. There's clients that push it more that are but I definitely see also, it's gonna be something that we can't avoid. Like, if you want to avoid doing this, you're not gonna be able to do it.
Pablo:It's something that is gonna be part of legislation, part of building codes. And it's gonna be just the way we do things. I mean, that's that's it's it's like everything in in our in building practice. Right? Maybe something was cutting edge at some point, and it becomes the normal way of doing this.
Pablo:So this is
Markham:just the this is the norm. Yeah.
Pablo:That's that's how it is, and that's what's gonna happen. And I've seen a big change in the last, maybe, 2 or 3 years. I mean, it it exponential. I mean, it's been changing. It's it's like, I think I've been in this maybe for, like, 30 years, and this is, like, the biggest change I've ever seen in a short amount of time.
Markham:Isn't that interesting? Let's talk about commercial real estate because, I have done other interviews where we've talked about, you know, the decarbonizing residential buildings, but we don't talk about commercial real estate. And my impression is that there are different how do I say this? I was gonna say grades, but that's not really what I mean. So let me just give you an example.
Markham:As, during the the COVID, well, we're still in the COVID pandemic. But as part of my COVID protection strategy, I have a little c portable c o two, monitor, and I use that as a proxy for air change turnover in buildings. And I'm shocked at how good the air is in office buildings, in airports, in generally in public buildings. You know, my readings are in the 400 range. I can hardly get that in my backyard.
Markham:You know, the air is so good. And then I'll go into older buildings, and the air is not nearly as good. You know, the now we're into 1315 102,000, parts per million, and and and that shows that the air isn't being turned over as much. And where I'm going with this, Pablo, is it seems like those old strip malls, those old office buildings, you know, those sorts of maybe old, you know, commercial buildings that are being used for by plumbers or whatever the case is, they're gonna be a hard, you know, very hard to to retrofit and to upgrade. Is that a fair observation?
Pablo:I I guess I would start by defining very hard. Right? I think it's gonna vary between projects. And, I would say is what I would say is that it has to be done, and it can be done. I think your observation is actually very good.
Pablo:It's, we've we're we did we just did it's actually I think we're gonna finish construction of a project. This is in Madrid and Spain in which we looked, it's an a building located in a very good location in Madrid and Spain. It's an office building. We changed the envelope of the building. We integrated photovoltaics.
Pablo:We are providing more daylight. It's, and we're, it's gonna be a better building for the occupants in the building, but we're keeping the structure of the building. We're just improving what needs to be improved. What are we achieving with that? We're keeping the embodied carbon in there.
Pablo:We're adding just the minimum amount of carbon that we need to add, which is the envelope to make it perform better. It's gonna be, I think the and we reduce the energy consumption according to our calculation. It's gonna be about 50% less, and we're saving a huge amount of carbon again by keeping that structure there. So this can be done, and it should be done.
Markham:Now I I wanna ask a question about innovation, because in the course of the various interviews that I that I do, I do about 4 or 500 a a year with with energy and climate experts,
Pablo:Mhmm.
Markham:And I keep hearing about things like, photovoltaic windows or roof tiles, or we're gonna you know, pilot projects where you're integrating electric vehicles that are in your parkade, you're integrating them into the circuits of the building and then allowing utilities. Utilities can then use them for electric storage, or maybe the building could use them for electric storage. You know? So there's some fairly high-tech, you know, space age kind of stuff that seems to be in the pipeline. Are we seeing those innovations come to fruition?
Markham:Are we starting to see them work their way into actual buildings, new and retrofit?
Pablo:Yeah. That's a very good question. I think there's, all sorts of different innovations. Some have to do, and what happens with many of them, they're there. They're developing labs.
Pablo:They work. Many times, the issue is, somebody let's say, oh, I see this innovation. For example, there's a coating that a lab has developed in Australia that is actually regulates the amount of heat that the envelope can reflect back outside. They can be radiate back outside depending on the seasons, depending it's better than a cool roof, for example. It's gonna reradiate a lot in the summer, and it's gonna absorb more in the winter.
Pablo:And it has, like, 3 coatings inside. And I said, okay. I wanna use this in a building. But then I go check with the lab, oh, it's still not commercially available. We cannot use it yet or, you know, there's all sorts of constraints.
Pablo:So there's many innovations like this that are that are there, that are under development. What needs to happen one of the things that needs to happen is maybe that industry really connects with these labs and then takes them to the next level in which we all have access to these innovations. Right? We go from the small start up, from the small lab connected with a research center in the university to really large scale implementation and projects. And the the other thing that I would always remember is that there's a lot of things.
Pablo:You know, we we talk a lot about innovations. All of these things are good, but there's a lot of things that we already have in our tool set that we can implement that are good things that we know that work. And we just implemented those, like connecting with climate, right orientation, passive heating in the winter, passive cooling in the summer, we'd be achieving, you know, maybe 80% of what we need to do, and we just needed, like, extra 20% with innovation. Right? So there's a lot of, again, good stuff that we can do without necessarily, needing all of this, all of these things, which again are good, but we cannot use them or use the lack of the availability of these things as an excuse to not do the right thing.
Markham:Well, that leads me to my next question, Pablo, which is the role of regulators and government policy in hastening that process. Because if you've already got 80% of the tools you need in the toolbox, and it appears that maybe those tools aren't being used to the extent that they should be. It sounds like and I think in the, press release that your firm put out, you refer to the office of the superintendent of financial institutions, Canada, which most of us have never heard of. But it sounds like guidelines are coming, codes are coming, standards are coming that will force builders, force architects to use more of, you know, maybe the full 80% of those tools that you already that you already have.
Pablo:Yes. And that's, that's always an issue. And I would connect that also with, okay, let's, maybe the and this is gonna be maybe a little bit of, maybe not what everybody would accept, but all of this is good. Right? You know, codes, are gonna are good.
Pablo:And if especially if they're performance based. Right? Let's say they're this code is tells us, okay. You have to achieve an energy use intensity of x, you know, at a certain value. You can achieve it through different types of paths.
Pablo:What's really some of these codes lack is really recognition from, for other let's say, for the implementation of other strategies that could also actually improve the performance of the building through different, sort of strategies that are more innovative that have, you know, a little bit of innovation, but are not commonly clearly understood. For example, some of, I, you know, I practice, I do research, and I try to implement my research in my practice. Right? That's, I I I really like to do a lot of research in how to improve passive cooling and passive heating systems and buildings. And there's some that work really well.
Pablo:For example, in a hot and dry climate, not necessarily Canada, but we can have, water. I've done systems with water in windows, actually, that actually have worked well in the in the summer and the winter. So I put water inside windows, and I use that water to actually then heat or cool the building. But then imagine, like, saying, like, oh, I'm gonna have a water filled window. Or, you know, it's like, what?
Pablo:You know? It's like not necessarily something that we would commonly accept. Oh, I'm gonna buy a water filled window or roof pond also. I've done a work with roof ponds or operable insulation in attics. This is not something that a code will accept.
Pablo:The code will tell you, oh, you gotta insulate your attic, and that is good. But I can make that even better by having that installation operate, but the code will not accept that. Right? It's but I know that I can do it better, and I've taken data. I've measured it.
Pablo:So some of these are sort of limitations that the code tells us to do. Okay. This is the right thing to do. This is good, but we can do, like, even better if we do it another way that is not necessarily accepted and measurable.
Markham:Well, Pablo, this has been fascinating. We've talked about some of the nuts and bolts of decarbonizing buildings and what's changing in the industry. And I think that's fascinating because, I hear you know, in my social media connections with various economists and what have you, I mean, they're talking about these kinds of things, but at a very global level. And, you know, how difficult it is, but we're making progress. We still have a long way to go.
Markham:But to hear someone who's actually grappling with it on a day to day basis, looking at at the various components and trying to figure out how to make it work and knowing that we can do better, it's been fascinating for me. So thank you very much for this.
Pablo:No. Thank you so much for the invitation. I really enjoyed talking about this, so thank you again anytime.