Achieving Net Zero: Inside Sustainable Design with HED’s Daniel Jaconetti

In this episode of the Climate Confident podcast, I chat with Daniel Jaconetti, the National Sustainable Design Leader at HED. 

Daniel delves into his journey from New York to becoming the corporate sustainable design leader at HED. 

We discuss the importance and practices of integrated design, the future of sustainable architecture, and the role of innovative materials and technologies. 

Daniel also shares valuable resources and insights on achieving high-performing, net-zero buildings, along with funding sources and cost-effective strategies for decarbonizing building portfolios. 

Join us to learn how we can grow buildings inspired by nature, and shape a more sustainable future.

00:00 Introduction to Future Building Concepts
00:25 Welcome to the Climate Confident Podcast
01:38 Today's Guest: Daniel Jaconetti
02:07 Daniel's Background and Passion for Sustainability
04:56 The Role of Teaching in Sustainability
06:08 HED's Commitment to Sustainable Design
12:39 Integrated Design for Net Zero Projects
17:47 Navigating Regulations and Building Codes
20:46 Finding Exemplars of High-Performance Buildings
22:34 Introduction to Living Building Certification
22:52 Net Positive Energy and Water Systems
23:53 Case Studies and Certifications
25:08 Funding and Cost Reduction Strategies
29:32 Innovations in Sustainable Architecture
37:58 Advice for Aspiring Architects and Engineers
40:30 Final Thoughts & Resources

Daniel's links:

• International Living Future Institute
• COTE Top 10 Award
• AIA Framework for Design Excellence

Transcript

Daniel Jaconetti: 0:03

Where we're going in the future is going to be. And I'm going to be a little extreme in how I say this, but almost like growing a building versus constructing a building. And I mean, nature's existed before we were here. And nature has the circular economy piece, which is what we need to get to. And I think that's where I'm most excited about innovation

Tom Raftery: 0:25

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate Confident podcast, the number one podcast showcasing best practices in climate emission reductions and removals. And I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Don't forget to click follow on this podcast in your podcast app of choice to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 178 of the climate confident podcast. My name is Tom Raftery. And before we kick off today's show, I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to all of this podcasts. Amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping the podcast going, and I'm really grateful for each and every one of you. If you're not already a supporter, I'd like to encourage you to consider joining our community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about climate. Supporting the podcast is easy and affordable with options starting as low as just three euros or dollars a month. That's less than the cost of a cup of coffee and your support will make a huge difference in keeping this show going strong. To become a supporter you simply click on the support link in the show notes of this or any episode or visit. Tiny url.com/climate pod. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking to Daniel Jaconetti from HED. We'll be talking about architecture and the reasons why that's important. And in upcoming episodes, I'll be talking to representatives of Climate Works, The Conservation Fund, Visions 2030, and more. So be sure to stay tuned and watch out for those episodes dropping shortly. But back to today's show. As I said, I'm talking to Daniel Jaconetti from HED. Daniel, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Daniel Jaconetti: 2:12

sure. Tom. Thank you for having me. Good morning, everybody. My name is Daniel Jaconetti, and I am the National Sustainable Design Leader for an architecture and engineering firm called HED. We have offices across the U. S. And I'm an architect by training. I've been an architect for the past 20 years, always with a special focus on sustainable design. And in the last two years, I've been in this new role as essentially the corporate leader for sustainable design across our entire firm.

Tom Raftery: 2:44

Okay. And why, why sustainable design? What decided you to go down that route? I mean, you say you've been in it a while now. It's getting, it's getting hot and sexy now, but back then it wasn't really a thing. So what, what made you jump into it then?

Daniel Jaconetti: 3:03

Great question. So I grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York. About an hour north of New York City, very beautiful wood, wooded bucolic and I was Vice President of the student Environmental Action Club when I was in high school. So interested in that kind of stuff. And then when I got into architecture school, I guess. You know, there it's interesting when you're a young architecture student. One of the things people struggle with is how do you generate form, right? You can pull it out of thin air, right? And it with the influence of some certain key professors who I went on to be teaching assistance for in topics like environmental systems. I realized that environmental factors, studying sun patterns, studying how the wind flows, thinking about passive design, it's kind of a logical way to generate form, right? And decide how to start your building. And so it was interesting that even though it married with my sort of student environmental action passions from before, it wasn't necessarily back then for me about the ecological context or paradigm of being more sustainable. It was that it was more interesting. It made more sense. It was more fun. It was more of a challenge, right? To to not just take a tabula rasa approach to building design, but to actually think about all of the environmental factors around it and how they could work together to make something that performed as as a natural system would. And I think that's sort of where that, where that took off and as I said, I was a teaching assistant in the environmental systems series throughout my 5 years at Rensselaer, which is where I went to school in upstate New York and just really became a passion of mine from there.

Tom Raftery: 4:55

Okay. And did being a teaching assistant also enforce your passion for sustainability or did that have any impact at all?

Daniel Jaconetti: 5:06

A hundred percent. You know when you're, first of all when you're teaching something to somebody else,. It helps you understand it more. So you can, you know, you can give the elevator speech forwards and backwards, right, on on why passive airflow benefits a building, right? Because you've taught it to people. And then, it also adds some commitment to the message, right? Because you're teaching somebody something you have to be committed to it. Otherwise, they're not going to buy into it. So I definitely feel like my experience as a teaching assistant and, you know, my the professor that I taught the most with a gentleman named Walter Croner, who's now retired, but still living in upstate New York. Wally, everybody called him. He was, he was amazing, inspirational, became a mentor, ultimately became my thesis advisor when I did both my undergraduate and master's thesis' there. And, yeah, that was I mean, teaching is one of the most valuable experiences in my, in my history and education.

Tom Raftery: 6:08

And talk to me a little bit about HED. You've joined HED, do they have a strong sustainability focus or are you sitting by yourself in the corner there? Or how does that work?

Daniel Jaconetti: 6:22

So, interesting question. Part of the reason. So I, as I said, I grew up in, in New York and in 2015 with my partner decided we were going to move to Chicago. And so in my, in my firm search, right? I really only looked at major architecture firms that had a strong sustainability focus, right? And it was very clear that HED did. However, you know, like many firms, when you see how that pans out in practice, what you notice is it's not for all. So there are key, amazing projects. And, you know, prior to my time at HED there was this project, the West Berkeley Public Library outside of San Francisco, which to date is still the firm's most high performing project. Right. So there were key projects like that, that were amazing, but the firm does 200 projects a year. And so like many firms, how do you shift that from sustainable design being a niche for those special projects, maybe with the clients who come in already looking for it, right? When I was in New York in one of the firms I worked for there, Croxton Collaborative, the only clients they had were Audubon, Natural Resources Defense Council, clients who were coming in expecting something high performing, right? How do you take that and democratize it for everyone, right? How do you understand that every single project from the smallest retrofit upgrade of a system to brand new building can be high performing and can be sustainable. And I think that's what I've been focusing on mostly in the last two years, since I've become the corporate sustainable design leader is how do we take the handful of special projects and multiply them, right? And understand that every single project can do something, right? Even if it's one thing, it's still a win, right? Even if it's a little bit of energy savings, right? That's something right.

Tom Raftery: 8:26

And does that involve you mentoring your colleagues or how do you go about changing the, the, the direction of the ship as it were?

Daniel Jaconetti: 8:34

So I feel like I, my, my role is mostly Motivator in Chief. So absolutely. So, I mean, officially. I support teams. So we have, we're sector based now, which is a change we've made in the past year where instead of it being each office, the 10 sectors that we have, right by project type, higher ed, for example, are operating across the firm between offices. And so each of those sectors has leadership. And so I meet regularly with leadership and look at their stats. Right? So we have data and charts and you know, how many? What is your average energy reduction from baseline on across your portfolio of projects? Real time? How many projects do you have pursuing a certification? How many projects do you have on the boards that are talking net zero and think they could achieve net zero, right? So that's, that's the very tactical sort of boots on the ground piece of it, but then on the other side, there's education, right? So we have a sustainable design learning hour monthly, which we give we're registered to give AIA credits. So we give a credit for that for people who join. And I curate that with people from around the firm. Sometimes I deliver the content myself. Other times I have peers of mine, you know, we have other sustainable design leaders that sort of work with me. They don't really, we're not, we're very non hierarchical, so, you know, they don't work for me, but they sort of work with me, right? So I'm their mentor and I'm their ring leader, even though I'm not their, you know, supervisor. And we just had a fantastic one actually last week by three women in our LA office on this new climate positive toolkit that Metropolis magazine has put out, which really helps put tangible strategies in the hands of designers from very early on decarbonizing what goes into a building. Right? And we did a different format this time. We did like, sort of 30 minutes of presentation and then we did breakout rooms and discussion and the 4 of us each took a breakout room and moderated and it was fantastic. And actually we've got such positive feedback on the sort of conversational piece of the breakout rooms that we're going to try to do that for more of these sessions, right? Where you really bring people into the conversation. So they can't just sit there and fall asleep, right? Listening at your content, but they have to become active participants and then maybe they learn something from that, right? And they can take it and apply it to the next project.

Tom Raftery: 11:05

And for people who might be unaware, what's an AIA credit?

Daniel Jaconetti: 11:10

Ah, sure. So American Institute of Architects, which is our professional association in the United States and so to be a member of the American Institute of Architects, you need 18 learning hours a year. And some of those specific to sustainability. And then depending on what state you're registered in as an architect, you also need continuing education hours. And so if you're an AIA member, they manage that for you. They manage your transcript, right? And it's interesting. So I'm a licensed architect in New York, Illinois, and North Carolina, and they all have different registration periods, like, you know, North Carolina it's annually, I think, Illinois, it's every two years and New York it's every three years. So the alignment of the continuing education, is, is wonky, but if you are an AIA member, it manages it for you. And in my, in my role as a sustainable design leader, I go to so many continuing education webinars and seminars and conferences in order to bring that back to the firm that I'm usually drowning in continuing education credits. But there are people in the firm who are not right. If you're a, if you're a project leader and you spend most of your time with clients, you might not have the time to attend as much continuing education. So us having being able to provide that you know, 12 sessions a year is valuable and it also is a carrot to get people to attend our sessions.

Tom Raftery: 12:37

Of course, of course. I see that. Can you explain the importance of integrated design in achieving net zero projects? How does this collaborative approach impact the overall success of a sustainable building?

Daniel Jaconetti: 12:52

So it's, it's, it's really interesting because when I think about integrated design to me, it seems like obviously, right? Like, obviously we all have to be rowing in the same direction. And recently I was archiving some folders, some sustainability folders for the firm that preexisted me. And I noticed that They were talking about and training people on integrated design back in 2005, right? And yet,

Tom Raftery: 13:18

just, just for people, again, who might be unaware, could you give us a 101 on integrated design?

Daniel Jaconetti: 13:25

Sure. So integrated design means that all disciplines are working together from the beginning in parallel, right? And so, you know, forget that maybe not everybody listening is in the architectural and engineering world, right? So on a typical building project, right? Disciplines involved would be, you know, I mean, there's architecture, but even architecture can be broken down into design, early design, technical design, project architect, which is what my background is, right? Interior design, furniture design, and then there's engineering, right? Structural engineering, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, data and technology. We can't forget the site, right? Landscape architecture, civil, civil engineering, right? And then even, I mean, it could even broach into the builder, bringing the contractor in early. And so in, in a historic practice, a lot of this work would happen sequentially. So picture an assembly line in a, in a factory, you're making, you're making donuts, and somebody's mixing the batter and somebody's shaping it. Somebody's cooking it. Somebody's coming back and putting the icing on it. Someone else is putting the sprinkles on it. And that, that works if you're making a donut, but in, when you're making a building. You need feedback loops between the systems, right? So how does the site affect the building, but then how does the building affect the site? How does, how does the structure, right? And so, you know, in a non integrative linear process, right? The architect might put a form on a site and then shape it and then ask, okay, structural engineer, structure it, right? Give it bones, right? Mechanical engineer, make it brief. In an integrated practice, you're all sitting at the table from the beginning and that unlocks the potential for high performance strategies, things like saving energy through natural ventilation. To save energy through natural ventilation, right, you have to understand the wind flows on the site. You have to understand how the building is going to be shaped where the fenestration is going to locate how the air flow can come through, but it has to be controlled, right? You don't want people's papers flying off their desks, right? And so, if you don't have all disciplines sitting together from the beginning, working in sort of a feedback loop fashion, where instead of being this linear process, it's talk about something, test it, get feedback, come back, iterate again, right? And then it kind of clusters through. It doesn't it's hard to get something high performing, right? And so another analogy I like to use is, you know, let's say seven people are in a canoe, right? A canoe is not going to hold seven people. Seven people are in like a scull, right? You're rowing on on the Thames or something. And you're you have someone calling out the strokes, right? So that you're all rowing together unified in the same direction. If you don't do that, you're going to spin in circles. And so that's, that's what integrated design is and why it's important. I don't think, I mean, it's, it's virtually impossible, right? To get to net zero without it, right? Because in a non integrated model, when you're shaping the building as an architect, when you're siting the building with the landscape designer, the civil engineer, you're not thinking of the impacts on energy flow. And if you're not thinking about the impacts on energy flow that early, then you're, systems folks who come in later, your mechanical and electrical engineers, they're not going to be able to squeeze down the energy flow low enough to get to net zero. And that's why integrated design is just it's critical. And if you look at good examples of really high performing projects that are winning awards, right? Getting net zero energy certifications winning. So the American Institute of architects also has the committee on the environment, and they have an award called the COAT. Or Committee On The Environment top 10 and so 10 projects a year get awarded. This is sort of the, the Oscars of sustainability in the U. S. and to win that award your project has to be integrated. And you see that when you look at the project

Tom Raftery: 17:45

Interesting. Interesting. And what about things like, regulations, building codes, performance standards. They're obviously changing all the time. What should organizations be aware of to, to future proof their buildings in terms of standards, building codes, et cetera. And are there any upcoming regulations that particularly excite or concern you?

Daniel Jaconetti: 18:10

Concern for me is probably not my approach just because I rely on regulations to push people. Right. And the interesting thing is, so building performance standard is the terminology that a lot of people are using, and that's where a municipality, could be a state could be a city are putting requirements in place for things either like energy or emissions. Right? And if you go on energy codes dot gov, which is run by the U. S. government or the New Building Institute, which is a nonprofit, there's a map and they show these things. And so just to look at this quickly in the past few years. Right? Energy regulations have been put in place by the states of Washington and Oregon, the cities of Reno and St. Louis, Washington, D. C., and the state of Colorado. That's a pretty diverse group, right? It's not like, Oh, this is a progressive state thing. This is a northern state thing. No, it's, it's pretty widespread. And then going further to look at emissions of greenhouse gases, Seattle, Boston, New York City, and Cambridge, Massachusetts have all put in standards related to greenhouse gases. So there's a momentum building. And people need to understand that you may find yourself in and the thing about building performance standards is these are not necessarily construction codes. These can affect you operationally. So you have a building in this city. And now this city is requiring you to benchmark your greenhouse gas emissions annually and report it to them. And a lot of them start with benchmarking, but they're moving toward eventually there'll be some sort of tax or whatever on emissions. So if you want to, you know, future proof yourself, besides the co benefits of obviously reducing greenhouse gas emissions will slow the acceleration of the temperature rise and will you know, be a more resilient strategy for us. But even if you're not worried about that game that longer picture, you may have financial impacts right to your carbon footprint or your energy use in the near future. And it seems like it's, it's gaining a lot of traction and, you know, people here, there are blowback, right? There are some lawsuits where governments have been asked, like, challenged, like, you can't do this. And sometimes they win and sometimes they lose, but you can't move your building. So it's really important to be prepared for this.

Tom Raftery: 21:55

Cool. Cool. Cool. And if I wanted to find say exemplars or case studies of high performance, low carbon buildings, could you share a couple of standout projects that have set a benchmark in the industry or tell me where to go to find these case studies.

Daniel Jaconetti: 22:13

Sure. So, yeah. There's a couple sources that I like to go to to find them, right? So if you go and you can search for all these in a web browser, typically I use Google, but if you go to the American Institute of Architects COAT Top 10, they have every year since the program started in 1997, right? And what's really great about that particular award system is it's focused on education. So if you win, when you submit for this, you need to agree 1st of all to submit for it. You're so there's there's measures of sustainability they use. It's called the framework for design excellence. There's 10 measures. To submit for it your material needs to be educational and explain how the project met each of the measures and there's metrics that go with it, right? Water reduction, energy reduction, carbon reduction. And then if you win, you have to agree that your project will be made public. It will be used as an educational tool,

Tom Raftery: 23:11

Okay.

Daniel Jaconetti: 23:12

And then the other one that I would suggest is International Living Futures Institute and their Living Building Challenge. And similarly, education is core to their mission, right? So there's only about 300 buildings that have been certified as living buildings. Since they've come into inception a few years back. And if you go on their website, all bunch of case studies, right? And depending on the project. So the living building challenge is very rigorous, right? You have to be

Tom Raftery: 23:42

again, again, what is a living building?

Daniel Jaconetti: 23:45

So, uh, so it's, it's a certification system, right? Conceptually, a living building is a building that leaves its surrounding site better than before the building was there. So sort of it's it's it coexists with nature. And so, you know, 2 tangible examples of that is that it has to be net positive. Has to be 105 percent net positive, right? So instead of taking energy from the surroundings, this building has to give back 5 percent more on average than it's using, right? And so they use the analogy of photosynthesis, right? Like a flower, right? Drawing in the sun and converting it to what it needs, right? It's it's a circular system. And then on water the project has to be net positive also. So what does that mean? do you net positive water? That means that the water that is flowing off your site, whether it's after a rain event or from water used in the building has to be cleaner than the water that comes from rain in the 1st place, right? So that means treatment and just you know, preservation of the ecosystem. And so these are really holistically designed buildings, and it's very rigorous. And again, they provide amazing case studies. So our firm so the living future, International Living Future Institute, Living building challenges there is their major system, but they have some smaller pieces, right? So they're also one of the two or three organizations in the United States that certify net zero buildings. And so our West Berkeley library that I mentioned before was certified net zero by them. It actually is is running net positive, but certified net zero. That particular project also won one of those COAT awards. There's about 50 firms that have won a COAT award more than once. HED has won two both libraries, both in California. That former firm I worked at in New York, Croxton Collaborative, they've won 4 over their history. Yeah. And, and there are, I think the firms that have, there are firms that have won like 15, right? Usually very boutique, small boutique firms that specialize in one particular type in one particular region. But it, but again, if you think about the numbers, there's great case studies available on both of those websites. So International Living Future Institute. It's one website. And AIA's Committee on the Environment top 10 is the other website.

Tom Raftery: 26:18

Okay. I'm guessing doing some of this has got to be expensive. Maybe not long term, but at least starting out, you know, cost of building a building is going to be high anyway, but you're adding these extra things into it, which, like I say, over time will pay back. But the initial, the initial cost hits going to be expensive. What are some key funding sources or are there key funding sources available for organizations looking to decarbonize their building portfolios or to build a low carbon buildings? Can you share any cost reduction strategies maybe that have proven effective?

Daniel Jaconetti: 26:58

Sure, so I'll answer, I'll come back to the expensive piece, because not if you practice integrated design, it's not necessarily more expensive, but there are some things, some technologies that you might want to use that might cost more than less efficient technologies. And so there's the better buildings initiative, which is a website. They have a funding and incentives resource hub that you can find on the Internet pretty easily. There's also A group, the acronym is D. S. I. R. E. so like desire and that is the database of state incentives for renewables and efficiency. And that's again a U. S. based website that will show. Okay. New York state will give you 30 percent the cost of PV systems, right? Or California will give you 40 percent of charging stations. And then there's also what the Biden administration here passed the Inflation Reduction Act, there's a guide to that. You know, it's it's involves tax law. It's very complicated, but there's a lot of funding available. And it's set up with increments and bonuses. But so if you, for example, wanted to use ground source heat pumps, which are very efficient. People commonly might refer to those as geothermal, even though it's technically incorrect. If you're using equipment that's bought in the United States, if you're meeting their workforce development goals, because they're integrating social equity with us, you can get up to 60% of the system paid back. And they define the boundaries of the system is anything connected to it. So that would include the duct work, right? So this goes back to does green building have to be more expensive? If you're putting in a conventional gas fired rooftop unit, right? It's cheaper than geothermal system, but you're not getting any incentive money and the ductwork is probably the same, right? So now you go to this geothermal system, you get a 60 percent incentive. You're also covering the cost of things you were going to have anyway, like the ductwork, right? And so that's an example of how systems thinking can make it not more expensive which is important because people, you know, cost can be a barrier, but sometimes that's you know, a false barrier that people just haven't been informed enough to understand what the obstacles are and aren't right? And again, back to the integrated design piece. If you think about nothing in your building, no system in your building needs to only serve 1 function. If everything can do double duty. Think about how efficient that is, right? So what if I saw a project and I don't remember the, which one it was, but it was, it was an award winning project and it had a mass timber design and they had these box, these wood box beams. That also served as the ductwork. So instead of spending the money on sheet metal ductwork, they were running the air through the wood box beams, right? That's pretty efficient. You've just eliminated a system.

Tom Raftery: 30:03

Yeah.

Daniel Jaconetti: 30:03

And actually, in that West Berkeley library project, one of the big strategies there, granted it was a library, so it was basically one big space. There's no ductwork. There's an actively assisted passive ventilation system, and the air comes in low and then uses natural buoyancy to raise high and it's evacuated through light monitors that have energy recovery. And so they saved you know, a lot of money on not having ductwork and that money was able to be used for the energy recovery and the automatic ventilator operators and the things that would have been extras cost of the project.

Tom Raftery: 30:39

Very nice. Very nice. Are there. technological innovations in architecture and engineering that are coming up that have you excited? Or are there any innovations helping create more sustainable and resilient buildings?

Daniel Jaconetti: 30:54

So I think the there's innovation all over the place. I just came back from a conference that happened to be held here in Charlotte this year. But it's a national conference called Getting to Zero Forum. Next year it's going to be out in L. A. And as part of that conference, there were different manufacturers there showing some innovations, right? So one manufacturer in particular had, is making HVAC systems that use desiccants in part of the dehumidification to lower the energy profile.

Tom Raftery: 31:27

Okay.

Daniel Jaconetti: 31:28

Another system, another company, this one is called Envirid, they're making recirculation ventilators that clean and this sort of came out of the covid pandemic that clean the air so much, right? That you don't have to bring in as much outside air, right? And in a cold climate or in a hot climate, right? Bringing an outside air could have an energy penalty, right? So there's a lot of innovations, but I think the innovations that I'm more excited about and going back to buildings as natural systems and how does nature do things, are the innovations in biological materials, right? Materials that have what's called anthropogenic carbon, which means or biogenic carbon. Sorry, which means that basically they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow and they're storing it. And as long as they're not incinerated or put into a landfill, they're, they're storing that carbon. So that's why mass timber is gaining a lot of momentum. People are building mass timber, mid rise towers, right? And all all over the world. But other things like cork, hemp, hemp is becoming a big hemp insulation, straw bale building blocks. There's a flooring company that's making, you know, they've removed the toxic PVC from there from the notion of resilient flooring, and they're using mycelium from farmed mushrooms to make adorable, resilient floor tile. And I think where we're going in the future is going to be. And I'm going to be a little extreme in how I say this, but almost like growing a building versus constructing a building. And I mean, nature's existed before we were here. And nature has the circular economy piece, which is what we need to get to. And I think that's where I'm most excited about innovation. How can we and that's actually what I did my undergraduate thesis on was natural systems and how we can mimic and learn from the logic of natural systems to make our projects more efficient and less impactful.

Tom Raftery: 33:34

Very nice. Yeah. Yeah. I had, uh, Bill McDonough on the podcast, two years ago now, I want to think. And it's very much what he was talking about as well obviously. For people who might not be aware, Bill McDonough wrote a book called Cradle to Cradle, or he co wrote a book called Cradle to Cradle, which was a big kind of, kind of kicked off a lot of the circular economy movement that we know today.

Daniel Jaconetti: 33:56

Right, and I mean that book is a seminal text in my world. But you know what is interesting is You know, people, people, people who haven't read it, Bill McDonough wrote the book with a partner, Michael Brumgardt and part of a spin off of their company was Michael Brumgardt Design Chemistry. And so that's what's interesting. Let's come back to integrated design. So we have an architect partnering with a chemist, right? And so the architect is going to need the materials that exist to build their building, but maybe the materials that are better don't exist. So now they're partnered with the chemist and the chemist is looking at nature and how nature does things. And wait a minute. What if we replace the petroleum oil in this plastic with corn oil? That has less of an emissions impact, and now it's biodegradable. And so that's what's so brilliant. So I'm really glad you brought up that example and also to take it back to we were talking about teaching. Bill McDonough taught for a really long time at University of Virginia. You have to educate the next generation in how to how to do these things. And how to care about them. So that's a really good example.

Tom Raftery: 35:08

Quick change of pace in movies like The Matrix or Blade Runner we see typically futuristic skyscrapers and cityscapes that ignore sustainability. You know, that might explain why the, the, the, the, the atmosphere in Blade Runner is so toxic. If, if you were to design a set for a sci fi movie that promotes sustainable architecture, what would that look like?

Daniel Jaconetti: 35:38

So I, if people don't know Ken Yang, so Ken Yang is an architect and futurist based in, I think, Singapore or Malaysia has some books, and one of which is the bioclimatic skyscraper. And if you contrast the views of the, you know, sort of dystopian cityscapes in Blade Runner with that, you're looking at tall buildings that have trees growing out of the sides of them, right? That are very green, that you're integrating nature into the urban form, right? And that's really, really important. I actually, it's interesting. I read something yesterday in Crane's Chicago Business that Skidmore Owings and Merrill, which is a major worldwide architecture firm, for those who don't know, is partnering with some energy startups, looking at integrating kinetic and potential energy storage into skyscrapers. So now think of like, you know, S. O. M. designs some of the tallest buildings in the world, right? Think about a really tall skyscraper. And then during the day when we have renewable energy from solar and wind, right? They use that energy to make electricity to lift heavy blocks up to the top. This is all automated with AI up to the top of the skyscraper and that stores potential energy. And then at night, when you need it, they lower down slowly, they turn a turbine, they create electricity, right? And that's an alternative, right? That's using physics. It's an alternative to chemical storage or battery storage, right? And so, you know, like our limits to being 100 percent renewable energy, right? Is storage, right? Because the, the chemicals, the heavy metals, the rare earth minerals, right? That are used for today's battery technology. So that's another place where technology needs to accelerate is in the development of organic energy storage, right? Organic batteries, polymer batteries you know, water based batteries. So, you know, can you imagine a city full of skyscrapers that are green have have bushes and trees on decks all the way up and then have these potential energy storage levers moving up and down, right? In order to be 100 percent renewable, you know, in in those cities, the air would be clean, right? They would be bright. There's an interesting building gosh, it's got to be 10 years old now, but it was done by Cook and Fox. Or FX it's, there was FX Fowl and then they turned it to FX Collaborative and Cook and Fox, but it's 4 Times Square. And then the 1 Bryant Park, which is the Bank of America tower. They're next to each other in Manhattan, but these buildings, the air that comes out of their exhaust louvers is cleaner than the air that they suck in. So they're actually, and I think they're both LEED certified, potentially platinum. They're cleaning the air around them in this urban environment. And that'll take us back to the notion of a living building, right? Whatever you do that comes out of what you've done with that building needs to be the same, if not better than what was there before. So you're not polluting. You're not putting out worse air. You're not putting out dirty water. You're not using more energy than you're putting out. And that's a future that would be much, that's the future that we need as opposed to the future you see in some of these dystopian and I'm, and I'm a big fan of sci fi. So I love watching these movies, but yeah, that's not the future we want to live in right?

Tom Raftery: 39:06

No, no, no, no, not at all. What Daniel advice would you give to young architects or engineers who are passionate about sustainability? How can they prepare themselves to make a significant, significant impact in this field?

Daniel Jaconetti: 39:22

So I think you want to learn as much as you can, but at the same time, the biggest thing, the biggest secret to being successful is relationships, right? You have to be someone who knows a lot of people and can be positive, right? Nobody likes a sustainability consultant who comes in and makes things seem hard or makes things seem like punishment. Like, oh, you're not doing it. You're not your building is not efficient enough. This is terrible, right? You need to be positive. You need to bring actionable information, right? So you come to a meeting and you know, you're open minded and you say, well, could we do this? And oh, no, no, no, we can't. Well, well, like, let's think about it for a minute. Here's some examples of other people who have done it. It wasn't that hard. Are you interested? And you're basically a coach, right? Almost, almost like a motivational speaker, right? And I think that's been a shift I've seen over the 20 years of my career. But being more positive, being more collaborative and 100 percent on relationships, right? And forming relationships with the right people, getting in the right people's ears at your firm and not making it seem like just another list of things that the project team has to do, right? Because nobody wants another list of things they want to do, right? Instead, easy, tangible things that actually will make the project better. And that's part of come back to integrated design and come back to the framework for design excellence. Sustainability is not sort of this pill on the side. It's part of making a project better, right? And if your project can also be high performing and sustainable, it's going to be that much better for everybody, not just for the environment, right? But for the people who are in the project right in the building and for the people who are paying for the building and for the people who are going to want to sell that building in the future. I mean It's a good investment.

Tom Raftery: 41:20

And for the people working in the building who presumably aren't getting sick building syndrome.

Daniel Jaconetti: 41:24

Exactly. And it makes a big difference. Air quality is one of the most important things, especially post pandemic. Ask employees what they care about. Air quality. It's going to be one of the top things they say.

Tom Raftery: 41:37

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Daniel. Daniel, we're coming towards the end of the podcast now. Is there any question I did not ask that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Daniel Jaconetti: 41:51

I would like to close by just reminding people or maybe informing people if they don't know it's really not that hard. And you know, it's a blessing and a curse to say that, because when you say something is not hard, then people think, well, maybe they don't need to pay attention to it and it'll happen on its own. That's not true. You do need to think about high performance. You need to think about sustainable impact, but there's not the perceived barriers. People think it costs so much money. It it's, it's mystified. We have no idea how to do it. It takes so much more time. None of those things need to be true, right? If you know what you're doing, you think about it early, you surround yourself with a positive project team, making a project better, and more sustainable is really not rocket science, right? We where we are in 2024 as a human species we have all the technological pieces we need. We don't really have the huge financial barriers that we used to. I mean, in the past year, the cost of solar power photovoltaic has come down by a huge amount. So we have all the pieces. It's just a matter of putting them together and being positive about it and working together as a team to get it done and we need to get it done. Otherwise we're going to be living in Blade Runner, right? Or our future generations are going to be living in the set of Blade Runner. And I don't think anybody wants that, right? We all want to be happy and thrive and be able to do the other things we want to do.

Tom Raftery: 43:20

Daniel, if people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Daniel Jaconetti: 43:27

Sure. So you can go to our company's website, which is www. hed. design. You can find out more about our work, and you can find me there. Probably. You can also just Google my name and find me on LinkedIn. And I would also, encourage people to check out the American Institute of Architects website on Framework for Design Excellence and on the COAT Top 10 as well as the International Living Futures Institute's website with the living building challenge, because those are very informative tools to be able to integrate this work into your practice.

Tom Raftery: 44:03

Great. If you shoot me across those links, Daniel, I'll include them in the show notes so everyone will have access to them.

Daniel Jaconetti: 44:08

That would be great. I'll do that right after.

Tom Raftery: 44:10

Super Daniel. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. It's been really interesting.

Daniel Jaconetti: 44:15

Thank you, Tom. It was really great to be here and I hope our audience found found some useful resources that they could put into practice right away.

Tom Raftery: 44:24

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.