KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Edward Mazria

this is diane warren your host on the sustainability segment of mind over matters of k x p seattle ninety point three fm an online at expedia know it our guest this morning is architect edward masri a senior principal at masri i think an architecture and design firm in santa fe new mexico and founder of architecture twenty thirty a nonprofit whose mission is to radically transform the us and global building sector from the major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions to a central part of the solution to the global warming crisis edward is author of the passive solar energy book senior analyst for the southwest climate council an adjunct professor at the university of new mexico he speaks nationally and internationally on the subject of climate change and architecture edward masri is here today to tell us about the twenty thirty challenge to achieve a dramatic reduction in the greenhouse gas emission of buildings and changing the way they're designed and constructed welcome it's great to have you know what led you to sound architecture twenty thirty well back

around two thousand and two we conducted some research on greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and just the sort of by accident in a way want to see what our contribution was as an artist and as a percussion and when we got into urban started producing the numbers and creating a building fat there actually wouldn't want at that time a group believe that the numbers just redistribute them into a building separate thing that we as architects and designers construction and design and we found out that we were really the major part of the problem and figure that that time that we would make that kind of how it worked these elaborate on what you include in the term building sector know the building her to wait no about forty eight home of poor annual you a hundred local court aboard and it's

made up of about four to forty per home of portal you have to look at building operation cooling and hot water the big four a man running equipment and computers and things like that which are again and into a small part and then a percent of total us energy consumption is the actual manufacture and transportation of the material and building the building itself so that gets us to forty eight percent if we look at those greenhouse gas emissions and the building second we find that forty three percent of all greenhouse gas emissions are attributed just to build just the building operations so called greenhouse gas emissions in the building sectors somewhere around around have around fifty percent the united states is a correct that yeah that's correct globally it's probably similar but maybe even a little more because globally do you have book of transportation and impartial mecca there are probably a lot more than

the political probably a lot larger than many underdeveloped countries for example we ran the numbers oh boy what level of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is needed for the building sector to do its part in preventing catastrophic climate change well right now the belief that there is increasing at about one and a half percent to present a year in terms of the emissions so it's a little bit little bit more directly than the other two seconds with her industry and transportation actually industry is the one that's not increasing very much transportation along with the building just the level out the buildings that you would have to stop any demand for example and building energy consumption in this country but we we know we have more children every year

an increasing our consumption in the building for them and we want to reduce consumption and basically enjoy how to belt fixed the only be seventy eighty percent of today's level by about twenty fifty so perfectly grammatical ever effect you really need to do that so if we want to do our part of the factor we need to be forty between forty and have people have below nineteen ninety levels which are very good at a couple of them as well could you go into more detail about the twenty thirty challenge and say what's been proposed for new buildings and then what's been proposed for old buildings that may need to be renovated as well org about a year ago well before that we figured what would take to stabilize emissions and the energy consumption in the building so that means that it would be climbing at one and a half percent a year or computer here and the way to do that you know that you're that we

all believe that you renovate you reduce their consumption through renovating the building so what we're asking for in the twenty thirteen calendar there are actually reports on the floor spar what we're saying is that all the renovations major innovation reduce their building's energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by half the regional average for that building so for a school that would be heard anew renovating that school you would reduce the consumption to about half the average of the schools in that area in that region are going to have an absolutely the same pay and what that the levies it it actually reduced its consumption in your area because now you're innovating believe in reducing their consumption that makes room for new buildings the common and were asking that all new buildings need an energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions performance than half the regional average for that building

and work we're also asking that you renovate his many buildings as you build new in your area so that would that the fifty fifty there with the renovation down and then coming in at fifty percent below the regional average wooden buildings that with them level the building sector matter how so you would not have any increase in emissions are increasing consumption and then we played that every five years you actually reduce consumption by an additional five percent so for example in twenty ten actually started this in two thousand and five six in twenty ten percent reduction for new buildings fifty percent all its renovations of those renovated because of an existing building a half they show average put new buildings you reduce my compass and again every five years so that by twenty ten to seventy percent reduction twenty fifteen it's an eighty percent reduction so that the time we get to twenty thirty all new buildings there would be this giant what we would call

carbon neutral meaning they would use no greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuel energy hopper we're going to talk about how easy or difficult is it to design and build a building that is carbon neutral carbon neutral get somewhat tough today it's not just about the time we know for example that we can find out quite a bit and children of the poor strategies like or you know relocate the building how you orient the website of the billy put the windows on with the shape them and that would be solar heating and cooling strategies or daylight and strategies when he's now actually all sort of you know professional lighting and there are many many many cost the fact that what we call low tech which would be you know cost cost savings

or minimal cost option for the country to rethink we would have between thirty and seventy percent reduction these kinds of vodka and to build a building their energy consumption but to get the carbon neutral then you have to then get the thirty one out of forty two and that's going to take a month so in that sense you know use what we call a technology with that technology and that would be more of a high tech addition so you look for example of coordinating the best recorded leaving the slow you might add the affordable care act or electricity needs you might add the more scale wind power or only paid try to reduce you can function as much as you can through the low tech low cost low cost option for cost savings options and then make up the difference either by adding technology or by purchasing green power of that you really do have a very a carbon neutral though what is the upfront costs likely to be of a carbon neutral been building

compared to most buildings their belt and also compared to be energy efficient buildings that can be dealt with a more low tech conventional techniques yeah i think that that's a tough question than should know they live in civil union example i get the question whether that and we have that and we want to build an office building on that flight could be worth of debris whatever <unk> and we give each of those one hundred architects the same exact fly the same square footage thing or two weeks ago designed the most efficient building you can do within that class you'll get your particular talented enough with her interviewer and landscape architect little detour carbon neutral but no this will call and you get all the way down to the other end of the spectrum that will cost a fortune so it really depends on the pound and the education level of the

people who hire now that being said we know for example that maybe one and have two percent additional cost of housing yet a fifty to thirty percent reduction to get to an energy star building to get the fifty percent fifty percent reduction on average you might be looking at three or four percent to get the carbon neutral it really depends on how much you can get out of the building through efficiency measures and menus have on technology for the rest or you can buy whatever you a carbon neutral mail theatrical efficient believe i clean power there may be efforts are the top morris something like that open up the cost of that the core through march so there are lots of different ways and now we have a tremendous and planets that are being put into place to for example political will pick system disorders system open at the state level and we're looking to hopefully to expand the energy policy act of

creation and journalist and that actually a lot of the measures so that the koch for going to anywhere between fifty percent according to really not known for much and diane warren and we're speaking with architect albert masri a founder of architecture twenty thirty our topic is the twenty thirty challenge to achieve a dramatic reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions of buildings and changing the way they are designed and constructed within alluding to this already but how feasible is it to meet the goals of the twenty thirty challenges are practical oh i think it's not only practical but if murtha for it must be done alone i don't think we have that sort of when people thought about it they look at present day makes it will pay homage to cost you know for one of those right there and they're not looking at life cycle costs would require much life in the maya my energy costs golden embers new york if we go to a cap and trade system and putting the price on carbon and all sorts of other things are going to go up so conservation makes tremendous energy project that out you can spend a lot more upfront dollars now paid

overtime and be basically at the same level in terms of your outlay for example an american residents because you saying that amount of money on your energy costs and those costs are going up then you shouldn't have become greater to go out and we're not used to thinking that what we are thinking because of underage women were no actually you're a lecture in the near future will be in boston and in atlanta and i'm just one email or they won the usual laws will mean a long meeting the goal one or all political beliefs and that will be open only the lies the ipcc un and a homophone climate change in malibu hungary and coming over more people report basically phones that we could have up to eight a two foot rise in sea level by twenty one hundred that's kind of their upper level but then they have a copy of an arrogance is that without an email hoang reports from greenland and then an

article or scientist at nasa are saying they're beginning to now they're shrinking actually implodes over the past five years and that's a dangerous line and they could easily aired each one had a leader is by themselves in a very very short career path so we took a look at a three foot or one meter sea level rise along the east coast miami beach would be gone fort lauderdale would be basically inundated and on while looking jersey with big online will force base with the john hampton virginia were beyond you look at those kinds of things in newton you won't get the whole area down a material motown troops along with other level begun to you looking at an astronomical cost so the cost of not doing anything could basically devastate this country in a very very short so when you talk about cost to talk about will live in a cautious and maybe it's not feasible

i don't think personally in terms of the risk i don't think we have a choice we took a chance for example with not putting in one to two billion dollars to fix the levees in the world everyone knew mr mario is laid out very very clearly by many many people including an article that one read on what exactly what happened in the world of hurricane hit and it would've taken about a billion or two billion dollars to fix that situation and we decided to take a risk and not invest that panama because we thought it was too much it's now causing as two hundred to three hundred billion dollars to put the city back together if we can even do that and we showed a huge number of lives and a lot of loss by borrowing to buy something we're going to take a rest will the risk that we're talking about now is a lot greater so i don't think we can afford to take that risk how effective has the league's rating system been so far in to what extent can you contribute to meeting the twenty three challenge warrior agree more billy kyles wouldn't have been a great job

by implementing expand because then you can look at and say ok this is a standard that go go beyond that there are well up in the old greenville which was the last us green building council conference and then a few months ago a performance you know there was no actually buy one for example that was for energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions we made a presentation to the us green building council at greenville and right there they adopted the twenty thirty challenge part of the baseline of wheat certification and they're in the process putting that introduced basically certification and you can go beyond that and so i think i think you've got one win certification are changing as well as we speak and so i think it was it will also establish a minimum base walk but what we need and what you have to build intel what they want to do is

to go beyond the point of the trail so that we do have buildings they're out in front of a challenge so that we have examples as we move out and time poor to include the carbon neutral that we have lots of examples of buildings that are being built helping to see how to do this as we move as you move out entire building council's report the american is an architect who is also about the us conference of mayors has about that the challenge and i think that jim hansen what about the climate scientists just call for congress about the twenty thirteen found also in the book again on monday nbc so i think i think we're beginning to see some movement the movement around the country toward meeting these goals and then the point is that there are many many many ways to me that there's not just one way to meet it so you know if you can't do it through decided it can do it through reading technology you can do with community energy systems if he can't do it that way you can buy clean power so there are so many options to meet the party if there were a deal

is there and everything made to encourage the design and construction of smaller building sends a smaller size generally means less greenhouse gas emissions for a building absolutely obviously the smaller the saga less consumption was very upbeat be cool or syria iraq the white new actual footprint that's more it becomes for example we find that as you increase the density only of an area for example if you go to higher density in towns and cities the actual amount of space that people read the news becomes less and less so if you were out in the country you'll likely to live in a home at about twice the size of a person in an urban area where we didn't have an heir so actually how we plan our our city and i would do internal and begin increasing out there to be up to a point i don't think we know yet at what point the savings began to reverse themselves because of increased temperature infrastructure caught them

and just more infrastructure i think that need to be looked into work in general and christian venture the really the creation of a person need i think there are confirming that are key to this happened one one is about half the way there and then the us conference of mayors about that reporting so that was half the battle the other half about implementing it at that for the well so that we now need to then implement the arctic and figure out a way to do that it will be a lot easier government help so what we're asking for and for example comical and so working under legislation helped introduce legislation in congress to basically

extend the energy policy and energy policy it will give you for example commercial believe about it a square foot if you need a fifty percent reduction in energy consumption production below a certain baseline which they won what we want to an overly control volume of preventable world in many cases just the paperwork and the accounting and everything that that you have to do to get the credit all set the amount of money that you would get a lot of people are not taking advantage of and we think that if we can pretty much bubble occurs between your promised the public order to expand the energy policy act five years for example or from a dollar eighty three to seventy five square foot for commercial buildings from two thousand dollars to forty five hundred dollars a unit for residential building construction for example if you need a fifty percent to go from mommy five hundred dollars

about a thousand and two to take away the cap they amounted to quote knock out on so called informal code for residences have an unlimited app with a tax credit if the feds would do that that would be a tremendous competitive employment report in particular we know quite a bit because the little harsh on average that would cost them to do these things and then i think that would have a much much easier time implementing the parts so with just a little bit of help from the federal government i think these states and cities will move over quickly what is being done to cheney like a text to design carbon neutral buildings well about a year ago to really by the american people to work the committee on the environment and colby college mother watering report

on design education and the political analyst in america and i think especially in order with the most important purchase school would think i think it applied across the board and from a daughter was on the planet for example that kind of an intra militia movement i think over the past year and then a week and a half ago we conducted what's called appoint an imperative which would be a live webcast we help are actually alive discussion and almost at a symposium in new york city and webcast live to about a quarter million people logged on to hear the word cat and we go luke we also talk about the connection between the buildings sector an education with education must do in order to train architects and designers of course borg operate in this new kind of environment that were beginning to change into and so we called on all

schools to basically adopt what we want we had issued was was another count court appointed an important and specifically for that time and what it said it had three part of it and we're shooting at that point it occurred of this global emergency teach him that was what kept many many schools that they held events around the around the kitchen and what we asked for was one of the important problems though that instructors get through and design studio that their problem that the beer solution basically the design needed energy consumption engaging environment in a way that basically reduces eliminate the need for fossil fuels so you'd like that one cent added to all the time but not instructive pitching a problem but that just add that the students be aware and they're trying to basically a carbon neutral fan and then we're the school develop with an appropriate complete ecological literacy by twenty

ten twenty ten or so that when students are drawing things on paper and the signing the way our protection and then there's another deadline has been planned us withdrawal from paper need to know what the implications of the restaurant so where does the material come makes it what kind of resources are they are hurting for the one point an animal species one point solely one complete ecological and who were asking for that by twenty ten and we're asking that the design schools themselves within the campuses their actual school buildings become carbon neutral by twenty ten so that the students are working in building their carbon neutral as they're being taught to find carbon neutral building products and master plans so that was the particular girl and the numbers are now coming and we reached about a quarter million people what kind of

response that you got from the architectural schools you didn't even obama no i would go to your through the internet couldn't go a quarter million people logged on and university like the university of michigan who worked at the camp for a handball courts the kitchen amendment discussion same thing with world cal poly families of this poem minnesota universe in minnesota university washington in st louis i think art institute in new york the orphans columbia and the big discussion what's the discussion afterwards columbia university i'm just across the board we heard the milwaukee for example cancel classes of eight hundred people in a big auditorium are watching with each of them discussing it afterward cal poly pomona i think are the same silly at schools all across the us will almost all the schools and there might've been a few although book the pretty

much most of the architecture and design schools around the country watched an engaged and participate in the future well if i'm out of action and hope with higher can do they can project i'm a poet and they give the projections of what the future holds and what do we know what their knowledge of the future holds if we don't take action it's pretty bleak home and collecting that's been booted off of people told me twenty one but that is the takeaway from this is that they're making predictions and then we know how to over the current situation and you want to take action so it's not like we're going into this thing blind and then all of a sudden we're going to be hit over the head with a sling and there's nothing we can do we have time to take action and the time to take action is now and we know

we know what the risks are and all we have to do is actively act though we don't go to harvard for going out where the long reach into action and through the heart a tremendous advantage in order to report certain situations that i don't think we were given a toll in another hoax incredibly exciting time because we really have a chance to change the chord that direction to be going in a chicken and a beer you're ok well thanks for having me we have just been speaking with architect edward marcinko founder of architecture twenty thirty for more information check on the web at daddy daddy daddy about architecture twenty thirty dot org again that's architecture twenty thirty dot origin ii the sustainability segment of mind over matters program you just heard will be on the streaming archives section of caveats to use website and katie xv died o r g for the next fourteen days in addition selected

sustainability segment interviews are available as podcasts go to k x p dowd orgy click on podcasting and scroll down to mind over matter sustainability segment i'm dianne harman thanks for listening and be sure to turn into the sustainability segment again next week