Season 3, Episode 5 of Cleantech Talks features host Sofie Campbell in a conversation with Arman Mottaghi, CEO at Properate, and Tony Rapaz, CEO at Endura-Form, talking about the green construction and building sector. The podcast covers why "greening" the way we build things is important, what the two companies do in the space to facilitate greener building, and how external factors, like government programs and subsidies, impact the sector.
8:12 - Arman: Building codes are moving towards being very software centric, meaning if you want to get your building in compliance with codes you need to use a variety of software tools. This is common practice for many construction industry professionals but for energy, this is new. So there is this significant need for software that can make innovation in the building sector possible, primarily focused on building efficiency.
9:35 - Arman: Our focus right now is to make it really easy for builders, renovators, home owners, etc. to get an idea of how their home is performing and how they could make it more energy efficient.
10:10 - Arman: Over the last few years, this has turned into a very beneficial service with information about costing, carbon data, and lots of building technologies and assemblies.
11:30 - Arman: Buildings are one of the most important areas that we need to all be focusing on from a carbon emissions reduction standpoint. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which is a body trying to make macro-level change in the climate, looked at the five biggest sectoral challenges in the climate fight and those are manufacturing, transportation, electricity, agriculture and buildings and the only sector that had an easier time transitioning to the greener economy is buildings and that's because with buildings, you're already saving money when you're greening your building. And this concept is called the green premium. If you want to make a product in a greener fashion you might have to pay 10 or 20% more but for buildings, we're already past that threshold. For buildings, it is already more cost effective to improve energy efficiency in buildings than it is to leave them as they are. The real challenge isn't the technologies or the economics of the situation - it is the market perception and the inertia of the market. Very often when I talk about these things with educational partners I really feel that I'm trying to sell a website to people who don't know what a computer is. You have to first explain to them what the technology is. And it might not create that lightbulb moment in the first interaction. The conversation is continuous. We really need to start normalizing the fact that energy efficient buildings aren't here because we just haven't done it yet.
14:45 - Tony: Trying to change the minds of engineers and builders around the world to trust plastic, and especially recycled plastic, instead of always using concrete or brick, that is difficult. Education ends up reducing cost. But it is also my greatest challenge right now.
19:55 - Arman: A lot of people look at something like the Canadian Greener Homes Grant and see just $5000 but what I see is intent and one more tool that we can have in our toolbox to make homes more energy efficient. And that can really change things. One of the major factors in any new build is, how much is this going to cost. And every little bit really counts. You will not only see reduced energy costs with a retrofit but you will see an increase in the value of the home, for example. When the housing market is also so intense, these sorts of grants really start to make a difference in peoples' calculation of whether to invest in changes to improve efficiency.