Future Forward

Seyi (00:01)
Hello, hello, hello Reza, how are you? I am doing well, I am doing well. It's another episode of Future Forward and today you will be talking about the future of greener buildings.

Reza (00:03)
I'm good Seyi how are you doing?

Yeah, and you know, why buildings? Because I think buildings are citizens too. I mean, they shape the culture, sustainability, the social life of the city around them. And so that's why I picked this topic, Shea.

Seyi (00:29)
I love it. And before we dive in, I'll welcome our new listeners. Thanks so much for giving Future Forward a try. And to our regular listeners, thanks for always coming back and for your support. And for our new listeners, Future Forward is a conversation Reza and I had been having for several years. We would meet up at a coffee shop and just talk about all things related to...

the city we both called home, Austin, and much broadly, or more broadly, we will talk about systems, the systems of cities. And we thought, you know what, let's bring everyone into the conversation and let them help us shape this conversation around how do we build thriving communities and sustainable cities. So welcome. And as we mentioned, today's episode is on...

greener buildings and Reza this was inspired by a podcast we're both starting to enjoy.

Reza (01:34)
Yes. So this was inspired by the Monocle Magazine has a podcast called The Urbanist and they did an episode on the British Library and the retrofit of the British Library to make it more greener. And I thought it was a fantastic lens into how you can apply sustainability principles in the context of a building, know, an iconic building in a city. so that made me curious about this topic. And so

where, know, so I will start with some historical context about greener buildings and then I'll, for the present day, I'll pick two case studies, one of them being the British Library, the other is a building called the Edge in the Netherlands. But let me start with the history, like where did greener buildings come from or green building come from? And it really came about in the 1970s as a response to the...

global energy crisis, again, one of those events that drove these types of environmental movements, environmental awareness. And so in this period where they're escalating oil prices, architects, engineers, policymakers started to reconsider building design and operation with energy efficiency in mind. So we have the system of buildings and we want to change that system to make it more efficient. And so we had the formal establishment of some green building standards.

Seyi (02:56)
you

Reza (02:56)
that began in the 1990s. So to try to make some of this standardized, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method or BREEM was launched in the UK in 1990. It became the first green building rating system, the world's first. The United States followed with the formation of the US Green Building Council in 1993, which

later led to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED certification in 2000. So for those of you that live in the US, you might have seen buildings with LEED certification on the outside. So these standards were aimed to address the significant environmental impact of buildings. They recognized that the construction and operation of buildings consumed substantial resources and contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

And so they emphasize energy efficiency, water conservation, use of low impact materials, indoor environmental quality, air quality. But equally important was this shift in mindset. It was really from seeing buildings as this static infrastructure to viewing them as dynamic systems that interact with the environment and occupant. So there again, it's a system, they recognize it was a system and they wanted to address this part of the city, this system within the larger city system to make it more sustainable.

So I'll pause over there, Shay, before I continue and let's see what threads you wanna pull.

Seyi (04:25)
Yeah, no, it's thank you so much for that. The two things that immediately popped to mind as you were talking, this reference you made to the fact that movements like this start as a result of some shock or some event. And we see that time and time again around the environmental movement, this one being related to.

buildings and green buildings specifically. And as we sort of have gone through, there's been this evolution of how we think about buildings where before it was just a space to put us in, protect us from the elements. But now it's how can we avoid the buildings?

reducing how sustainable we are, the impact on our wellbeing as individuals, but also as a ecological system as a whole. So thanks for sharing those.

Reza (05:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

those are really good, two good threads that you pulled, especially the one where you talked about these events, because we just talked about this in our last episode about London, where we talked about Brexit and COVID. And we had one episode called, you know, the five events that shape cities. I encourage listeners to listen to both those episodes because it brings up how events can create a shock to the system of cities. So let's talk about the present day. I'm going to jump.

Seyi (05:59)
Yep.

Reza (06:03)
and share some stats. And then I'll pick two buildings as case studies to highlight what is happening with green building. And so the stats are, you know, we love our data. So in the US, commercial buildings account for about 16 % of total energy consumption and roughly 7 % of total greenhouse gas emissions. And this is from the US Energy Information Administration. So you can see that, you know, buildings have a pretty significant impact on energy consumption and greenhouse gases.

Globally, the building and construction sector accounts for nearly 37 % of energy-related CO2 emissions. And this is from the United Nations Environmental Agency, I think. So you can see also that constructing new buildings has this detrimental effect from a CO2 emission perspective. The average commercial building wastes 30 % of the energy it consumes due to inefficiencies, so it's not an efficient system.

Lead certified buildings, this is a positive thing, lead certified buildings report almost 20 % lower maintenance costs than typical commercial buildings because you're building it in a good system oriented way. But despite these advances, 70 to 80 % of today's buildings that we're, you we're doing all these lead things, greener buildings, but 70 to 80 % of today's buildings will still be in use in 2050, meaning.

retrofitting existing structures is just as important as designing new ones. So it's not just new buildings, but we have these 70 to 80 % of buildings that are just gonna continue to be inefficient. And so how do we address those? And so another stat about green retrofits, they can reduce energy consumption by 25 to 50 % in those existing buildings. And so that's another really important lens to think about greener buildings is not the new buildings that you're building, but retrofitting the existing ones. And so...

I have two case studies, the British Library and the Edge, but before I jump to that, Shay, I'll give you a chance to make a comment and then I'll talk about the case studies.

Seyi (08:06)
Yeah, I'll just quickly touch on what you said about the importance of retrofits because we... there's little political or even personal will most of the time currently anyway in our economic times now to just build anew and honestly it's probably a little wasteful so we... the need to recognize

One, the requirement to retrofit, but also the importance of retrofitting in light of the fact that old buildings will still make up such a huge part of the portfolio of buildings we have. So glad you called that out as an important element in whatever it is we choose to do with.

Reza (08:56)
Yeah.

Seyi (09:03)
just stock of buildings that we have across the world.

Reza (09:07)
Yeah. And I'm so glad that you brought that up Shay because, you know, there is this resistance to build new, and we have all these old buildings. And if you recall, know, when you and I first met, I was working at an energy efficiency consulting company, ClearResult. And I remember just the amount of low-hanging fruit that existing buildings could do to, you know, make the buildings more efficient. So there, there's a lot of opportunity there. And so the two examples that I'm sharing, the first one is the British Library.

Seyi (09:21)
Yes.

Yep.

Reza (09:37)
It's an example of a retrofit. And then the second one is a building called the Edge in the Netherlands, and that's a new build. And there's some slight contrast between those two. So let's start with the British Library. You it isn't just any public institution, it's the UK's national library, and it's one of the largest libraries in the world. It was built in 1997. It holds over 170 million items on 400 miles of shelves, just mind blowing. And it includes...

Shakespeare's First Folio, my favorite, you know, the Shakespeare weirdo that I am, Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks, even the Magna Carta. Its archives span every known language, every kind of knowledge, manuscripts, sound recordings, maps, patents, and more. So this is a thriving building in London, which we talked about. We talked about London in the last episode. And I remember walking by the British Library when I was there a year ago and just being fascinated with what an interesting

and incredible institution it is. Now, the retrofit to make this building more efficient, was really trying to reinvent this cultural memory bank. was a very difficult thing to do because it's a beautiful building and transforming it is balancing some of these cutting edge sustainability technologies with archival integrity. Because you can imagine all, know, Shakespeare's first folio, the Magna Carta.

you can't just drop in sensors here and change walls there. You gotta do it in a way that is not impacting all the materials in that library. it's not easy. The British Library Project, it really stands out for integrating discrete high impact green technologies. And so let me just touch on some of these innovations, because I think they're just fascinating. So the first one was solar thermal water heating. The library uses...

a solar thermal system to preheat water for staff facilities and heating loops. So unlike standard solar PV panels that generate electricity, these solar thermal collectors convert sunlight directly into heat. And this is particularly effective for an institution with a high and consistent hot water demand. And it's cleverly hidden from public view on the roof to preserve the building's visual identity. So it's very efficient.

because it's like 70 % efficient compared to solar PV, which is, I don't know, 30 % efficient, my numbers might not be spot on, but it's also sort of black. It's not the shiny solar PV looking thing. And so you're maintaining the integrity, the visual identity of the building. They had a groundwater cooling system, an innovative system that draws groundwater from aquifers beneath the site. It's used for cooling purposes before being returned to the ground. And so it's a closed loop geothermal solution.

So fascinating. It minimizes reliance on mechanical chillers and reduces energy use for cooling by up to 30%. And you need to keep archival things at a certain temperature, so really important for that building. It has a hybrid ventilation and smart control system. So they retrofitted spaces to have this natural ventilation system that's controlled by smart sensors that responds to indoor CO2 levels, temperature, occupancies.

louvers and windows open automatically to create an healthy indoor environment while reducing the load on mechanical ventilation systems. They did a little bit of greening a green roof. Although the library's architecture doesn't allow for traditional green roof everywhere, green terraces and microhabitat zones were added where possible. And this is part of a broader push to boost urban diversity in the Houston road area where the British Library is.

and contributing to the pollinator pathways and ecological corridors across London. So those are all the innovative things. And I want to add one last thing before I let you jump in Shea, which was a quote from the head of estates at the British Library, Sarah Jenkinson, which is a really great quote here. She said, we've approached this retrofit as not just a sustainability project, but a legacy one.

The building is a cultural memory bank and now it is becoming a climate conscious one too.

Seyi (13:53)
Fascinating. I was reading through the show notes and I thought, wow, this is such a thoughtful way of re-retrofitting, but also sort of refreshing is maybe the word, even though you don't use that with buildings. I'm choosing to for the intentionality they brought to it. Because as you were sharing, there's this healthy building approach.

Reza (14:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Seyi (14:22)
And

it's also part of a movement in the greener building space around healthy building. So the ventilation, the air quality, the water quality, the moisture content, and just this holistic view that we consider for not just the dwellers of the building, the...

people like you and I who end up using the building, but also for the things being kept in the space. So super fascinating stuff.

Reza (14:51)
Yeah,

So, Shea, I'll jump to the next one. I like the word of like refreshing the building. So the next one that I want to talk about is a completely new building, which is the Edge in Amsterdam. It's one of the most sensor-rich. And so this will appeal to us because the contrast with this British library. Sensor-rich data-intelligent building located in Amsterdam's Zuidas business district.

Seyi (15:05)
Yeah.

Reza (15:21)
And it's not just a green building, it's a flagship for smart workplaces worldwide. It's best known as the European headquarters for Deloitte, a big consulting firm, and they partner closely with the developers, OVG, Real Estate and Architects, PLP Architecture, to really create this workspace that's optimized for productivity, wellbeing, minimal environmental impact. And so it's a new build that's less about showing green gestures and more about deep integration of human-centric low carbon systems.

I feel like it's a great example of very tech and innovative forward thinking, but done in a way that's actually good for the people that use the building. And let me touch on some of the things about why I feel that way. So one is, know, IOT driven environmental optimization. Now that's a mouthful there, but there's a purpose. There are 28,000 sensors that's integrated into the lighting, ventilation, occupancy systems. The edges can...

Seyi (16:11)
you

Reza (16:19)
constantly gathering data on movement in the building, temperature, humidity, light levels, energy use, and this data allows the building to make real-time adjustments to save energy and enhance comfort. And so it's really with the people that work in the building in mind to do that. It has an energy positive design. It produces more energy than it consumes annually. This is fascinating. And it does this through rooftop solar array covering the entire building. South-facing facades, this is innovative.

Optimized for solar gain while north facing windows allowed diffuse daylight without overheating and so the how they situated the building how they cited the building Energy is stored and we use through a seasonal thermal energy storage system that stores heat in the summer and cold in the winter underground So another sort of geothermal innovative thing that was done there The next item here is is very much, you know sort of a Dutch thing cycling first car second the edge flips the parking paradigm

It has 500 bike parking spaces, many of them indoor and directly accessible to elevators and charging stations for e-bikes and just a handful of car parking spaces, all of them being electric. So really driving, I think that's great. So it really reflects the building's commitment to not just low carbon operation, but low carbon lifestyle for the people that use the building too. It's really driving them to, not drive in, but cycle.

Seyi (17:29)
You

Yeah.

Reza (17:46)
So I

love that, I love that. And then the last one is how they create the workspace or the workplace. You can book desks based on natural light preferences or temperature. You can control your lighting and temperature individually at your workstation. You can track your personal energy use and carbon footprint during the workday. And so it's involving the occupant in the technological part of the building. So it's not just all these technologies that have been applied, but...

I can make it useful to me as well as the user of the building. And I want to bring up two quotes about this building. So Ron Backer, the architect at PLP Architecture, one of the designers of the Edge, he said, we didn't just want to create a green building. We wanted to create a building that people want to be in, a building that learns, adapts, and improves over time. Again, very, very human-centric. And then, Quone...

Van Ustrum, pardon my mispronunciation, the CEO of OVG Real Estate, the developer of The Edge. He said, the Edge isn't about technology for its own sake. It's about creating the most sustainable work environment possible while helping tenants reduce their carbon footprint and operate smarter. And so, we have these two really contrasting examples, Shai. One is historic, one is very civic and adaptive.

you know, no building is too iconic to evolve. And the other one is this sleek, intelligent, ground up green building, you know, and how systems thinking can make this passive structure into a living system structure. So let me pause over there, Shadi.

Seyi (19:25)
Yeah, no, it's, I, again, this is another one of those. I'd seen a short documentary on the edge sort of a few years ago, but it just, was one of those, this is interesting in the framing of the healthy building space, because there's a Harvard professor.

Joseph Allen, I believe is his name, who's trying to be the champion of this healthy building movement. And one of the buildings he referenced, I believe it was on 60 Minutes or something, one of the buildings he mentioned, and I think they went to was The Edge as a human centric, sustainable and efficiency focused building. And a stat that

Reza (19:54)
Mm.

Yeah.

Seyi (20:18)
I I saw was the brim metric you mentioned earlier, or the sustainability score, the edge had scored 98 % on it, which established it as the most sustainable or healthy building in the world. And I believe this was 2016 or 2018, can't remember correctly, but diving into it as you've done.

Reza (20:31)
Wow.

Seyi (20:48)
exposes some of the reasoning behind how it got such a huge score, a high score on this brim metric. But it goes back to it all the time, Reza. They were thinking about the people who would use the space and even the form of the space has been designed and implemented to

Reza (21:05)
Yeah.

Seyi (21:15)
impact the behavior of the people. I love that.

Reza (21:18)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah. So Seyi, the law that I picked over here was urban metabolism requires circular thinking. You wanna touch on that real quick?

Seyi (21:31)
Yeah, and it's one we've touched on a few times more recently. It wasn't showing up initially, but it's been coming up a lot more lately. And this idea being that cities should be viewed as metabolic systems with energy and waste flows, resources flowing through. And there's a need to adopt circular principles.

Reza (21:37)
Yeah. Yes.

Seyi (21:57)
that can help optimize these flows. And the law came about from the work of Kennedy and a group of other researchers where they applied the concept of metabolism in urban systems.

emphasizing this need for circularity that we mentioned. And when we're not conscious of the circular utilization of resources in a system, in this case a building, the consequence is resource depletion. When we take, make, and dispose without...

reuse or recycling. We deplete our resources and eventually the environment suffers through degradation. again, the waste, who wants increased waste? Nobody does. Or at least we hope not. And buildings like the ones you've mentioned have paid attention to this law, recognizing that there's there's a secularity that needs to be maintained for sustainability.

Reza (22:49)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like these buildings recognize the metabolism of the building and the things around the building. And so this law is a really good one that applies. So Shay, I'm going to jump to the strategic foresight and I'm going to do something slightly different over here. We love to bring experts onto the show. And what I wanted to do is bring some of these, the voices of these experts.

Seyi (23:07)
Yep.

Yep.

Go for it.

Reza (23:27)
So have some quotes from some experts on greener building, greener design. So I'll have a little section on that before I jump into sort of three predictions or sweet strategic foresights on greener buildings. The first voice from the field expert is Saskia von Stein, urban curator and sustainability consultant. And she says, the green building of the future isn't the smartest or the sleekest, it's the one that serves the most people the most fairly.

We love hearing this. This is so true. And so she's, you she consults on these adaptive reuse projects across the Netherlands and central Europe. And she really emphasizes the green dignity, ensuring that, you know, what we do with buildings are also inclusive. And so it's, you know, universal design and retrofits, co-designing with occupants, prioritizing materials that are local, low carbon, labor positive. So all of these things that, you know, bring it into the design of the building.

Seyi (23:57)
Yes, we do.

Reza (24:25)
The next one here is Chitra Joshi, Chief Sustainability Officer in the City of Toronto. And we've talked about Toronto in the past with the Sidewalk Lab thing that we talked about in the couple of episodes ago on the future of smarter cities. And her quote is, our commercial building code is now a climate policy, but it's also a health and equity policy. And so she's really trying to shape Toronto's ambitious green standard for large developments.

which now ties building performance to public health and social equity outcomes. And so they're tying those two things together. And so it's really performance-based subsidies for commercial retrofits, prioritized in underserved neighborhoods, requirements that green upgrades create local jobs, especially in areas with high unemployment and racialized populations, and then mandates for resilience in infrastructure and new commercial buildings like passive cooling, battery storage.

in neighborhoods that's most vulnerable to heat waves and outages. So really, you know, designing that resilience in. And so she sees the green building movement evolving from an elite innovation to essential public service. I love this because you can imagine that a building like the Edge where Deloitte consultants work can be seen as elite. But what Chitra is trying to do in Toronto is to drive some of those green design principles into all types of building.

The last one here is David Ajaye, an architect and urban designer. this quote is from his keynote of the 2023 Urban Futures Forum. And he said, architecture must be regenerative, socially, culturally, and ecologically. A green commercial building should give back more than it takes. And so his recent work includes multi-civic use buildings in Ghana, the UK, and the US, where he incorporates.

bioclimactic design, which is a phrase for using form and orientation to reduce energy use like the edge did and how it was cited. Local artisan labor to recenter cultural identity and green design really involving the local population and the local artisans. Public access elements such as green courtyards, free core working zones and cultural programming spaces. And so he really argues that green buildings are not only truly sustainable, they're only truly sustainable when they become

public infrastructure, not just private assets. So I love that. I love that. So I'll pause over here before I talk about my predictions and talk about what the future holds. But Shay, what comments do you have on that?

Seyi (26:59)
Yeah, thanks so much for sharing those quotes from practitioners and experts because it led me to want to quickly share sort of the foundations of a healthy building because they so overlap. The Chief Sustainability Officer of Toronto sort of mentioned this as well. And this idea being that there are a few things in buildings that

Reza (27:12)
Mm.

Seyi (27:26)
help make the building more sustainable but also make the space more focused on the well-being of the occupants. And I'll just breeze through its ventilation, air quality, thermal health and energy usage in the space, moisture content, dust and pests, as you can imagine, safety and security, water quality, lighting, noise.

And I believe I haven't mentioned the last one, ventilation. That combined are the things that are being, so when you think about the edge, they have factored all those things in under the lens of sustainability and climate, but absolutely also squarely under.

Reza (28:14)
Mm-hmm.

Seyi (28:21)
the wellbeing of the people in it. And that's what these three experts are sort of pointing to, that everyone should get access to these greener, healthy buildings. It's very comforting to hear the people who are actually implementing these focusing on the equitable distribution of such benefits.

Reza (28:22)
Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, I love that you brought that perspective Shay, because even though one is coming from this view of environmentalism or sustainability, this other one is coming from the view of the human and their health. So it's a really good, and then they both have principles that are similar that help both. You're not just helping the environment, but you're also helping the humans that are in that building. So I love that.

Seyi (29:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly, Great.

Reza (29:14)
So let's hear my three predictions on the next generation of green commercial buildings. The first one is carbon intelligence and building performance. And so I expect a shift from design-based green metrics to operational performance metrics. Real-time carbon tracking will become the norm with digital twins and AI-powered energy models enabling constant optimization, not just when you built it, but when you're operating it going forward.

Seyi (29:40)
Yeah.

Reza (29:40)
The second one is deep retrofitting will dominate. And I mentioned this earlier, given that most commercial buildings already exist, deep retrofitting, where building envelopes, HVAC lighting operations are comprehensively overhauled, will become more critical. This includes insulation upgrades, smart HVAC controls, heat recovery systems, geothermal systems, know, all these examples that I shared, they will apply. And then the third one is

very much tied to the law that we talked about, regenerative and circular. So going beyond the net zero, the next frontier is regenerative and circular buildings. They will be designed to actively improve the environment by producing energy, cleaning water or enhancing biodiversity, and building materials will be selected for their full life cycle impact with emphasis on recycled, reclaimed or biological materials that can be reused or safely returned to nature. So those are my three, Shay, what do you think?

Seyi (30:40)
I couldn't agree more. I know we shy away from just talking about smart buildings, it does lend itself to this idea of more intelligent buildings. It does lend itself to helping us see this future vision that you're outlining to come to be. So I'm so glad you included those as some of the examples.

Reza (31:02)
Mm-hmm.

Seyi (31:09)
retrofit idea. I was talking to an architect a few days ago and he was sharing that there is going to be a lot of commercial buildings, especially in the economic climate we're experiencing as at June, sorry, as at April 2025 where we sit. And his question was, what will we do with all these buildings?

And as much as we can retrofit and update them to the standards you just shared and adapt them to other uses, I actually find myself quite hopeful because again, similar to everything we've shared Reza, when there is a shock to the system, something will change. And in this situation, the shock will be

Reza (32:01)
Mm-hmm.

Seyi (32:08)
Commercial real estate, which makes up the vast majority of what needs to be retrofitted, gets to a point where there is a need to reuse them for something. We can adapt them, update them, and just use them to the betterment of the populace in those cities where they exist. That's my hope anyway. And you're sort of giving a view as to how and what we might be able to do.

Reza (32:18)
Yeah.

Seyi (32:37)
with those buildings. So thanks so much for sharing that. It's such an interesting topic considering how much built space exists. Yeah.

Reza (32:47)
We have, yeah. Yeah,

and I think that was the sort of the impetus for the episode. I I really like how you brought this discussion that you had with the architect and events. We had talked about the future of the built environment, one of our early episodes, but I felt like a deeper dive into buildings and its systems was warranted. And so was a new lens to sort of bring to it. So.

Seyi (33:02)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Reza (33:14)
So yeah Shay,

this was a lot of fun to do and thank you.

Seyi (33:19)
a really good episode because

we dove deeper into something. We talked about it very early so that we can now come in 40 something episodes in and dive in with the laws and with a better understanding after several episodes of conversations. I'm really glad you pulled this back up for us to take a step in, especially with the examples.

Reza (33:26)
We did.

Yeah.

Seyi (33:47)
of two really iconic buildings that can frame how we should think about the future of greener buildings. So thanks so much for this. Yeah.

Reza (33:51)
Yeah.

You're welcome, you're welcome.

Yeah, Shay, so as we come to our close, one thing that I wanted to share with our audience, we hit an amazing milestone, Shay, which is we now have listeners from 25 different countries.

Seyi (34:12)
That is amazing. I saw that, but I was traveling when I saw that, I think. Yeah. It's amazing.

Reza (34:16)
Thank

Yeah, we have, and this is just a testament to, I were patting ourselves on the back, but we try to bring this perspective that is not only US centric, we try to, both of us don't come from this country. And so we have a different perspective that we bring. And I love that we're finding listeners around the world. So,

Seyi (34:28)
As we should.

Reza (34:48)
With that, wanna say please share this episode with your friends and family. We have a bunch of YouTube shorts. Those are really super easy to share. We're getting a lot of traction on those. We have a few thousand subscribers on YouTube. Please become one of those by liking and subscribing and also rating and reviewing on the podcast, because that helps the podcast get a broader, find a broader audience.

But with that, anything else that we want to share before we close?

Seyi (35:20)
No, just thank you as always. think that's what we feel gratitude for the people who listen from 25 countries across the world. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed these episodes as much as we enjoy making them. We have a lot of fun. And if you have any thoughts about future episodes, we have a lot of topics to cover.

Reza (35:28)
Yes.

Yeah.

Seyi (35:45)
But if you share something and we find it interesting, we'll dive right in and learn along with you. So till next time, thanks. Bye.

Reza (35:51)
Yeah.

Thanks everyone, bye.