Uncovering Sustainability Outcomes in the Context of AEC Industry Maturity

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: All right. Welcome, everyone, to the panel on uncovering sustainability outcomes in the context of AEC industry maturity. Today, we're going to think a little bit about the context of our discussion. I'm going to introduce our panelists. We'll talk through some of their success stories with their companies. And then we'll dig right into the discussion. So just to set the stage here, in the architecture engineering and construction industries, we have a clear responsibility to improve carbon emissions in buildings.

And there is a strange that just happened. One moment. OK. Carry on. So we have this clear responsibility to improve carbon emissions in buildings, and direct impact on how the built environment develops to ensure health, safety, and welfare of not only people, but also the planet. For the building sector, we're responsible for 11% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. This is contributing to our overall greenhouse gas emissions, and unfortunately warming climate. So news organizations are reporting not only on the consequences, but also on the source of the problems . And this is highlighted in the latest IPCC report, called code red for humanity. Definitely worth a read if you haven't been able to check that out.

Many leading firms in the building sector have committed to the Architecture 2030 Challenge to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment by 2040 to meet Paris Climate Agreement targets. With outcomes and outcome-based design strategy now critical to inspiring investment and action grounded in performance, it's paramount to look further into outcomes associated with sustainability. And to do this, I am thrilled to introduce our panel to you today. We have with us Carlos Cerezo Davila, who is an architect with KPF. We have Eric Corey Freed, also architect with CannonDesign.

And I am missing your formal title, so let's dig into that. Carlos Cerezo Davila is our director for sustainable design at KPF. Eric Corey Fried is our senior vise president for sustainability at CannonDesign. Louise Hamot is our global lead of lifecycle research for integral group. Nicholas A. McDaniel is our senior associate at NBBJ. And Mark Swanson is our North Central Regional Director at International Masonry Institute. So at this point, I am going to stop sharing my screen so you can meet all of these lovely people that I'm very excited to talk to today. So let's pass the mic first to Carlos. And Carlos, please tell us a little bit about yourself, your firm, and your big ideas on sustainability.

CARLOS CEREZO DAVILA: Sure. Thanks, Emily. So I lead KPF's environmental performance team, which is our in-house sustainability, and kind of technology related, technology team. And we are a relatively small team within our office, but I think we supervise or try to inject some degree of innovation and ambition on the sustainable design efforts of the firm worldwide, right, which is a very large number of architects, very large number of projects going on at a single time, and very large diversity of geographies, political context, and so on to deal with.

Which I think has been a very, very interesting experience for me. I've been there for three years now and now we are growing the team and doing more and more things. But it forces you to really try to think of what can you do in different types of projects and for different climates to still have an impact, right? I think in some cases, having an impact is more clear and straightforward. Certain building types, certain locations. In others it's much more an exercise of faith and a lot of creativity to try to get people to the point that you want them to be. So I think that's maybe the particular idea of my job as opposed to a similar job in other cases and where some of the ideas that we push comes through.

And I think one of the most interesting realities that we faced this last year working in a very large project, that we might mention later on, for a large university campus in China, was realizing that, in a context like that, all of the carbon targets that you're trying to hit are so long-term and so tight to what local policy and infrastructural changes happen to be, that you really need to design for them. So all of the decisions of sustainability that you would do on your own maybe in a context where everything is very regulated, and you can know what to expect, here are of the window, right? You really have to sell your client but then also almost negotiate with the local infrastructure, in this case a utility company, a path that works for both and that gets to what the larger country objectives are.

So I think that this idea of when we talk about carbon, we need to talk about a temporal strategy and not only efficient design. It's something that I'm very interested in.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah. Thank you so much, Carlos, and it's lovely for everyone to meet you. Eric, I'm going to pass the mic over to you.

ERIC COREY FREED: So I'm a I'm director of sustainability at CannonDesign. And my role is a little different than Carlos, just because we're structured differently, since I'm not as smart as he. We have a separate tech person who oversees our technology. We have a separate quality leader. And really the three of us work together to try to make that Venn diagram into a circle, is kind of how we think of it. But Carlos is like keeping all that in his head, so that's impressive.

My approach has been threefold. Number one is I'm really internally engaging the firm in a change management strategy. I'm really trying to change the culture and our process internally and win their hearts and minds, for lack of a better word. And so there are many, many ways that we do that. Among them, I'm on a lot of proposals and pursuits. I'm at the kick off with the project team. I'm checking in with them constantly. And we're setting these kind of bold targets and outcomes for each project at the very beginning, and then my team is supporting them.

Number two is, we're really trying to serve our clients better. So we're really getting deep into the understanding of, what are the trends going on in ESG and in the insurance industry and in the financial services industry that are affecting our clients? So we can show them how this building can help contribute to some of their larger climate goals that they might not even think are related to their building.

And then third I'm really trying to make it as frictionless as possible. And we do that through, well, having fun, you know, is a good way to do it. But also making just a better building, right? Designing buildings to this outcomes-based approach that we're talking about. So if we're designing a school, we're designing a school that's really designed to boost student performance. If we're designing a health care institution, we're designing something that improves patient recovery outcomes. If we're designing a workplace, we're designing one that boosts productivity and worker satisfaction. If we design to those outcomes and bake those into the beginning, those things can get value engineered out. So that's kind of a very general way of, kind of, the three things that I'm doing to take to my role at Cannon.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. It will be awesome for everyone to meet you. Next, I'm going to pass the mic over to Louise.

LOUISE HAMOT: Hey, everyone. I'm the global lead of lifecycle research at Integral Group. Integral Group is not an architectural practice. It's a deep green engineering practice, so structured around sustainability work, but that does as well mechanical, electrical, plumbing, you know, higher engineering work. I guess for my side it's not very much about changing the culture internally, because it's very much sustainability has been at the core of our mission. That's how we're driven. But my role is to lead the research around whole life carbon and lifecycle thinking across our firm.

And I guess it's a bit before even just the design stage, what a sustainability consultant does, what we as building services engineers, do we need to think about early on in the design process, to really have effect to deliver the right buildings that will have the right environmental impacts in a positive way? And to do that, you need to create-- there is the project, you know, what you're learning on a project. But you also have to create some body of knowledge. And currently there is a huge knowledge gap that occurs around embodied carbon and MEP design. There's lots of conversations happening with structure, architecture for the set, which is great and it's amazing.

But not so much around embodied carbon and MEP design. The focus has been very much operational, and we've done quite a good job at it. But the question about embodied is also relevant for MEP engineers. I think at Integral Group we've designed more than 100 net zero energy buildings, so very much on that journey of doing the operational part. But we're just trying to look at the bigger aspect of the lifecycle. And to just to quote some of our recent work on this, we are the primary author of the embodied carbon calculation methodology that was published by CIBSE, which is the equivalent of ASHRAE in Europe.

And I'm part of the ASHRAE LCA Decarbonization Task Force and the LCA work stream, to see how it could be adapted to North America, a conversation with CLF to see, can we create a challenge a bit like we did with SE 2050 for the MEP industry. So we're still very involved in advancing policies, industry guidance, so author of the Refrigerants Best Practice Guide just to help inform. So we're really trying to push the research internally and sharing the work we're doing, because we believe in the power of collaboration. And it's just, if we want to act fast enough, we just need to collaborate. So I guess that's all.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Excellent. Thank you. Very interesting. I'm sure we'll continue with some of those points. And lovely for everyone to meet you as well. I will pass the mic now to Nicholas McDaniel.

NICK MCDANIEL: Thanks, Emily. So, you know, my name is Nick McDaniel, and I'm an architect at NBBJ, and I'm currently the lead design on a million square foot, 600 foot tech headquarters tower that is tracking ILFI, net zero carbon, and LEED platinum. And I think my primary interest-- you know, I also lead sustainability for my studio, which is about 100 architects. And my primary real interest or thought is, what does it take to do sustainability at that scale? Kind of at a larger scale for large, corporate clients I think we really need to bring along if we're going to succeed at this.

So kind of my motto is that there is no rendering shown without an EUI, but there's also no sustainable strategy showing without an ROI. And what it takes to get that is just a really different relationship with your owner, your contractor, all the way down to the subs, and a lot of help from software, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Thanks.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah, excellent. Thank you. Very, very lovely for you and great points so far. Finally, I will hand the mic over to Mark Swanson.

MARK SWANSON: Thanks, Emily. Yeah, so I'm one of the directors for the International Masonry Institute, and IMI is what we call it, and we're a non-profit. We're funded by the Bricklayers And Allied Craftworkers Union. We collaborate with architects, engineers, contractors, and owners, both through education, technical support, research, and we also do training for the BAC contractors and craftworkers. So my role is primarily educating. Educating architects, engineers, and I have a big passion for sustainability as an architect. I've done plenty of sustainable projects.

And one of the things that, you know, Louise mentioned educational gaps in MEP. Well we kind of have that with masonry as well, where it's kind of this old material, it's been around forever, and there's something to that, right? It's extremely resilient. It's very sustainable. We're not rebuilding masonry buildings over and over. In fact, we're reusing them over the course of centuries, which is very sustainable. So I'm trying to educate people on that, and also just designing efficiently, I think. A lot of the software that we use-- we can get into this. But you know when we we're not using modular dimensioning and we're cutting masonry, we're adding to material waste. We're adding to silica dust, dust on the job sites, harming the workers.

And so I try to look at things holistically both for the community and for the job site and for the end user of the building, as well as clients, and really promote local materials. A lot of masonry can be locally sourced, which also helps the economy. And there's resiliency in that to help economies versus shipping everything in from overseas for things. So there's just a lot of different approaches that we take at IMI. And really, when architects and owners and contractors reach out to us, we listen to what their issues are and we try to help them formulate a solution. So that's my pitch.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Thank you. Lovely for everyone to meet you. And I am very excited now to dig into our questions. We have 13 that are prepared for these panelists. You also have the opportunity to ask us questions in the portal here, and we'll take a look at them in terms of priority and upvotes from the community that's listening out there. So let's get started. It's 3:15 now. We're going to continue this discussion until about 3:45 and then we'll take some audience questions in maybe the last 10, 15 minutes. So Eric, we'll start with you. Can sustainability--

ERIC COREY FREED: Hit me.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Oh, yeah. Here we go. Can sustainability and cost controls coexist for building design projects?

ERIC COREY FREED: Well, of course they can coexist. I mean, the Arabs and the Shi'as can coexist. You know, I think the question is, how do they coexist, really? And for the last 30 years I feel like we in sustainability have gotten very good at playing the ROI game. You know Nick had said that-- and I agree with him, right-- don't show a board unless it shows EUI. Don't show a strategy unless it shows ROI. The only caveat I would add to that is, we're doing the same, but we're going beyond just the financial. So for example-- I don't know what else to call it's I've been calling it LCCA Plus, Life Cycle, Costing, Analysis Plus.

Because we'll factor in-- you know, we're comparing systems. And we'll look at the upfront cost of each system and then the maintenance cost, the operational cost, the repair replacement cost, just like we normally do. But then I've also been adding in these factors that go beyond direct financial. Like does it provide an acoustical benefit, an infection control benefit, a comfort benefit? If it's for a health care project, does it provide some sort of patient outcome benefit that normally wouldn't get quantified on an engineer's Excel spreadsheet? And in that way, I really want the client to be able to make a truly informed decision.

You know, I don't expect to win every single-- well, I kind of do. But I don't think I'll win every single battle. But what I want to do is I want to know that at least I've really given the client everything that they need so they can make an informed decision. And to only do financials is really only telling part of the story. The other thing that we're doing is we're very, very early in the process. We're designing towards certain outcomes, as I mentioned. And we're listing those outcomes and we do them in a workshop.

But one of the other things we do is we map out, well, what are these things worth to you? And we try to put a value on them. So that way it's not just about, look, here's a regular toxic building and here's a green building and the green building costs more. But rather, the green building is also providing these other benefits that we already know have value because you said out loud that they do. And then I hold them to that. And it also then serves us later on when we get into value engineering and I'm essentially, you know, fighting to keep these things in the project. Because I remind everybody, remember, these things have value to the client.

And so the answer is, yes, of course they do. But the real answer is, let's really look at the full picture, right? All of the different factors that drive that decision making.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Thank you. That's very interesting. And out of curiosity, are there any other panelists who want to dig into this question? If not, we can move on. It's up to all of you.

NICK MCDANIEL: I don't want to dig in, but I just want to say, anybody who tells you the sustainability is free or zero added cost is selling something. In other words, it does cost money and you have to figure out how to define the value, just like Eric said, to the client.

MARK SWANSON: Well, and I would just add that, yeah, it really takes a lot of thought and effort to align the client's needs with goals and sustainable solutions. And, you know, your client may not be the owner of the building. Your client may be the owner of the building, right? The owner may be a government entity. They have a different approach to how long they expect their buildings to last versus say a retail entity, who might just be leasing the space and is only interested in sales off the floor. So I think trying to align all those goals, knowing who your clients are, and being able to pitch your message to what's going to speak to them in order to get at least a few of those sustainable goals across the finish line.

ERIC COREY FREED: But that comes back to priority setting, right? You know, I do about 100 workshops a year, which sounds like a lot, but it's only two a week. It's not really that many. And I run clients through this priority setting. And for example, if they turn the dial on their priority on maintenance and durability up to 10, well, that's going to start to, as kind of Mark said, it's going to guide me towards a more durable building, like a masonry building. More of a 250-year type of building. But also guide me on the finishes and so forth. If they turn it on to health, then that's going to change it a little bit. If it's more about flexibility, that's going to change a little bit.

And so I have to say that, doing hundreds of these workshops now, I am always surprised at where the client ends up setting the dials. It's never where we thought it would be, and more importantly, it's never where the RFP hinted it would be, oddly enough, right? The RFP wouldn't mention any of this stuff, and suddenly you engage them in this process and it turns out that they're really into health and they're really into equity and they're really into all these other things. And I want to scream at them, why the hell didn't you mentioned this in the RFP? Because we could have really brought our full game here.

But, you know, at that point we've already won the project, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Thank you. Yeah.

LOUISE HAMOT: I would definitely echo that with also the way I choose my advantages. And I think our biggest role is really to educate and to explain to them why the different benefits and why they could choose the panels and what are the different implications. And it's true, like at the beginning of the workshop and the end of the workshop, the outcome is like, what matters the most might be different. And I think that's where we have a big input role to play.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah. It's exciting to hear this. But outcomes truly are so important, and it's such an early stage. If we take a look at this follow up question, actually, Louise, this is going to go right back to you. So if a service including carbon reduction does add expense in a CapEx space, then how does a firm leader inspire client commitment for investment?

LOUISE HAMOT: I think it's very tied up to what we just discussed, because our role is really to educate on what the benefits will be. I think one point-- on the environmental impacts, we're thinking long term. I mean there's a sense of emergency, but the aim is to act long term. So for me, like, we need to start thinking the same with the cost, like in parallel. And actually we see a lot more and more lifecycle costing have released that. At least in Europe there are a lot of more projects that do include that value to bring it together. So it's really a role on educating them so they understand, they fully grasp, the benefits.

And as Mark said, the clients-- you might work with very different clients. And sometimes it's going to be the person is going to occupy the building. Sometimes they might not even, just want to sell it right after. So they will have different priorities. But there is always the pitch we can find. Oh, you're going to sell it better. Oh, you're going to have less risk and then insurance is going to be lower. That kind of things. Because we know it's coming, right? It's like it's not something we're just tackling climate change because we want to. It's just like something we have to do, right? It's not we just do-- not doing that. I mean, it can be fun in the process.

And the harsh way. And the harsh and the most brutal way, I would say, we all know, I mean, the regulations are coming. And I mean, it's appearing everywhere in the policies. So the policy is maybe the most brutal way because you're just going to have to do it. But I feel like a lot of clients, manufacturers even in the supply chain, do feel it's coming. It might happen in different ways, maybe in Europe with a bit more ahead with this. But in the US we have the Buy Clean Act that just-- in some states about the transparency. So what happened in New York where they had the huge carbon tax and then started actually doing it because it there was their own advantages to go for that.

And on the last piece, I think I want to be-- at the moment, it should comes with a cost to get really real sustainable thinking, because it's also another way of working, of thinking. But I want to be optimistic that in the long term, if we find the right process-- so I didn't say but my background is an architect. I'm an architect. I'm a licensed architect in France. But I'm also, I was trained as an engineer and I work as an engineer with my company.

So I'm very interested in the really integrated design process and having-- starting a design really early on with everyone around the table. And that's something we're not really used to do really, in practical terms from the start. But I would like to believe that if we were able to act on that knowledge transfer very early on from in the design process, that will effectively be able to reduce costs at CapEx level. And obviously it will affect profits. But that's maybe my more positive and optimistic, naive thinking.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah.

CARLOS CEREZO DAVILA: And I think-- oh, sorry.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Oh, no, Carlos. Go ahead.

CARLOS CEREZO DAVILA: No I was going to say that I think that's a super critical issue to the last point that you were making. Because I really believe it's a lot about educating your clients at the beginning. And even bringing--

LOUISE HAMOT: Betweeners.

CARLOS CEREZO DAVILA: --the third parties to the discussion that wouldn't normally be there, right? So it's not only on the technical side, which I think is super critical, right? It's very hard to make an argument, even if you identify the client priorities early in the process, if you don't have the support of certain engineering teams or technical teams. Especially in large projects, we have a potential for a big impact, like master plants and kind of large developments, where you really need your civil infrastructure person there. You really need your transportation planner there, kind of validating that benefit that you can argue of a certain aspect of the project.

But even other parts of the client group, right? I think that is super important, or in my experience has been-- especially when you are talking to commercial clients, that to validate some of those priorities, you almost need to bring the people that validate them for them. So their tenants especially, right? Like having a tenant tell a client that, yes, this thing, we care about this thing. We are more interested in this space if you do this thing. Goes miles and miles, right? The moment that that happens you don't need to discuss with anybody anymore anything. The 2% cost premium that they had to pay has disappeared, because they couldn't care less. The certainty of a value in the market is so much clearer then.

And I think that even when we cannot always have that information, of what is the benefit for you in 10 years of doing x and y, we can bring these people to the table. We can when we're doing workshops and we're doing initial meetings say, do you mind if we bring in the utility? Do you mind if we bring these other tenants that has a similar lot building two blocks away to tell you about their experience? Because I think they're much more open to listening to that sometimes over the hard data that we can calculate, but it's not validated in the real world, if that makes sense.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yes, it does. So I'm going to throw you all a curveball. Because in our questions, I see a tough question that I'm really excited about and it happens to also be very similar to question number five, which Nick, you're going to be fielding first. And I think it's probably the most important question of this panel. So without getting too product-specific, because it's AU, we have a question that's come in from Lily Smith. And she's asking, as a software provider, how can Autodesk help facilitate, either illustrate, or calculate better sustainable design outcomes? Which really relates to this question around where might technology be failing to meet improved carbon reduction initiatives? A lot going on there and I am so excited for all of you to unpack it.

NICK MCDANIEL: I'll start maybe, and then I'm sure people will have a lot to add. I think there's a few different sectors that these things happen in. And starting kind of with carbon, the most difficult place I'm running into is actually the embodied carbon, and the ability to really track that and figure that out in a quick-- you know, in the hurly burly of a project, where decisions are happening really fast, you need really quick information. And there's really two parts to that. There's the software and being able to make that all work, and I know we're not going to get any specific software, but a lot of them are pretty janky, for a lack of a better word. There are a lot of problems and a lot of things don't work.

And then there's also just the problem of the EPD. So there's a lot of products, a huge percentage of them out there, that don't have any carbon information about them at all. And so there's a lot of voodoo math. There's a lot of holes we're trying to fill in as we're trying to figure out the carbon. And so both of those fronts, I think, are really essential. I think the second part is the ability to really quickly-- there's a lot of good tools to look at daylight, but energy is harder. And there's no really perfect tool, at least that I've seen so far, to really help an architect really quickly look at the energy use of a project, all told.

And kind of the multi different phases and stages that you need that in, and at the granularity you need it. You need it broad and very specific. And so I'd say that we're also missing on that end. And so then the problem is then it needs to go to the engineers and then it takes weeks sometimes to get an answer back, when you've already made the decision. So speed and then also just flexibility would be what I'd say on that. And I'll stop because I'm sure other people have a lot to say.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah, how about we'll do Louise, then Eric. Does that work?

LOUISE HAMOT: Thank you. I recently read in a report that-- I don't know if you-- for me for me it was new. But basically there's three types of lock-in that exist that hamper change. You have the historical lock-in, when previous choices limit options to adapt to future needs. You have information lock-in-- I'm just actually reading my notes to make sure I make this right-- when choices are under informed either because of lack of information or because it's a surplus of information which is costly to analyze. And so here we kind of in the middle of the situation. Embodied carbon we're still missing a lot of information so we don't really know how to deal with this, but we know that in the industry is moving forward and soon enough we're going to be bombarded with information.

Because we had to deal with energy, daylight, you know, like we have all these different aspects we need to deal with. And one key point is, I think that the digital technology can help with this, is how are we going to deal with this data? So at the moment we're talking, we're very focused on carbon. But what about water, toxicity, purification, new things that we're not really tackling right now but we know that might happen. So that's, I think, one thing. Like how to process without increasing too much the cost, right, this huge amount of data to help make the right decisions.

And there was a third lock-in that was mentioned, is the coordination lock-in. When some players are less able to change because they suffer from other forms of lock-in, because they actively foster barriers to change to protect their competitive position. And I think we're really coming into an era of collaboration. Again, not because we want to, necessarily, but we just need to because it's just bigger than us. And having the right tools and the right platform that's going to help us collaborate and share, and maybe that speaks again into the integrated design thinking, is very key.

So having alignment on methodology, consistency so we actually can learn from what others are doing. At the moment it's very hard around whole life carbon, do we actually use a benchmark meaningfully? If you don't know like the whole assumptions behind it, which are not always close. So I would say, yes, managing-- finding ways to manage the data and process the data and having collaboration tools, I think, would be the big two high level points.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Thank you. Yeah, Eric. To you.

ERIC COREY FREED: I found in our internal process there was a kind of a constipation going on, basically. Only certain projects were even getting energy model. Even fewer we're getting an embodied carbon EPD. And so one important change that we made, and we just did it this past January, was we just required that every single project has to have at least a baseline energy model and a baseline embodied carbon EPD. And then we had to make sure we had the staff to do it. That was actually the hardest part.

And in doing that, we're also doing it at the speed of design. Because the energy model would get done by the engineers and then would just be ignored. And we'd go back to the designers and say, well, why is this south wall like this? It shouldn't be like this. Oh, I didn't know there was an energy model done. It was just a bunch of excuses and it was kind of falling apart. So what we did was we baked it into the process for the project manager. We baked it into the process for the designer. And when I say at the speed of design I mean, like, it is like, slap dash, put it together as quickly as possible so that way it can inform their design right at the time they're doing it.

And so we'll be building it alongside of it. In fact, we can throw these models together so quickly, sometimes we'll do them in proposal stage just to kind of get an idea of what we're looking at. And then when it comes to the embodied carbon EPD, that's a little more complicated, but I knew that we had to get that sped up as well. And so using-- I know we're not supposed to mention tools, but I can if you like. But a tool that rhymes with schmally, let's say. Using that and then using the embodied carbon construction calculator, we're able to very quickly kind of make some informed decisions.

And what we found is that we've been able to cut the embodied carbon in the projects in half without even changing their appearance just by better sourcing of, you know, is this an electric arc furnace plant or a gas powered plant or whatever? And then from that really setting, OK, well how do we get that other 50%? And then that gets into changing the concrete mix, changing the steel, changing whatever. And then the last thing I want to say about it is, Ed Mazria really kind of opened my eyes to this, what I call the triage approach. Meaning that there's really four materials that are responsible for most of the embodied carbon.

It's steel, concrete, aluminum and glass. And so I don't need to get down to the hinges and the doorknobs here. So the manufacturer doesn't have an EPD, that's not as important. But if I just target those four materials and specifically the structural system and then the mechanical system, that's about 80% of my embodied carbon footprint, are just those two systems. And again, I'm not going for perfection here. I'm really just trying to keep up with the designers. And so if we take this triage approach, let's target those four materials specifically that would include the curtain wall. Then really it goes a long way.

You know, I think we suffer in the pursuit of perfection, and we just don't have time for that. I think things are a little too dire to be perfect.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah, fascinating and very cool to hear that strategy. Carlos, do you have any followup?

CARLOS CEREZO DAVILA: Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say that I completely agree with Eric. It's a question of-- it's not a question of lack of technology. I mean, certainly we could have better tools for certain purposes for sure, right? But I think that it's a difference between what you need and when you need it in an architectural office, at the point of a product that you can make a difference on those big decisions and what actually a consultant can do it for you. And those are miles apart. And the effort in our site has been exactly the same as, OK, let's try to do the simplest possible energy model but let's have one for every project.

And the reason behind that is not only to improve each individual project that ideally we are doing, but much more to have something to learn from. And this is trying to answer the question of, what could technology and software and all that do to make this better? I think that in my experience, I think we are missing incredibly, especially for embodied carbon, but for everything-- even for basic energy use comparisons-- is an easy way to access similar projects and their implications in decision making when we are looking at our own. Right?

If I'm doing mixed office and lab building somewhere and I'm trying to understand load systems, et cetera, it's so hard and requires so much research time unless you have somebody that has done a hundred of them and can tell you right away, what was their actual energy use? How did they model it? What did they assume? You're almost starting from scratch every time. As an architect, I assume that if you're the person in charge of energy modeling in a huge engineering company that only does that, it's different because you have the institutional knowledge of having done it for lots and lots of projects. But for architects, you end up reinventing the wheel in a way that it shouldn't be necessary.

And I wonder if the tools that we use, being the energy modeling tools or lifecycle assessment tools, whatever they are, should maybe spend some time on trying to figure out ways of offering the user at the beginning, almost like boundaries to things to start working within. Because that's really what we lack. I've never been-- my problem has never been, oh, I cannot model this extremely complex double curved facade accurately in terms of solar heating coefficient. That's not my problem. My problem is, oh, I don't know if this thing I'm assuming is in a reasonable range or not in this case. How can I put this in context?

And I think technology could do something in that regard with materials. There is less available but it might be easier, because the EPDs and the standardization there, whenever it becomes a thing in the US, is going to make our lives much easier for sure. But for performance in general and decision making, I think that's an area where technology could help. If I have to look one more time at DOE buildings and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab databases to get an average EUI for the last 15 years, that's not very helpful. It's not very decision oriented.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah. Yeah, that's great feedback. And I'm just intrigued as you're talking and thinking about the beautiful forms that KPF makes. Everything that you're saying makes total sense. So Mark Swanson, any thoughts for you here?

MARK SWANSON: Yeah. Yeah, well I like, I agree with what everybody was saying here. Nick, you know, touching on something that's more general. And Eric, your point, kind of hit the big three or the big four materials. I think software can help us with that. I think one of the issues that I've noticed, regardless of the software that I'm looking at or looking into, is that transparency isn't a standard. And in other words, you know, people are producing EPDs for their products and materials, but they're not all the same. And unless they're following an ISO standard or something like that, how are you comparing apples and apples?

And so I think there's a lot of standards and transparency that can help get either built into software, and maybe it's a general approach, and then maybe it's software that helps us determine what is more viable. Because if we're going for say a LEED project or a Living Building Challenge project, that's going to inform our material choices as well. So I think having software that helps us kind of navigate through all that and also sets a bar for standards so that we're not kind of just looking at, you know, we might come up with an answer, but it might-- how reliable was the information that we input in? So.

EMILY BISAGA DUNNE: Yeah. Good question. And thank you for that response. I think we should take another kind of curveball question here. And I'm going to start with Carlos for this question, because it's a little bit similar to number three. As the technology evolves-- and this is from Michelle Mack, one of our audience members. As the technology evolves, does the role of an architect become forcing more sustainable practices on a client, or does optimization against the various dials remain the goal? And you can always say no, I don't want to answer it, and we'll go back to question number three.

CARLOS CEREZO DAVILA: No, sure. I mean, I'll give it a go. I'm sure that somebody can pick it up and fix whatever mess I make. I mean, I think that's a really interesting question, right? So I guess when they're saying as technology evolves, they're referring to building technology. So let's talk about operation and carbon in a building, right? Let's say that our challenge now in buildings of electrifying and kind of dealing with air source, heat pumps as they are, and the limitations of that for loads disappears in 10 years. And you can heat a building electrically and cool it electrically with a COP of eight and the building doesn't matter anymore, and it kind of like solves a lot of the operational carbon problems that we are dealing with now.

Let's say that happens in the relatively close future. So I guess the question is, do you keep pushing for more or do you now get into an optimization game? And I mean, the question is a little weird in the sense that the goal is always going to be the same, right? Your objective doesn't change. So your objective regarding carbon is making a building that doesn't put any carbon in the atmosphere, right? So if you get there then sure, by all means, you don't have to push anymore for it. And then there are a number of other important topics obviously in sustainability that Eric was mentioning earlier, from occupant well-being to impacts on other things, in water, and ecosystems, that you would still have to look into.

So you're always going to push the client for more and you're always going to play the optimization game at the same time. Because in the end, you're producing an object. There's going to be a budget and you have to deal with it. So do I think that the quick evolution of technology is going to achieve the priorities? For sure, right? Because then-- it's true. Maybe then the insulation of the facade is not that big of a deal anymore and you focus on other things. But I don't think that changes intrinsically what we do or we're trying to push for sustainable buildings. I mean in a way that happens already with codes.

You know, like if you look-- what you push for 10 years ago for a certain energy code and seemed incredibly advanced then, you look at it now and it's shameful, right? And you wouldn't even dare to build it. And we are doing the same thing that we were doing 10 years ago. It's just like the bar is a little bit higher and yet not high enough. So I don't think that changes how we do things, but probably changes where the priorities are.