Show Notes

Matt (00:00:02):

Hey, welcome to the show, Breana,

Breana (00:00:45):

Thank you very much for having me.

Matt (00:00:47):

I’m glad to have you on the show. I’ve read a lot about your background and some of the main initiatives of your group and thought it’d be fun to kind of dig in a little deeper. So I guess to start off, can you give us a little bit about your background and where you started in this, in this journey, and then we’ll take it from there?

Breana (00:01:12):

Sure. So I started actually in the sustainability field around 2007. I was looking at environmental sustainability for big corporations. I worked for a couple of design and engineering firms, very internally focused. And I was living in London. I spent 10 years in London initially, and then I moved back to the United States and started looking at real estate and sustainability very specifically in the built environment. And in 2016 I became the director of operations for each year in the US

Matt (00:01:47):

Well, just curious, why London?

Breana (00:01:52):

My partner is British, so yeah, so I moved there initially, for love as one does. So yeah, it was a great move. And actually at that time sustainability in the UK was really consolidating a proper profession. There’s a lot of, there are organizations that support professional development in a really fundamental way. And so it was an exciting time to kind of have a finally have a professional designation that kind of went with that. It wasn’t just, I care about the environment. What does that look like for a job? It was like, oh, this is actually a profession in which you can get paid to do these things, how exciting, so it was a great introduction to actually thinking about this and in a business sense and of course the UK and Europe, it has been on the forefront of sustainability for a very long time. So it was a great place to kind of cut my teeth as it were in the sustainability place.

Matt (00:02:52):

Right. Definitely, somebody that’s a little ahead of where we’re at here, in the United States. That’s sure. Yeah, I’ve been to London just once, but it was a very interesting and exciting place. I’m sure you had fun there while you were there.

Breana (00:03:12):

It was very enjoyable.

Matt (00:03:15):

Perfect. So let’s bring this back a little bit further. And what kind of brought this to your forefront as a passion? Was it just, the idea of environmental sustainability as a whole, and that kind of just bred some of these thoughts and led to this career, or do what the Genesis of kind of your interest in this subject was?

Breana (00:03:43):

Sure. So both my undergrad and my master’s is in environmental geography and it was all about environmental studies as the impact of, and climate change really coming to the forefront, and not to try and age me a little bit, but when I was an undergrad, oh Lord, I can’t even believe I just said that. But when I was an undergrad, climate change was something that was going to happen in the future. Right. And it was something we needed to avoid. Right. So, but it was quite theoretical and there were lots of folks still talking about, well, is this real? Is this not? And so for me, it became more about how do you take that theoretical and how do you start applying it in a really practical way? One of the very first key roles I had in my career was actually doing carbon footprinting for one of my organizations.

Breana (00:04:31):

And that was a real eye-opener. How do you practically understand what your impact is and quantify it in a way that actually can be both informative internally to make decisions, but also how do you communicate that? And at the time that, and over time, I think we’ve seen it, this evolution was, it’s very much gone from, it was acceptable for the methodology to be, let’s say loose, kind of a finger in the air. We think it might be around here where, the consequence of it is becoming a lot stricter. And of course the correlation between that performance and business risk. And, when I was working for design and engineering companies, I was looking at them as an organization, and the beauty of that of course is when you’re looking at organizations, you can, I mean, they can be doing anything.

Breana (00:05:25):

You’re really just trying to understand what their specific impact is. Whereas with the built environment, it was very clear that buildings and the built environment overall have a huge impact. That, it’s 40% of the emissions that had a place for me that was really exciting because we could translate that once again, to actual impact, how do we start driving forward to avoid the worst of climate change? Of course, over time, that’s become even more important as we’ve moved from the theoretical into the actual we’re experiencing it now. And I think, in the early days in sustainability, when it was kind of seen as a nice to have, that was a little bit, discouraging because it was always like, well, do we need to do this? Whereas now, the risks are so evident and becoming clear every day that that’s really pushing again for action. So it’s a great space to be in, I think, I mean, it’s a little, a little nerve-wracking sometimes I think when we’re thinking about the consequence, but, but absolutely a place where impact can be made.

Matt (00:06:32):

Absolutely. And I think you hit the nail on the head there earlier several times, but when you were talking about, back in 2006, 2007, maybe it was quantifiable, there was no, nobody could really put a finger on what the impact was. And then as technology and science, and there’s like you said, there’s a dedicated field to it. Now it’s a real profession. All of those influenced the availability, the ability, I guess, to quantify the impact. And from there, you’ve seen several other industries kind of blossom, an organization’s blossom to ways that you can actually quantify these impacts and hopefully reduce them. And let’s, let’s kind of transition that into where you’re at now and, and what you’re doing right now with BREEAM.

Breana (00:07:40):

So BREEAM was the very first green building certification program in the world. And our organization developed it because in 1990, when we launched and, and in the late eighties, when sustainable development was a term, right, there was literally nothing available that helped, helped kind of set what that meant for buildings. , what, we can talk about sustainable development is this conceptual term, but how does that actually translate through? So BREEAM was launched specifically to provide a definition and a framework, and, it probably helps to know the BRE where the building research establishment we are this year, 100 years old yeah. Building science research organization.

Breana (00:08:36):

So for a century now we have been developing science-led solutions to built environment challenges, and that’s the whole gamut. That’s everything, that’s research that’s innovation, services to the real estate and construction sectors, but also to governments around the world about the built environment. So, when we developed BREEAM, it was very much about bringing that building science focus into play. And it wasn’t so much even about, just about green as such, right. Cause sustainability meant so much more than that environmental sustainability. Absolutely. But it also meant people and it also meant economics finance. So our program was really developed to help deliver a solution. So yeah, so BRE is headquartered in the UK, but we have operational centers here in the US and China, and Europe. And we’re owned by a charity that has the BRE trust and their sole purpose is to support research and education on the built environment, including funding postgraduates and their studies. So it’s very much a profit-for-purpose kind of approach to this. But we were very dedicated to the science that sits behind buildings to deploying something and, and setting standards that will deliver outcomes and focus on those outcomes and support our are support the built environment, the real estate sector to really, move forward and in solving these challenges.

Matt (00:10:06):

So, so you, you touched on a few basically charging orders, three, three different kinds of legs of the stool. Basically, you’ve got personal health and wellbeing. You got the environmental health and you’ve got, financial or economic health I guess is a better way to put it. So, it’s tough to tough to balance all three of those. And it must be a tricky, a tricky issue for you guys to solve, on how to balance all three to a positive outcome. So I guess the one I’m most interested in other than environmental would be health and wellbeing. How do you, how do you address health and wellbeing? And while at the same time, being able to address all, all three items and these are, these are big,

Breana (00:11:14):

Right? This is not a small challenge. Absolutely. So, BREEAM has been developed as something of a balanced scorecard. And one of the big things about our program is that this isn’t about perfection. This is about understanding how you get the best out of your asset. So what we do with the standard is we set what that looks like across all three of those columns, right? The economic, the health and wellbeing, and then environmental, and we focus on outcomes. So what that allows client teams to do is really find the best pathway to achieve all of those things and reward strategies that take off multiple benefits. Let’s say, let’s call them. Co-Benefits are not always the easiest thing, but I think that’s one of the key things about sustainability. This is not about perfection, right? Like we could focus on the 10% of the problem and miss the fact that we can solve 90%.

Breana (00:12:14):

Right. So, our program is very much about finding a balance and utilizing the framework to make better decisions. So starting with a baseline of where you think you want to be, let’s say, and then using the framework to say, oh, okay, where can we do better? How can we do better? And finding those pathways to, to ident, to for solutions that , can solve multiple issues. So the way that BREEAM focuses around health and wellbeing and this has been critical. I mean, health and wellbeing has been a part of our program, right from the beginning. I mean, 40 years ago we knew about things like sick building syndrome, right. And we know too, you can develop really green buildings, really, really low energy that are absolutely miserable for human beings to inhabit, right. It’s totally possible.

Breana (00:13:02):

So for us health and wellbeing is at its core about delivering from the building perspective, delivering environments that enable healthy occupants. And that’s really critical. We’re not trying to influence occupant behavior as such, this is all about how do you address the fundamentals that deliver that healthy environment, but also manage your risk. Now that’s a financial piece, right? There you go, a little co-benefit in there, kind of, we start blending in, but all of this is from a health and wellbeing perspective, we’re looking at the fundamentals around a broad range. So, there’s thermal comfort, obviously there’s acoustics. There is in our wellbeing, in all of our programs, we address Legionella risk, which is something that often isn’t talked about in sustainability at all, or even about health and wellness, but that’s quite a key one.

Breana (00:13:56):

So we, again, bring in together all of these pieces, when we focus on outcomes, we really help the market find solutions that do this. So perfect example, during the COVID times, of course, it’s early in the pandemic, there was a lot of conversation going on about the trade-off between energy efficiency and and health and wellbeing. And for many, this is a zero sum game. You either had health healthy buildings, or you had energy efficiency, and there was very little ground in between. And that was sad because we can’t have, we can’t have one or the other because the, actually the impacts of , lower performing buildings and energy is that although all that pollution goes out into our communities, which impacts their health. So really we’re sacrificing the health of our community for the health of occupants in a building that didn’t make any sense.

Breana (00:14:51):

And even as those conversations were going, you could, you could hear like kind of the mutterings in the background going, wait a minute, this just doesn’t sound right. Well, fast forward, we’re now seeing innovations coming into the market that do both things. They are finding things that, for instance, that will, clean ventilation systems and you’d be, but they aren’t energy intensive. So you can find a solution that actually doesn’t require those much higher rates of ventilation, because you’ve got another solution to go with it. It took a little bit of time. I mean, we were kind of innovating on the fly, but for companies and, and those we’re creating solutions who are looking for the co-benefits, who weren’t just looking to solve a very specific problem and not thinking about those bigger things, those companies are really going to do well out of this. Because again, we have to think about all of these solutions in a really holistic way, and what are the knock on effects? We can focus on energy efficiency and really tight buildings, but we could also then end up damaging health and wellbeing. That doesn’t seem like a good trade off. Right. And so, so BREEAM has been really about trying to make that a little bit more evident and trying to drive those solutions.

Matt (00:16:00):

I love it. I love it. That’s a very well put, I think it’s, it’s tough to, to balance all three, but when you do, you can find some efficiencies maybe in one or, or , there there’s always solutions. I mean, you  just look at it a little more holistically and you’d be surprised what you find out. And, that’s why I wanted to touch on health and wellbeing since the nature of the current environment right now is that’s a huge, huge focus. And it’s nice to see that they’re coming up with solutions that don’t sacrifice necessarily the environmental wellbeing as well, wellbeing and the environment. So thanks for touching on that. I wanted to kind of transition this a little bit more, you said BRE’s been around for a hundred years. So how, how has BREEAM different than some of the other sustainability certifications that are out there currently?

Breana (00:17:19):

Sure. So a couple of key things. One is the science base that comes with it. So we use science to develop the standard. It is what drives everything that we do. The science, the research, the the data is really telling. I mean, it’s, it’s one of the reasons why, health and wellbeing was , part of our program right back in 1990. It’s one of the reasons why carbon emissions has been the metric of measurement in our standard since 1990, right. Science told us that to address climate change, carbon emissions was really the metric that we were going to be using. So the science-based is, is really critical to that. The second thing is probably around the, the holistic nature as we’ve just talked about, being able to bring together the three aspects , not just green, but the people part, part of this.

Breana (00:18:15):

And also the financial value, this is a really important aspect. So, when we talk about the financials,  we’re thinking really about the longer-term value of the asset. So, not just how, how sustainability or environmental performance looked, for the last 12 months, or in the past, but how it’s looking towards the future, how are you going to protect and maximize the asset value over the term? And whether in construction designing construction, that’s about,  how do you ensure that the asset will be operated as it was intended through design, through the handover process or whether we’re, in operations. And it’s about making sure that, your, protecting the equipment and all these other aspects to it. That longer-term value is really critical.

Breana (00:19:09):

One aspect of course, around this is we’ve incorporated resilience into our standard over the last year. And while there’s always been aspects of resilience in it for our in use program, when we launched our latest version last may we brought in a specific resilience category, and that was very much about recognizing that climate change. Again, wasn’t something that was just happened or, theoretical going to happen in the future, but was starting to happen now. So we really shifted our approach from being solely about mitigation, to also incorporating adaptation. That’s very much about the financial kind of aspect looking to that future.

Matt (00:19:48):

Right. Did it, sorry to interrupt here, but did that come about based on some of the more recent findings about where we’re at in as well as in climate change as a whole, as far as maybe pushing the needle, maybe it’s, we need to start looking about how to adapt for this new future?

Breana (00:20:11):

Absolutely. So we established a core technical team in 2019 specifically to focus on resilience and how resilience was addressed throughout all of the BREEAM family of standards. And it was really about making sure, looking at that to say, okay, how in depth, what are we covering so far? And what’s, what’s missing. There’s also been a huge investor drive, of course around, , the task force for climate related financial disclosures, the TCFD and being able to understand, , the physical and transitional risks that come with assets. So the resilience category was very much about looking at kind of bringing this elevating. It, let’s say to sit alongside the environmental performance metrics, , current operational energy and whatnot and also the financials, the health and wellbeing, and really bringing into the conversation as part of that balance.

Breana (00:21:07):

So , we’ve always had aspects of it, but, , BREEAM was started in 1990 when this was, , theoretical, right. We were all looking at the avoidance it’s , I mean, personally, it felt a little sad in some ways, cause I’m like, wow, we’re not, we’re not it. Yeah. Like we’re now moving fully into adaptation. And, and there is, , just from a business risk perspective, it’s absolutely critical that we address it. So for us having resilience as part of this is very much thinking about that future and asset value. But I would say that the third thing that makes us different is around our verification. So our certification is delivered through third-party licensed assessors, so they’re truly third-party to us we train and license them, but clients work with the assessors. They appoint them.

Breana (00:21:57):

And we do a very rigorous quality assurance of their work, but it’s really important because they go out on site to verify performance and that’s really critical. So when we’re talking about design and construction part of the evaluation is during the construction phase for the assessor to visit site, to make sure that the final certificate actually reflects what was actually built, not just the design. We do a design stage to where, , this is our ambition, but we recognize things happen in construction, right? Things change plans, change materials aren’t available as we’ve seen recent things. So this is all about the, , the, having the end results to be demonstrated. And then an operations, it’s the same thing around, , just verifying that, what we see on paper is actually what’s seen at the, at the asset and that provides an additional layer of assurance when this is being either internally used for making business decisions or communicating to stakeholders.

Breana (00:22:57):

And it’s one of the reasons why BREEAM is really the gold standard and seeing around the world as is as credible and rigorous is because they know that it’s been seen by, , a human being at the site. It also adds a lot of value, particularly in existing buildings. , we have a long tail of what we would call unique buildings. That’s always the term and, and any chief engineer will start cracking up at that because no doubt, they’ve, they’ve worked with a unique building here and there, but , those buildings that are just, , they’re the result of design decisions made some time ago, they’ve got interesting features and whatever, it’s really hard to explain that on paper. Right. So having a person being able to come out, , building professional who really understands it, that’s really a valuable piece of the process. Right, right.

Matt (00:23:45):

And I guess I wanted to speak on one thing that, , I see personally, so I deal with a lot of, of private development. So ground up developers or, or even, industries, various various groups. And I, I, I see that, , one complaint I often hear is that maybe they’re not, maybe they’re not holding the, the the building, the site or whatever past, once they get to lease up or whatnot. , so they don’t ever see the long-term benefits of some of these methods, I guess. What, how would you address that?

Breana (00:24:37):

Sure. So, so buildings, , I mean, as we know, most buildings are now designed to be what, 50 to 80 years of life cycle. Right. And so, , we’re right now, we’re, we’re building assets that are going to be here when the 2050 mark hits and we need to be at net zero. So while it seems like at the moment the developers aren’t, , gaining, gaining value in this, , how does this help, what they’re doing is they’re demonstrating that they’re not selling on something that is going to have a built-in liability or future regulatory problem into it, or, it’s reducing that risk. Let’s say we never, we never do absolutes. It’s always shades, isn’t it. So, yeah. So we looked at this as a way of saying, , where we’re talking about, for example , operational carbon emissions.

Breana (00:25:27):

We know that there are jurisdictions right now. New York city is my favorite example of this through local law, 97, , who are setting building performance standards that will require net zero carbon performance by particular time period, New York I think is 2040. But these are, these are happening across the United States, right? So for any developer building within these jurisdictions, where there might even be a hint of this going on, , they’re already building in a performance based on how they’ve designed and how they’re constructing the building that will impact on value in the longer term, because any investor at this point, , one, we’ll be looking at what their, even if their whole period is only 10 years, let’s say, they’re going to be looking at that saying, okay, what I’m buying now? What is that going to be worth?

Breana (00:26:15):

When I, when I sell in 10 years, what is the liability that I’m building into that? What work will I have to put into it in the meantime? So we’re kind of approaching this period where this is really about protecting the value of that building as much as adding value. And I think that’s one of the biggest issues we’ve seen with sustainability, particularly in the U S is that this has been about, , a niche kind of approach. It’s been an amenity, a business case, and that will not get us very far because only so many people will want to pay, , the only so many people will pay extra rent. And when we put it in those terms, this stops being so much about the asset value overall, it becomes more of an extractive, right. And that kind of ends, I mean, we’ve seen that in many urban core centers now where certification of any kind is just an expectation.

Breana (00:27:09):

Is that now adding to rent? I question that because I would say actually, if everybody’s certified, then who cares, it’s no longer a differentiator, it’s now an expectation. And so you simply actually start getting the discount. If you aren’t, they’ll basically command lower rents simply for that. So, , in this way, sustainability has really been, , moving towards the business case that goes with it. And I think, I mean, I, I only welcome that because for one thing, we’ve been making this case forever, but also it needs to be absolutely integrated. And in everything that we’re doing, if we keep treating it like an amenity, , we’re never going to get there. This has to be about all buildings, because that’s what the challenge is. We need every building to be doing this.

Matt (00:27:53):

It’s big.

Breana (00:27:55):

It is, yeah. It keeps me up at night. I had to say, , there’s a lot of buildings. There’s like, what 5.3 million existing buildings in the United States, most of which are doing very little to address this issue so far, but that’s been why I’m here. Why Bre is here, why the U S is just, , an exciting place to be, because for us, BREEAM is all about being able to take those buildings wherever they are and giving them an opportunity to start moving forward.

Matt (00:28:26):

Interesting. Interesting. So, , we’ve been talking about the economics of this attempt at net zero and what this means for, , developers or really anybody that’s, that’s trying to construct a building, but what, , what is the top strategy that you’ve seen for achieving that zero or, or attempting to meet that zero carbon emissions in construction?

Breana (00:29:00):

Sure. So two, probably the top two things first is focus on building efficiency. Brianna is very much , an envelope first is how we talk about it, , envelope and building efficiency is absolutely critical if you don’t get that right. It does not matter how much onsite energy, or how much power, how many offsets you buy really, you’ve got a poorly performing building. So for us, it’s really critical that the building envelope and systems are focused on first. , not only does this make the building more valuable from a longer perspective, , fewer problems, less, let’s say , during rainstorms or something, , there’s, there’s other benefits that really come from that, but in the bigger picture around net zero carbon , buildings that are energy efficient and super energy efficient, and more importantly, , will simply demand less from the grid.

Breana (00:29:58):

And we know that, , we need to reduce our demand in order for us to meet the renewable energy that we can generate at this point through grid. So that’s really critical. And our program is very much about rewarding that first supporting that. So I think for designing construction, , I mean, we can talk about it from a green perspective and we do, I mean, we, we look at we award credits based on what the, how the design will deliver operational carbon emissions predicted. But the really big thing about that is that that’s also about delivering a really valuable building, right? It again, provides that financial budget well-constructed et cetera. So building efficiencies is really core, and everybody can benefit from that, even if it’s not the lifecycle that you’re holding onto the asset through.

Breana (00:30:51):

And the second thing is the onsite, renewable energy generation. , this is very much in seen in a carbon context. What obviously is resilience comes in, this is becomes a lot bigger. So I live in California, , our, our utility PG and E is having to shut off the electricity to counter the wildfire risk. How fun is this? Thanks climate change. And pat on the back to all of us, what I mean? This is, this has been really, really critical because there’s the risk there. So onsite renewable though builds resilience in the building. Now this is really critical. , there are some obviously, , how long can you deal with the disruption? And in some sectors and some uses, I suppose you could deal with some, but what if we’re talking about logistics and manufacturing, for example you can’t just switch off the lights or, , switch off all your energy and just kind of walk away and go, well, there goes business, , I mean, these have real economic impact.

Breana (00:31:46):

And so you or medical offices, for example, , we talk a lot about resilience in hospitals as critical infrastructure, but when we’re talking about our economy overall and how energy really underpins everything that we do, it’s really important to start looking at all of it as kind of important pieces, critical. Okay. I can definitely go with hospitals and things like that as critical, but when we’re talking about our wider economy and we’re talking about transition and really be the impacts that we’re starting to see from climate change onsite, renewable energy generation really brings multiple benefits into the building. And Lord knows we have a lot of a lot of land, right? I mean, how many times have you flown into places, , and you’re flying over acres of parking, that’s baking in the sun. And, , my favorite example is, , what, I flew into Dallas the last time, like ages ago, but, , there’s acres of parking and I’m just like, I didn’t, I just see something in the news about Texas cookies, where you can bake cookies in your car until lunch or something, , where it gets so hot, right where your car is, , so why not put solar PV?

Breana (00:32:57):

Why not put something that, , also protects the car is underneath, is better for human beings, , generates energy on site. Like, why not, why aren’t we doing this? And all the places that we can. So BREEAM is very much about encouraging that aspect, whether it’s your roof space, your parking lot, whatever it is, do, what you can to generate onsite, to build resilience into your assets. And also we’ve seen this with neighborhoods too, is that, , if you can , we’re seeing a lot more now not so much through Bria, but just through the conversations about building up, , districts where you have energy generation, where you can start to get neighborhoods going in, , how exciting would it be? If we, , we had neighborhoods where after, , a natural, , a natural event, a crisis, , a hurricane or something where, , our commercial buildings are helping power homes to keep things going, , to, , providing a critical resource.

Breana (00:33:50):

It’s one of the things we’ve also built into Brianna about how encouraging commercial buildings to connect into their neighborhoods on a resilience aspect. But this could be one of those things, two buildings, , these are the same place where people live, , they’re not distinct anymore. And so we can kind of work together, not make this separation. Our resilience as a community can be built as well as resilience and protection of the asset. We’ve seen some good research come out , particularly around the events where, , in the past insurance has been used to try and protect asset value, but the things that insurance doesn’t protect for example, are when your local economy doesn’t come back.

Breana (00:35:23):

Yeah. It’s just thinking about commercial buildings as part of the community fabric. They’re not different, they’re not separate. They, , they’re, they’re part of where we live and, and they’re part of our everyday existence. Wouldn’t that be great if commercial buildings, , supported the communities through this, , through resilience, we see this now , with with buildings kind of offering up a place of refuge, for example , in an event, what does that look like? 3M does support that because we want the, we want buildings to connect in with their communities because that bolsters community resilience. And in turn, that protects value of those assets. If you don’t have a local economy after some kind of an event, a hurricane, an earthquake, whatever you’re building is going to be damaged over the long-term in a way that insurance is never going to cover. So really critical that these things come together. So those would be the two, the two really key things I would say to work on at this point. And then, , the other, the other stuff will come later, I think.

Matt (00:36:30):

Yeah, no. And I wanted to, while we were talking about it, , we jumped in to this, this topic by mentioning net zero carbon emissions, and I think it would be best to go ahead and, and mention what that really means before, , net zero carbon emissions is not the same as not emitting any carbon emissions.

Breana (00:36:58):

Wow. How much time do we have to talk about this? I know. I mean,

Matt (00:37:02):

Yeah, I just, in a nutshell, can you just describe what that truly means

Breana (00:38:09):

What do we mean? And that is , in some definitions that can mean essentially, I mean, effectively the overall is that you are generating as much energy or sorry generating the zero, the zero with the carbon. Sorry, I lost my mind there. It’s, it’s all about, , what are you , generating, how much are you generating? How much are you putting in through renewables through zero carbon. So that is a big, a big aspect of, , what counts are we saying zero, meaning you’re not generating any emissions or are you saying that you can offset that? And what does that offset look like? And there’s a lot of different options available for that. So, it can be offsite, renewable energy, purchasing through power purchasing agreements for energy that’s being generated elsewhere.

Breana (00:39:12):

There’s a lot of conversation about that. Does it need to be in the same grid? Is it okay to purchase it from a different state, a place where maybe the, the , the grid in that location is actually potentially dirtier than the, than the grid that you’re actually operating in. So is that a bigger impact? And it’s really interesting to see the, the conversation going on about this, because I think we’re all driving to the same thing, right? What we want to do is we want to make the biggest impact we possibly can with the decisions and the tools that we have available. And we know for example, that, , urban core buildings are not going to have the opportunity to put on onsite generation in the way that a suburban or rural building would, right. So what are we going to do about those, those assets, but also we’re looking at the app, the side of offsets which, , a lot of companies have already declared themselves to be net zero because of the basis of the offsets they’ve purchased. That does not mean they are not emitting carbon. And while that strategy works, now, we also know there are not enough offsets available in the entire world to offset that’s right.

Matt (00:40:25):

The shape we’re in right now. Right?

Breana (00:40:27):

Exactly. It’s not, it’s not possible. And actually in some ways, I think some ways that masks the risk, , we’re, we’re hiding the risk of our inefficiencies, of our assets and our, and our real estate and in effect hiding the risks that is , that is present. And I, and I feel like we’re, we’re more to a point now where investors in particular are asking very pointed questions. , the investors that we talk to globally for them offsets is just a nonstarter. They want to know about the assets themselves, their performance, they want to know about with, without any of that stuff. What is the trajectory? How are you getting to net zero carbon without offsets now offsets will have a place to play. I think we, we, we’ve got, we’ve got some space we need, we need that to happen, but we shouldn’t sacrifice focusing on building efficiency and onsite renewables, right?

Breana (00:41:26):

There’s a tiered approach. A prioritization offset should be absolutely at the end, , and we, we really , through BREEAM, , we wouldn’t be looking at offsets in that way, or we wouldn’t advise looking at offsets in that way, not until you’ve exhausted everything else. And really when we’re talking about net zero carbon and that designation, we should really, I mean, we throw away, right. , real, , for any owner should be able to demonstrate that all the other things were done first, how is, how would they focused on building efficiency? Have they maximize onsite renewables, all those other things first, before they start talking about offsets, we have so much still to go. I mean, I kind of look at it like, , with the, the conversation around carbon capture, I think there’s a fair number of people who are like crossing their fingers, hoping that it all pans out.

Breana (00:42:19):

And I’m like, I am not willing to risk humanity for the, maybe when we demonstrated we have full view about what we can do. I love project drawdown because I think they’d really managed to quantify where , where the big picture items can, , the really big impact of what the economic impact could be from that that’s really powerful. We can solve the majority of the problem. Let’s not focus on the hope of the, , the tiny, , 20% of the issue would, we’ve got all the skills, we’ve got the knowledge of everything we need to do to solve most of the problem. Now we just have to do it.

Matt (00:43:03):

Yeah. Carbon capture seems pretty nice, but we’re still a little ways away.

Breana (00:43:10):

I’m really excited. Oh yeah. I’m really excited by the projects. , there’s been some really great projects going on in Iceland, , that are, I mean, yeah, from a nerdy perspective, like we’re all a flutter about it, but that’s not going to solve the problem today. And, and again, just like the issue around , making a building super efficient, , w we can’t really, can we do carbon capture to, to solve the entire problem as it is right now with no further action? No. So we need to do all the things, right. Can’t focus on just one. We need to be doing everything at once, which of course, , is that’s difficult. Right. It seems like there’s a lot there, but focusing on the things that we know, reduce carbon emissions focusing today, and then keeping our eye on that, it’s going to be necessary. I mean, we, we do need it, but it’s just, there’s still so much we can do today to fix the problems.

Matt (00:44:02):

Yeah. And I do like, , coming back a little bit to the original discussion of, of, , bang for your buck. I love the point about, , localized basically energy sources instead of relying on the grid. I don’t know if you’ve read the grid by Gretchen think I’m going to screw up her last name. Baki maybe.

Matt (00:44:30):

But it’s, it talks about the history of the electrical grid and it’s, it’s so interesting. And at the same time, frightening to see, , what all of our economy is based off of a grid that was built so long ago and is very fragile and, and you’ve seen it, , you’ve seen the issues already. So just, , to even look, , 20 years in the future, we’re going to be having even worse problems. And it, it was kind of foreshadow. I mean, the book, I don’t remember when it was written, it’s, it’s not it’s not too old, but it’s still foreshadows shadows, these events that are coming up. And so yeah, some of that can be a lot of that could be addressed with what you’re saying is, is by providing local sources.

Breana (00:45:27):

Well, we have to remember that all of our infrastructure systems were predicated on an environment that existed, , 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, with the understanding of a really stable environment. We’re now facing a situation where those conditions are changing and our systems aren’t, weren’t designed with those in mind. I mean, again, I, , I live in California, , we talked about water, all of our water systems, , and our, the way that we deliver water to, , our agriculture into our cities is completely predicated on a particular level of, , of snow and snow pack and, and melting cycle, which is been demonstrably challenged for 10 years at this point. I mean, we’re in a 10 year Banga drought, and that’s not going to get any better. So when we’re looking at all of our systems, , there’s definitely, these are big changes, right?

Breana (00:46:19):

They’re macro changes. It’s not just the smaller pieces, but I think again, when we’re, we’re going to have to make changes. Okay. I think we can all agree on that. Right. And I don’t think anybody’s disputing that the, the nature of it, what it’s gonna look like. There’s a lot of different discussions in the end, we have to do two things. One is we have to prioritize delivery particularly around energy because that is what keeps our economy going. It’s what protects the health and wellbeing of our, our, of our communities, , through heat events, through, through freezing events, , that energy is what keeps us going and allows us to survive and thrive in those, those circumstances. So it becomes all the more important and we need to think about the strategies that, that will help deliver that. , it’s big questions, but I think if we, if we all come at this from, , the agreement that we’re all, we’re all trying to go for the same thing here, we’re trying to ensure that not only do we survive, but we thrive.

Breana (00:47:24):

And, and that, , everybody is brought in with that, , that, , let’s not build in the inequities of our previous system into the new one. If we do this in a thoughtful way, we still have time to transition really, to the world that we want to see, , where, where indoor environments are, , are safe from pollutants. And our energy is clean and doesn’t, , that generation doesn’t damage the health of our communities and children. I think we can, we can all agree on those things. And then, , just kind of taking a deep breath and saying, okay, let’s do this.

Matt (00:47:59):

Let’s do it. My

Breana (00:48:01):

Overall hope for humanity.

Matt (00:48:04):

Yeah, no, no, that’s, that’s great. And we’ll, we’ll touch on that here in a little bit, I think, but what, what’s the biggest area in sustainable construction or, or, or development as a whole that you’re curious about and why

Breana (00:48:23):

I think embodied carbon , it’s, it’s really lit up my sort of intellectual brain, because the, the challenge of trying to quantify, I mean, we’ve seen this already for, for many years in supply chain generally, and it is always been so hard, right? So many moving parts, like there are there in my world, in my previous world of trying to deal with supply chains. And I was like, oh, I wish we were vertically integrated so that everything was under one roof. We just did it, but it’s the nature of our economy, right? We have multiple supply chains when we do designing construction and you have multiple sub-contractors, all of which are like herding cats to dry and get them to the same goal. If it’s not built into, , your contracts, how do you enforce it? ? And so there’s a lot of, , we’re seeing in sustainable construction, there’s, there’s a lot of groundwork that has to be laid carefully step by step.

Breana (00:49:17):

And if you miss one of those, it can leave kind of a big hole. So one of the things I think around in body carbon, that’s so exciting is that , one is obviously quantifying materials, , how are we measuring the carbon footprint, essentially of building materials, which ones matter? For BREEAM, we, we always focus on the, , looking at the materials that make up the biggest proportion of the building. , we’re not, we’re not interested in, , a SWAT chair in a bit, there it’s like the concrete it’s steel it’s, , and these are because these are really big impact items. And I think there’s been some great headway made with tools to start bringing that transparency to light. , and I mean, I’m always interested because I’m a bit, , down in the details.

Breana (00:50:05):

So the nerdiness of like, how do you quantify it and what metrics do you use? , we can, we can tend to lose the impact of saying it doesn’t need to be perfect because right now it just needs to be better than what we’re doing. So let’s not get overly, overly focused on that cause it’ll get better over time. And we’re seeing so many products coming, but, but also making sure that we’re, , we’ve got the broadest amount of product, how do we make that , available and, and looking at at how that drives decision making. And then the second thing I think in construction on the actual construction side is the idea that we measure and manage impacts on construction sites. So many, many states already have like site waste management plan requirements for construction, right? And because that makes a lot of sense, because most many landfills that’s what they’re getting is construction waste, but we’re also talking about the energy that it takes to run that site, all the electricity to power tools, to, , power, the , the site manager, cabins, and also water and all and transportation emissions.

Breana (00:51:15):

Where’s all this stuff coming from. And this is a really exciting space because when we’re talking about embodied carbon, we’re talking about construction products and we’re talking about processes, and I’m not sure we really, at that place where we’re ready to do that across every construction site or even the big ones for that matter. So this is going to be a real sea change for the construction industry in particular, , and, and that’s, that’s going to take a lot to, to think about how we do things. We’ve got some great examples. I mean, we’ve got some global leaders who were curious, so Skanska is one of those full disclosure. I used to work for them. So I loved them. I worked in their infrastructure development side. So on the, on the financing side, not on the construction side, but it’s approaches like that, where being innovative and looking at those longer-term impacts , it’s about talking about how we can make that change.

Breana (00:52:11):

I mean, I worked for Skanska in what, 2007, and we were talking about embodied carbon then. I mean, that was, and, and the early part of my career kind of blew my mind. I was like, wow. Okay. But, , we’ve only recently heard that talking about, but I think from a construction standpoint, , that’s, that’s a tough one, right? We’ve got a lot of pressures on the construction environment right now. One of the big things is around labor. Where do we find skilled labor? Right. This is a great way I think, to pull in others who maybe wouldn’t have considered the construction sector as part of it, because this is something that they’re contributing to, , cause they’re, they’re working on sustainability, they’re looking at, , the impacts and they’re actually looking at this as a way of, of supporting their communities, , not just the building, the building, but what does this mean? So, , I think there’s some opportunities there that are going to be really exciting.

Matt (00:53:03):

I completely agree. I think the construction industry is one of the hardest to change. It’s the most set in its ways of pretty much any industry that’s in the U S it seems like other than oil and gas maybe, but , it’s, it’s a pretty well set in its ways. And I think it’s ripe for some disruption and it just takes having those new thoughts and maybe some new blood in the system that might help to push some things along.

Breana (00:53:39):

Well, I will say I, , as a big hug out to the U S construction industry, this is not unique to the United States all over the world. And this is, this is very common, , in, in, , the, , there’s always a conversation in many other places, , about, , productivity has not improved over time, , all these wonky words that go with it, but these are things that are quite common across the industries. And what we’re hoping to do as part of just brand overall is bring in that conversation to say, how can, how can this be utilized by the construction industry to really catapult them into the right position? So again, not so much a niche thing, but how do you navigate this? , if you’re if you’re, , a construction company here, client comes to you and says, oh, and I want you to do X, Y, and Z.

Breana (00:54:27):

And you’re just sitting there going, what the hell is that? Like, we’re here for you. We got you, , because we, we want to provide a way to up-skill everybody. And it doesn’t mean necessarily becoming, , the know all and all about embodied carbon, right? It’s more just about, , how does, how does this impact what I’m doing? How can I make this better? How can I help ensure that we, , stick to the rules and regulations that we have to follow, but how can we just do better with this? And I think the head’s up with the , from investors is really that in the development, we’re seeing green finance, for example, already starting to make the changes about what they will finance and what they won’t not so much what they will, but just what they give preferential terms to, , that’s already starting to make the changes. So, , the construction industry is going to have this heading their way as with anything. I think the sooner you get out in front of it, the better it is.

Matt (00:55:23):

Well, that’s probably what they’re thinking about it at night, but what about you? What keeps you up at night right now in your current position?

Breana (00:55:32):

Scalability, the scale of the challenge. Yeah. , we work with investors from all over the world with thousands of assets, and it can be really daunting to think about that kind of scale about understanding, , how, how do I go from the conversation of, , we, we understand the concept we get that we need to transition our portfolio of, I don’t know, 8,000 buildings to net zero carbon in less than 30 years. It becomes a huge piece of our puzzle of how do I make it move from there. And I think that’s one of the most exciting things about that is like, if we wait too long for perfection, if we wait too long to come up with the solution before acting, we might miss the mark. And as I said, , we’ve got the things in place, right.

Breana (00:56:26):

We simply need to get started. So I think for me, it’s, it’s all about, , the paralysis of at this moment of understanding the scale and we really risk that. And so, , when I talk to any of our potential clients or investors, I say start small first step, do five buildings, then do 10, then do 20 and keep scaling that and set yourself realistic targets. One of the things that concerns me is, is whether or not we’re seeing, , the full transparency of what the impact of these commitments are going to be. And I think, , when we’re talking about, , existing buildings in particular, , we’re, we’re going to need deep retrofits to move towards net zero carbon. And I think, I mean, there’s been plenty of research on this. It’s not, I don’t think it’s quite a secret, but I wonder how much everybody sees it in that context.

Breana (00:57:23):

Maybe they do. And they’re just not saying it and that’s why there’s sometimes crickets out there. But what I would encourage is that transparency. I think the, the understanding of the scale of the problem helps others outside understand the complexity, right? It’s not like snapping your fingers and we’re just all going to be net zero. This is going to take time. This is going to take investment and money and a thoughtful, methodical way. And we can all learn from each other. There’s no, , there’s no perfect route here. Every organization is going to have to go down their own way. And I really, , I really love hearing from different organizations trying different things. They’re not always successful. That is okay too, because the learning that comes out of it, we still have space and time. My worry is that we’ll get to 2040 and be not very far from where we are in now and wringing our hands.

Breana (00:58:16):

I mean, if anything, , the pandemics, then this really interesting kind of time, I think, because what it really showed is that we can do anything, right. We can change our entire economy. We can append it. Everything that everybody felt was concrete and immutable like just went, , and it’s gone. Right. It’s and what it showed is is that we can act when we need to. Right. But the, the pain of that on our communities, on our politics, on our, on our economics is so big. We do not want to wait that long. So from this, from the pandemic lesson, I, , I say like, we have to learn this lesson. If we don’t learn this lesson, now we really risk something much more catastrophic and we can avoid it. This is all avoidable. We just have to do it.

Matt (00:59:05):

Right. It’s going to be painful. It’s going to be painful now. But it will be less painful.

Breana (00:59:15):

Yeah. Painful now, excruciating later, if we don’t do it right, like let’s take painful now. And that’s

Matt (00:59:21):

So hard for human beings. So it’s, it’s, it’s a whole change of mindset and that, that requires a lot of effort. So it does , oh, go ahead.

Breana (00:59:37):

I was just going to say, but the pandemic, I think was a real lesson learned that we can make that change. Like never underestimate human beings, the ability to adapt. I think we’re, , as a species, , we aren’t in the position, we’re in also the bad parts, but the good part too, because we didn’t adapt to our circumstances. So , it, and this really becomes a community effort. I think if we, , take that really, , use that lesson we can, we can make it happen.

Matt (01:00:05):

Right. Well, yeah. , the, the pandemics really painted several, several lessons for people. And we’re still, we’re still dealing with that now, but it’s been an interesting time to talk to others in this profession that are dealing with the same thing. But going forward, let’s, let’s kind of look in the future here. What would you like if I, if I Wikipedia or Google your name or our Bre BREEAM in the future, I know those are all three different three different entities, but I guess we’ll start off with you and then maybe let’s look at BREEAM as a whole or the Bre as a whole. And what, what would you say? What, what would you like for it to say about you? As far as your legacy is concerned?

Breana (01:01:08):

Wow, that’s something

Matt (01:01:11):

I know I love it, but I know it’s not easy.

Breana (01:01:15):

No, I, I, I think for me personally, it’s it’s that the impact was made that the, the outcome was improved, that it was better. I, , for me personally leaving the world better than when I found it better than when it was handed to me. And also better for my children and my grandchildren eventually what a scary thought that is. But , that, that’s the biggest piece is that, , we, we leave it in a better place. I think for Bre, it’s also that, that thinking, , working for a 100 year old organization, we have a long time horizon, , 30 to 50 years where like, okay, we can deal with that, , and, and we move towards that. And I think that that is also the , our, our goal is to support a thriving, sustainable world and helping move towards that, whether that’s innovation standards w whatever the case may be.

Breana (01:02:18):

And for Bre, it will be the satisfaction that the, the next hundred years are as impactful, if not more so than the first hundred. I mean, even in the next 30, we, we recognize that you like for BREEAM, for example, the first 30 years were really important. The next 30 are critical. And I think, and I think for for BREEAM, then transitioning into that one, it will also be that we helped all buildings, the entire built-in environment, make that goal through, through our standards, helping, helping understand where they are now, how they need to get there and actually making it happen. That is our goal. And I think if, if , from an impact perspective, again, if we can make , much more impact in the next 30 years, that will be critical. , we recognize that, , BREEAM has what 594,000 plus certificate certificates issued in 88 countries around the world, right?

Breana (01:03:18):

It’s, it’s by footprint, like as number of certificates is the biggest, and that’s a huge impact, but we recognize that is a drop in the ocean overall. And that if you looked at every certification body that ever issued same deal, right. And so it’s small, so we need that next step. It needs to grow and scale. And we’re really looking at for BREEAM, how do you scale this? How do you transition it from being seen as this niche, to being all in? And , our program has really shifted in the last couple of years to make that possible. And we work with a lot of global organizations now who are looking at this, this problem at scale. So, , by the time we get to 2050, that will be the thing, what, how impactful were we? And if, if the if the history books show that, we, we managed to make a huge difference for many more buildings, so many more, 50%, maybe that’s too ambitious. We have big ambitions here.

Breana (01:04:20):

Exactly. I mean, we would love to see every building with using a sustainability framework certification. , we offer that as a service where there’s value for doing so we would always say there is, but it’s even more important that every building is looking through their operations, looking through through a sustainability lens at their operations and saying, how are we performing, and we make our standard fully available at no cost? Anybody can dive into it and have a look? So we’re hoping to help, , kind of get that thinking forward on that, that framework,

Matt (01:04:57):

Those are lofty goals. I like it!

Breana (01:05:00):

We’re ambitious. What can I say?

Matt (01:05:02):

Well, like you mentioned, yeah, the last, last 30 years were important, but , based on always seen the next 30 are going to be crucial, like you said, so yeah, you guys have a lot of

Breana (01:05:18):

Yep. And we’re looking forward to the challenge for sure.

Matt (01:05:22):

Well, I want to give you a little time here just to tell us where we can find out a little bit more about you, Brianna, and also BRE and BREEAM, and just kind of let us know where we can find out a little bit more.

Breana (01:05:35):

Great. Well you can go to our website, which is www.BREEAM.com/USA and BREEAM spelled B R E E A M. And you can find out more about our programs. We have a lot of resources on there to explain, , our family of standards. And also the detail, as I mentioned, , we make our, our full technical standards available at no cost. So all the information is there. You can find me on LinkedIn, feel free to reach out and connect on that. And we also have for BRE group as a whole, it’s very group.com. We do a lot of different things. BREEAM is probably the thing we’re most famous for, but we work around the world and all sorts of different areas. So there’s a lot of different aspects that people might find interesting.

Breana (01:06:23):

And also, we I mentioned that we’re headquartered in the UK. We have an innovation park there, where we build and test technologies. And we offer a really great tour in the pre pandemic times. I must say that we’re still shut down a little bit but if anybody finds themselves in the UK and is interested in the nerdy building science stuff we got you so feel free to reach out. And we can see about connecting you for those things. But yeah, we do some really amazing stuff there, which again, for building science nerds, and, I say that in a loving way, come, come hang out with us.

Matt (01:07:07):

That’s awesome. I’m going to have to check that out. I I’m overdue for a trip, so that’d be awesome. Yeah. Well I want to thank you again for all your time. Breana. This was, this was a great conversation. I loved to hear your thoughts of where we’re at, where we’re going with sustainability, and I wish you all the, all the best on your journey.