0:00 Music plays
00:00:02 Joshua Galloway
Part of what we’re interested in is working with communities on job training and workforce development to help build this market transformation that we’re after of healthy, high performance homes that is really tied into how the Community works and not just a matter of we help this building, then we help that building but we’d much rather help a community of people and then the buildings in that community for the long term because that I think is where the real long term value lies and so it’s not a one off.
00:00:33 Michelle Moran
Welcome to building well, sustainable homes, equitable communities, your new podcast from new Ecology. Join us as we explore real life stories from key players in green building and community development. We’ll examine exciting new innovations, highlighting practical solutions for creating more affordable, healthier, more resilient equitable communities.
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We’re building well, together.
00:00:57 Molly Craft
This episode was made possible by the mass save Community education grant.
00:01:06 Alina Michelewicz
Welcome to today’s episode of the Building Well Podcast. Today we’ll be talking about what green building actually is, how we support projects in green building, how we integrate with the affordable housing space and industry, and also resources that you can look into to learn more about high performance buildings.
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This is our third episode of Building Well podcast.
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The first episode we interviewed, Ed Connolly, who was our President of New Ecology for 20 years. He introduced the industry of green building and talked about where we’ve been and where we’re going.
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And then Next up in the second episode, which has been released is with Lisa Reed, who works in our Baltimore office talking about her career trajectory into green building and what it’s like to be a woman working in the field. And then this episode, we’re going to do a deep dive into what green building really is.
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And talk about what new ecology does in the field of green building and how it connects to residents in the buildings that we serve.
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I’m Alina. I’ll be your host today. I’m the principal director of Finance and analytics here at new ecology, and my co-host Michelle Moran is also here with me today.
00:02:19 Michelle Moran
Hello.
00:02:20 Alina Michelewicz
And we’re going to be interviewing L.J. Eldredge, who’s our principal director of Green Building services, as well as Joshua Galloway, our director of Green Building services in the Baltimore office. LJ, would you like to introduce yourself?
00:02:34 L.J. Eldredge (LJ E)
Yes, I would. I’m L.J. Eldredge, the principal director of green building services at new ecology. I oversee our Green Building division, which holds about 22 project managers and energy raters. I have been with new ecology for about 2 1/2 years. I come from a for profit Engineering consulting firm, Which was focused more on commercial and industrial facilities. I have a degree in mechanical engineering. And I came to new ecology because I wanted to make more of a difference in the communities that we’re surrounded by and actually feel like I was making more of a difference in things like climate change and being a part of the solution, Where in the commercial and industrial sector felt a lot more regulatory focused and pushed by you know what the utility companies were forced to do rather than what people really wanted to do to care for the environment.
00:03:30 Alina Michelewicz
Thanks. Joshua, Would you like to introduce yourself?
00:03:33 Joshua Galloway
Yes. Hello, I’m Joshua Galloway, and I work in the Baltimore office. As Alina mentioned, I’ve been with new ecology for eight years, started off in landscape architecture and then moved into architecture and realized that my passion was really about sustainability within the landscape and the buildings and found new ecology and I was describing to my sister what new ecology does is focusing on sustainability within the affordable housing world. And she was like, Oh my gosh, someone made the perfect job for you. And so it’s a wonderful place to be because we think about the context and the community within which we work. We think about the community and the context within which we work and we think about the buildings that people live in and how that can empower people to have healthy high performance homes.
00:04:26 Alina Michelewicz
Hmm. I love that, that’s great. Well, thank you guys for sharing. All right, so that was actually a good introduction to green building, I think. LJ, could you tell us a little bit about what is encompassed by the green building work that we do? What does a typical project at new ecology look like?
00:04:45 L.J. Eldredge
In the Green Building division at new Ecology, we focus on all projects that are going for some kind of green building certification, so certification programs are things like LEED, Passive House, Enterprise green communities, Energy Star. So we’re really looking at focusing on projects that are going above and beyond a code compliant building. We are focused primarily on new construction or major renovations, gut rehabs, but we also do work on existing buildings that are going through some general retrofits and upgrades, but also looking for those certifications. We focus all of our projects on affordable multifamily as much as we can. That’s where we really want to make sure we’re focusing the capacity of the staff we have. a new construction project would typically consist of starting in design and as early as possible, meeting with the architects, the owners, the developers, the engineers to work together to make sure that they’re designing the building to be sustainable, to be focusing on the goals of the certifications that they’re going for, environmental goals, energy use goals and helping them through that process to make sure that the design has all the details necessary to meet these requirements, and then we follow that project through into construction and helping to ensure that everything that they designed at the beginning is actually being built to those specifications, making sure that the choices that were made, that the conscious decisions that were made during design in terms of the material selection, the way that the building is put together is actually happening in construction, which can be a challenge when you go from a design team to the boots on the ground construction team, the subcontractors, people who are not necessarily involved in all of the discussions beforehand and really supporting that process/ So our project managers are helping with all of that consulting on all of that and seeing that through from design through construction. And our energy raters are helping on their end with doing some energy modeling and also doing all of the testing and verification in the building to make sure that the building is airtight where it where it needs to be to certain thresholds, making sure that things are installed properly, making sure that the installation is in fact continuous, making sure that they don’t miss this step, making sure that things are done properly so that the building can perform the way it was intended to perform.
00:07:17 Alina Michelewicz
That’s a lot. I have some follow up questions. So you mentioned that the building owners would have like goals right around energy performance after the building is built right? How they’re operating and using energy afterwards, how do they come up with those goals? So sometimes there is code compliance like you said, code requirements for the buildings, but how does that come about? Like, why would an owner have a goal or how would they Come up with that goal?
00:07:47 L.J. Eldredge
It’s a great question. There’s a lot of funding to be had for going for specific certification. So to really unlock funding in affordable multifamily buildings which you know can be really tight to begin with, going for certifications helps with that funding opportunity. in some areas, for example, passive House in the Boston area is becoming much more of a requirement. So in this particular area, we’re seeing a lot of that push because of the code requirements. You know there’s funding and there’s requirements.
00:08:20
In the Mid-Atlantic and Joshua can speak to this more. It’s more focused on the funding availability, but also the clients that we have that really want to make sure that their buildings are sustainable. So for the same you know some of the same reason that we’re even here is we want to make sure that people who live in these affordable this affordable housing have the same access to healthy and sustainable buildings that everyone else does. So combination of those things.
00:08:48 Alina Michelewicz
Hmm. So for our value add to the owners or the builders, We’re really helping them actually get funding like the value add is actually very tangible. It’s not just like, hey, we want to be ready for climate change, we want to be climate resilience. Like you can get actual money for these projects. We’re helping them do that.
00:09:08 L.J. Eldredge
We are, in addition to that. So yes, we are helping them get funding by helping them through this process.
00:09:14
There are other companies, certainly, that will help them through the consulting through these projects to get certified to get the funding. where new ecology really stands out is our commitment to being a part of the process every step of the way, making sure that we are pointing out things that need to be addressed and actually following up on those things.
00:09:37
And then when we get into the testing and verification, we’re walking through that building with the GC. We are showing them what we’re seeing we are, we are observing things that may cause them to fail a test before we run our test so that we can point it out, have them address it rather than testing and failing at the first shot. So we are not a pass fail firm. We’re really trying to make sure that we’re pushing the needle. We are helping people to improve their buildings and not just walking in and saying, oh, you failed. Good luck. Figure it out. And then let us know when to come back. So that is a big difference between us and, you know, and others that may be out there where it’s just kind of like, OK, I’ll come in when you need me. We’re there every step of the way.
00:10:24 Alina Michelewicz
So our projects, well, I don’t know if you have this data, but our projects tend to more frequently pass because…
00:10:31 L.J. Eldredge
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There have only been a couple of instances that for one reason or another during the course of construction, a project may have decided to not pursue a certification.
00:10:42
And that can be for a number of reasons that can be financial, that could be things happened with the timeline. You know, there are a number of reasons, but yes, at this point all of the projects that we have been contracted to certify and have worked toward achieving that certification are either currently pre certified in progress or have been fully certified.
00:11:03 Alina Michelewicz
It’s so important for them to pass because that’s how the projects get funded. That’s, that’s what makes them possible. Like the affordable housing space, right is not market rate housing, it’s not, So it’s subsidized, and these subsidies come through incentives. And some of those incentives are made possible by the certifications that we do?
00:11:22 L.J. Eldredge
Correct.
00:11:23 Alina Michelewicz
That’s how you describe it? OK, cool. It’s coming together for me, I’ve been here a year and a half (laughs) and I’m still getting it, but that’s cool. That’s how it fits in the ecosystem of affordable housing.
00:11:34 Joshua Galloway
I just wanted to add that we were, on a, to follow up on LJ’s comment about successful certifications. We were on a client call recently talking about passive House certification for a new construction building and the client was hesitant to move forward with passive House because of some previous poor experiences with the certification and after more discussion and questions, found out that they had a building that was not passing and they had actually called in some of our raters to help make it pass. And so we explain that this is what we do is that we make sure that we spend enough time and energy during the process to make sure that the certification is possible. And so at the end of the conversation, the client was like, that’s right, you’re helping us meet it on another property where we couldn’t meet the certification. So I’m comfortable moving forward with this property for that same passive House certification.
00:12:30 Michelle Moran
It sounds like you, in a way, demystify some of the process and show how it all works together, because I know it’s really intimidating. Some of this stuff even in the beginning explaining what is a green building or a high performance building like it’s a lot of technical words, and sometimes you can’t really see how it all fits together, so it sounds like what you guys do is really important. And getting it all to fit together and then thus showing the importance of it.
00:12:53 Joshua Galloway
Totally. And that’s a great way to put it. And I also think of us as similar to detectives. If you’re working on an existing building, our job is to go and understand how the building’s operating, both from the resident point of view and from the heating and cooling system and building envelope point of view and then work with the residents and owners and property management folks to figure out how to improve the building operations. And that’s really our goal at the end of the day is to have a building that’s operating well. Residents are comfortable not using too much energy or water.
00:13:30
And meeting the code in green certifications, so our goal is not to say, hey, we’re gonna meet the green certification at all costs. We wanna make sure #1 the building is comfortable for residents and is operating well for the owner. After that, the goal is to make sure that the certifications are met and it’s not either or, but our focus starts really with the people in the building, and then the certification is the next step.
00:13:55 L.J. Eldredge
Yeah, there’s a project right now that we are trying to close out that we are dealing with an issue of the balancing of the ventilation system and we’re working with the testing and balancing consultants and the HVAC engineers to address that issue. And at this point, you know we we’ve done everything that we can, but we’re not letting it go until we make sure that we work with them to get this fixed. And so we’re working with them and with the with the owner to make sure that we’re staying on top of it.
00:14:24
Because while the owner is feeling a little bit like, you know, let me just have my in-house guys do it. You’re going to have this issue, you are your occupants are going to complain at some point and you know the team that installed this needs to make sure that they’re doing it right. So that’s you know that’s a big part of it.
00:14:44
To Joshua’s point is we want the occupants to feel like, you know, they’re coming into this brand new space, that things should be working the way they’re intended, especially right off the bat. And then we hope to make sure that things continue to run optimally over the life of the building.
00:15:02 Alina Michelewicz
I think that’s really important, right? Because it’s like housing is a human right and having good, healthy, warm, comfortable housing impacts every single aspect of your life and us helping to make sure that the buildings are good from the outset, Is like those buildings last 50, 100, like, however long, decades, right? And so like, if there’s something wrong in it that’s gonna impact, like thousands of people, especially some of these high number unit buildings like with a lot of families in them like that’s a big, big impact for what?
00:15:39 Michelle Moran
Yeah.
00:15:40 Alina Michelewicz
What is, out of curiosity, like the ventilation system, What do residents experience? I don’t even know what balancing of ventilation system means to be honest with you (laughs).What would someone experience?
00:15:53 L.J. Eldredge
Yeah, making sure that the airflow in all of the units, the bottom and the top is all the same, so you don’t end up with very stuffy spaces or…
00:16:03 Alina Michelewicz
The hot rooms at the top of the building?
00:16:05 L.J. Eldredge
Yeah. So you end up, you know, especially when you have centralized systems and there’s really, you know you only have so much control. So making sure that that you are getting you’re getting your fair share of the air, you know yeah it’s challenging.
00:16:18 Alina Michelewicz
Or not too much, right?
00:16:23 L.J. Eldredge
You know, think about, I don’t know, you know, if anybody has ever experienced that in their own home. I’ve certainly, I’ve experienced it in a single family home where one room of the house is like nothing’s coming in here. It’s either constantly freezing too hot. It’s always stuffy. And it’s not always easy to balance even a single family home.
00:16:44
And so think about that on the scale of a 200 unit apartment building and all of these, you know, all of these families and their comfort in, that’s their home, you know.
00:16:55 Alina Michelewicz
Mm-hmm.
00:16:57 Joshua Galloway
And I think one thing to point out specifically on the ventilation piece, that’s a good example is that when we get a set of drawings early on in the process, our energy engineers will look at the drawings, verify that the ventilation makes sense, ventilations going to the right place, the controls work. We’ll reverify that in the final construction drawings and then our field staff. Our energy raters, will go out, verify that the installation is correct and work with the balancers or consultants to make sure that everything is operating correctly and then the buildings turned over to property management and at that point we do a training with property management, property maintenance staff to show how the systems are supposed to be used and maintained and leave documents there to guide the maintenance of the systems, and so it’s not a matter of like “ohh the mechanical engineer will design it and the contractor will install it and the maintenance staff will maintain it. It’ll be fine” We are there making sure that at each stage, the pieces are put together in the right way.
00:18:03 Alina Michelewicz
I imagine a lot of the buildings, they just kind of like come and certify and they’re like, OK, see you later. And it’s not like providing information to the maintenance staff, like, that’s pretty critical to like, make sure it operates correctly, I would imagine.
00:18:15 Joshua Galloway
It’s one of the biggest challenges we see in this work is that we spend a lot of time, we and the industry spend a lot of time during design and construction. When you have a lot of people focused on the building and then the keys are handed over to property management and property maintenance and we are relying on them to achieve the goals that we set out during design of the building will operate and use this much energy for the next 20 years and save this much money.
00:18:44
It is a big ask because oftentimes the property management and maintenance staff are not involved during design and construction. Ideally they would be, and sometimes they are. But when you’re handed the keys to a building that you’ve not been involved in the design or construction of and then you are responsible for making sure that it operates as it was proposed to, it doesn’t always work out.
00:19:11 L.J. Eldredge
So I think it’s important to point out as we have this discussion that like it takes, it takes a village, it takes the industry, it takes all of us working together, it takes all of the experts and professionals in their fields to have collective eyes on these projects. So you know it takes the MEP’s knowing what they’re doing to design the system right, but it takes second sets of eyes to view it from different lenses to make sure that things are being designed appropriately for the end use.
00:19:41
It takes the architects knowing how to put these buildings together and the details that need to be shown in order for our subcontractors and all of our building contractors to be able to build it. And it takes that other set of eyes to be looking at it through a different lens to make sure that we’re not missing anything. So it takes us all working together.
00:20:02
And collaborating and holding each other accountable to make sure that this building ends up being what we all intended for it to be in the end.
00:20:12
And to go, you know, to expand also on what Joshua was mentioning you know we talked a lot about these high performance buildings, the end goal here being if these buildings which are currently taking up you know 30 to 40% of the energy use in the US these all these buildings.
00:20:32 Alina Michelewicz
Is that right 30 to 40%?
00:20:33 L.J. Eldredge
So I was, I was reading in 2022, including all of the electrical losses in the system to electrify these buildings, the built environment, residential and commercial buildings is about 38% of the energy consumption.
00:20:50
And so trying to take these buildings, and we’re just talking about energy like we’re not even talking about embodied carbon here, right so… Looking at the energy use of all these buildings, we’re trying to electrify. but we also need to be energy efficient. So we want these high performance buildings to be as self-sustaining as possible, right? This passive House, this idea of passive house being that your space can keep itself comfortable with very minimal energy usage. But what happens is in some of these buildings where we’re anticipating that operation costs are going to be lower, There’s a lot of electrification, so sometimes it ends up being higher, which it’s variable based on the cost of electricity. So we need to make sure that we’re also including things like renewable energy in our projects. We need to make sure that we’re using high efficient systems in our buildings to make sure that we can reduce the potential usage as much as possible by making sure that all those systems are working as efficiently and effectively as possible, which also goes back to making sure that our other experts in the field, like the M.E.P.’s, are designing these systems to work optimally so that we are seeing those efficient numbers coming out of our system.
00:22:08 Alina Michelewicz
what is M.E.P.?
00:22:10 L.J. Eldredge
Oh, sorry that’s mechanical, electrical, and plumbing.
00:22:12 Alina Michelewicz
OK, great. And could you just describe what embodied carbon is, because you mentioned that term?
00:22:18 L.J. Eldredge
Yes, the building itself, there’s carbon output from every step of our projects, right? So there’s this this carbon emitted when we transport materials, when we create the materials, so creating these buildings is a lot of carbon being put out into the atmosphere. There’s a lot of conversation happening around how we reduce our carbon footprint. There’s also a lot of discussion about using materials that absorb and hold the carbon. How can we make sure that we are not only using materials that are not emitting as much carbon to create, but also the ones that can sequester it.
00:22:53 Alina Michelewicz
Like literally put in the carbon in the body of the building.
00:22:57 L.J. Eldredge
Right. I mean a good example is they make insulation materials out of hay. And straw. and and that’s the material that can sequester the carbon. Joshua may be able to add more context here if you want to add to this.
00:23:16 Joshua Galloway
Yeah, And Wood is the one of the primary ones and so, Insulation is made of shredded wood, but also the framing. And so when you have a wood frame building, whether it’s standard 2 by 6 studs or whether it’s cross laminated timber which is assembled panels of wood that can be used for floors and walls and structure is very low carbon because it’s actually sequestering carbon from the atmosphere into the tree and then put into the building where it’s held for the life of the building.
00:23:46 Alina Michelewicz
OK, so I have a follow up question.
When we talk about these incentives, right, And we’re doing these certifications to help the properties be able to get funded. What are some of the sources of those funding? And one of the reasons I asked is because internally at new ecology, we talked a lot about how Massachusetts specifically has a lot of code and requirements for certifications that other areas of the country doesn’t necessarily have other incentives which are different in every state. So there’s a lot of variety here in how a property in one state versus another might put together its funding and what’s required to do that. Could you talk a little bit about Massachusetts and then maybe, Joshua, where we can go to you and talk a little bit about what’s going on in the states where you’re working?
00:24:32 L.J. Eldredge
Yeah. In Massachusetts, the mass save program has a lot of incentives available. So I mentioned passive House is, you know, code is kind of pushing us toward passive House essentially being a requirement, especially in the Boston Area and mass save program has a lot of incentives to offset the incremental cost of creating a passive house building. And so there is funding available to, you know to start a project there’s funding available to do a feasibility study to even look at the you know where you’re building or your design is In terms of meeting passive house requirements from design. there’s also incentives to support the WUFI passive modeling that needs to be done for those projects.
00:25:17
And then you know, upon completion, there’s a lot of incentives available. Just again to offset the overall costs of everything that’s needed to it. You know to create that building, the different materials, the cost of for example, our time to help support that, there are many things available. There’s also, and Joshua will probably talk about this more, The GGRF has a leading edge track that requires certifications in order to (so that’s the greenhouse gas reduction fund) To receive some incentives through that program. So It’s not just the state, there’s federal sources incoming as well.
*Mass Save Break Begins*
00:25:25 Music plays
00:25:59 Molly Craft
Living in Massachusetts, keeping your homes comfortable year round can strain the wallet. But what if you could save money on energy bills regardless of whether you live in a cozy single family home or a bustling apartment building, the answer is mass safe. This is Molly’s mass save minutes.
00:26:16
Mass save offers programs for both single family homes and multifamily properties. Both programs share the same goal to help residents improve energy efficiency and save money. Single family homeowners can take advantage of free home energy assessments where an expert will identify areas for improvement, recommending upgrades like insulation or high efficiency appliances.
00:26:37
Rebates and incentives are also available to help you save on energy efficient upgrades to make your home more comfortable and reduce your energy bills and income. Eligible programs are offered to qualifying residents so they can access additional discounts or even no cost upgrades.
00:26:52
Property owners and managers of multifamily buildings can benefit from free multifamily energy assessments, which can identify opportunities to save energy across the entire property.
00:27:02
Rebates and incentives are also available to help reduce operating costs, with upgrades like lighting systems or heating improvements.
00:27:09
No matter which program you participate in, you’ll enjoy reduced energy bills, increased comfort and a lessened environmental impact.
00:27:16
Head over to the mass save website at masssave.com masssave.com to learn more. There you can schedule a free assessment, explore rebates, and see if you qualify for income based programs. Make your Massachusetts home single family or multifamily more energy efficient with mass save. This is Molly reminding you to save money And the environment one energy saving upgrade at a time, TuneIn to our next episode to hear more.
00:27:33 Music plays
*Mass Save Break Ends*
00:27:44 Alina Michelewicz
What are you seeing in the Mid-Atlantic, Joshua based on incentives, but also just what we’ve been talking about in terms of buildings and their needs?
00:27:52 Joshua Galloway
Yeah, in the Mid-Atlantic there is not as much regulation or incentives. Part of the reason new ecology opened the Baltimore office about nine years ago was that Maryland is a receptive place for sustainability, and there’s a lot of interest, and advocacy for sustainability, not obviously, as many regulations and incentives as Massachusetts. DC, is very progressive, and we’re working on some new construction passive House buildings in DC that have some good incentive from the DC sustainable energy utility and also some new construction Net 0 energy affordable homes multifamily homes in DC. Incentives in the Mid-Atlantic are more of a mixed bag than Massachusetts in both incentives and regulations. A lot of the work we do in Maryland has some good incentives for energy efficiency, but not a lot for passive house or really net zero energy, though that is starting to change. Maryland DHCD has a new greenhouse gas reduction program that we are applying for for a building we’re working on. And so they’re recognizing the need for funding for affordable housing that is trying to meet net zero energy goals. in DC it’s very progressive. There’s a lot of programs, a lot of incentives for work we’re doing down there, including net zero energy multifamily housing and some new construction passive house buildings, one of which just received funding with the IRA Greenhouse Gas Reduction program, GRRP. And that helps specifically on that building to go for a central electric heat pump system, whereas formerly the building was going to have a gas central water heater with this additional funding, they were able to spend the additional several $100,000 to upgrade to the electrical water heater and make the entire building all electric. And so that’s really kind of our focus to decarbonize both existing buildings, but also new construction.
00:29:52 Michelle Moran
I have a follow up question on that, if you don’t mind.
00:29:55 Michelle Moran
So Massachusetts, LJ, you were talking about the landscape up there and New England and then Joshua in the Mid-Atlantic. It’s getting there, but it’s not quite as robust, right. So how are you finding not the people that are interested in having this work done, but the people that are doing the work. is there are there as many opportunities you know are as many firms that are really well versed in all this work, passive House practices, etcetera, etcetera.
00:30:18 Joshua Galloway
It has been a slow process. When we first started, we were very excited about passive House and advocating for it, and many of the conversations we had with community members, And architects, builders and owners and did not have much uptake. And so it’s taken many years to reach a point of where we have found people who are like minded groups and a shout out to Mark James of Urban Green who we’re doing several net zero energy new construction buildings with and he came to us and said we want to do net zero energy buildings because It makes good business sense. We want to own and operate these buildings for the long term, and we’re willing to invest in them now to get returns in the coming years and that Is a wonderful client to have because they share our mission for affordable housing within a climate responsible context.
00:31:17 Alina Michelewicz
What does it mean Joshua for a building to be net 0?
00:31:22 Joshua Galloway
There are many different definitions. The bottom line is that if a building is net zero energy, then it makes or purchases renewable energy to offset the amount of energy the building uses.
00:31:36
And so if you have a one story building on a large site, you can put a lot of solar photovoltaic panels on the roof and make all the energy needed for that building. If you have an 8 story building on a small urban lot, you don’t have enough roof area to install enough solar electric panels to produce enough Energy. And so then you have to look further afield for community solar that you can purchase kilowatt hours from or so solar renewable energy credits. And so someone, somewhere has a solar farm or field and you can purchase electricity produced there.
00:32:16 Alina Michelewicz
That’s interesting. Thanks.
00:32:19 Joshua Galloway
There’s also net 0 water and net 0 carbon. Our other goals and certifications that that folks are are going for the net zero energy is kind of the easiest one. It’s not easy at all, but it’s the easiest one among those three of net zero energy Net 0 water and net 0 carbon.
00:32:41 Alina Michelewicz
Hmm. Interesting.
00:32:44 Joshua Galloway
I do want to mention a bit about the Baltimore office and how we started in Baltimore. The market that we came into nine years ago was a burgeoning market, and so there was interest in sustainability. Several of the funding programs required certifications, But there was not a wholehearted focus on sustainability and so we started working wherever we could. We worked with state programs that would provide money for audits and implementation on existing master meter buildings that did not include certifications and we worked on row home renovations and then New construction and then have built a our work in Baltimore is now kind of has a little bit of all the work that we do at new ecology. So we do decarbonization work on existing buildings without certifications and we do new construction with certifications and we do more Community focused efforts, similar to our climate smart communities work where we work with the community to identify the needs for a larger scale project or a specific building and then help find funding and resources to put together to help them meet their goals.
00:34:00 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, that’s great. That’s, I’m glad you mentioned that. So the episode after this one, we’re going to interview Pat Coleman, who’s the climate smart communities Division lead and also Marty Josten, who’s the principal director of decarbonization here in new ecology. So that’ll be a good follow on to what you just mentioned, Joshua, but I want to kind of call out what you just said and connect it also to something that LJ said where you mentioned you’ve been here eight or nine years there’s been A lot of change in the market and things are start are moving like there’s support for this work, there’s Stuff happening in Maryland and DC, and then there’s this greenhouse gas reduction fund that LJ mentioned, where there’s actually federal incentives coming down. And there’s just, it feels like there is a huge opportunity here to really change the face of affordable housing, like make make this housing truly climate resilient and sustainable for the long term and it’s really awesome to hear you guys talk about how, You know, You’re seeing that movement like it’s not just Massachusetts and mass save supporting passive house now. It’s also like Maryland and what you mentioned and just this incredible push for this I think.
00:35:18 Joshua Galloway
Yeah. And I think that one of the things we’re really excited about now is the renewed focus on community engagement and involving the Community process in developing affordable housing. So redevelopment without displacement within the context of climate resilience, energy efficiency and resident comfort.
00:35:39
One of the things we’re looking at is the community change grant as part of the IRA funding programs and the funding requires a collaboration between organizations focused on community redevelopment and renovation of existing buildings and new construction. And that community process Leads through design, construction and operations.
00:36:02
And that’s where we would like to focus our work and so not working on individual buildings, signing off and moving on to the next building, but working with communities to help identify and focus on goals the community has work with them on identifying parcels, developing designs, helping build workforce And do job training as part of the build and Part of what we’re interested in is working with communities on job training and workforce development to help build this market transformation that we’re after of healthy, high performance homes that is really tied into how the Community works and not just a matter of we help this building, then we help that building, but we’d much rather help A community of people and then the buildings in that community for the long term cause that I think is where the real long term value lies and so it’s not a one off.
00:37:00 Alina Michelewicz
You mentioned a renewed focus on community based housing. Where is the Drive for that community engagement coming from. is it from the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA and the way that the Community change grants and the greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund have Been designed? or is it coming from the community itself and the desire to be involved in the planning and the design of the communities?
00:37:29 Joshua Galloway
From both. and So we’re speaking with several groups in Baltimore who are doing amazing work, redeveloping existing buildings in communities that have been underserved for generations. At the same time, the Inflation Reduction Act has programs that require investment in these same climate justice communities.
00:37:49
And so we see a perfect role for us as is combining and facilitating between the need and the funding.
00:37:59 L.J. Eldredge
I think it’s really important to make sure that we’re not just focusing on a building when we talk about affordable housing, but we are focusing on the Community because Putting people in a community that is affordable and has had real investment in its sustainability in its health is going to change the way people treat those communities is going to change the way people feel about their own personal investment in the community in which they live and Everyone deserves to live in A place where they feel Safe and everyone deserves to live in a place that they feel proud of.
00:38:41 Joshua Galloway
I think one of the really remarkable opportunities here is that there are several community engagement groups that we’re working with who focus on getting the Community together to understand what the needs are within the Community And then sharing the process Across the community. the Community engagement piece is Very complicated in that we’re not talking about sitting down with a community group and sharing some drawings and then going away and designing a community and building it. But working with community engagement groups whose job is to work with communities and the design and construction Teams to develop a language for the group to work together. And so oftentimes, we’re working on a project now with Latoya Thomas of Brick and Story, a great community engagement firm out of DC, and we’re working on a redevelopment of a public housing community in Charlottesville, VA and, Her point is, how do we get community engaged? Make sure that we’re meeting the language requirements of that community, and also identifying who is not coming to the table and what do we need to do to get folks to the table. And so it’s not a one community meeting Here or there. But it’s we’re doing a nine month master planning process with the community to define what the principles for the new community will be. And so it does take more time, does take more money, but this redevelopment process is going to be that much more successful because it’s based on the needs of the people who Have lived in this community for 50 years.
00:40:26 Alina Michelewicz
Yeah, it sounds like that’s really getting deep into the heart of the impact that we hope to have.
00:40:35
What you’re describing is common in like a typical planning process. It’s typical in a planning process to have, like, one community meeting you check that box. We got the input, see you later. It goes into this file and they never look at it again. And what you’re describing is much more inclusive And I’d imagine results in much more equitable communities and doesn’t displace people, which is so Important. So that’s great to hear that there’s some projects where that’s that really deep community engagement is happening.
00:41:14 Joshua Galloway
Yeah. And I think it also goes to how residents experience sustainability, which is a complicated Issue because we spend our time focused on sustainability and we’re very excited about it and we geek out over whatever topic of conversation we’re talking about at the lunch table. But when we come to speak with community members, sustainability may not be something they talk about. Sustainability may not be a common topic of conversation, and so What we are working on is how to define and share our knowledge and understanding of sustainability with property management, property maintenance, Residents in such a way that we are meeting them where they are and it starts first with listening to kind of what are the main issues. the questions that we deal with are maybe not the most important questions that everyone is dealing with. So our job is to listen and together find a way to communicate so we can address the needs that we can address. So that we can address some of the issues that people are experiencing with housing. While we understand that we are a small part of the larger picture.
00:42:31 Alina Michelewicz
It’s hard sometimes to draw that out. I think, like how it is that we are Connecting to those things that people actually do care about and love that makes sense.
00:42:39 Joshua Galloway
Totally.
00:42:39 L.J. Eldredge
It does and to feed off of what Joshua said, it’s, We do geek out. We are very excited about this piece, but it is in the grand scheme of things such a small part of that final product. And so you know, and it’s I’ve gone to a couple of ribbon cuttings lately for some of the buildings that we’ve worked on and you know to, to Joshua’s point I walk in there so excited about this passive house building that’s opening to the to the tenants and nobody in any of their speeches Is talking about, Oh, this is a passive house building. Nobody’s talking about the sustainability features. The fact that you walk into that building and you can’t hear the street, nobody talks about those things. It’s a, but you’re going to experience it. And so we really are a part of, It’s the. It’s the things that they don’t have to worry about that they didn’t even know they had to worry about, right? It’s giving people a Peace of Mind, And and a sense of safety and security and comfort that, You know, unless something was going wrong, it’s just like 1 less thing. But to us, it’s really it’s really exciting and it’s Like “over here we did this!” but, But yeah, they’re celebrating the community. They’re celebrating, moving into this beautiful new building. They’re celebrating the fact that that many of these new buildings are trying to really incorporate community services for their tenants.
00:44:15 Joshua Galloway
I remember something that Pat Coleman said recently about the role of a non profit and that’s to fill the gaps in the market to do the work that the market is not doing. And one of the ways we’re doing that Is currently working with the National Housing Trust on the IRA Boot camp, and they identified the need to help people understand all this IRA funding that’s coming in the context of their buildings. And so money is great. But if you don’t know what to do with it to improve your buildings and communities, it is not effective. And so with National Housing trust, we’re working with nonprofits around the country to do preliminary analysis and work scopes for electrifying, decarbonizing their properties. and basically getting them ready to then go work with architects and contractors to electrify their properties and that, I think is a wonderful role for new ecology within this larger spectrum, as it’s not designing or building Homes for people, but it is helping people understand how to take advantage of this unprecedented level of funding in such a way that really improves the day-to-day quality of life for the residents and the durability and long term effectiveness of the buildings.
00:45:37 Michelle Moran
But it has a community aspect to it too, doesn’t it Joshua, the nonprofit that you’re working with?
00:45:42 Joshua Galloway
exactly and so these nonprofits, they understand their communities and they understand their buildings, and they also are trying to figure out the best way to move forward and This kind of helps give Them the tools to do That. And that, I think I see as one of our main roles is that we Help provide the Tools and the technical assistance and we in in some ways are kind of in the middle as we are not the architect, we are not the builder, we are not the owner, but we help link those different pieces together In such a way that hopefully provides a good result for all involved.
00:46:19 Michelle Moran
You can geek out about all that cool stuff we were all talking about earlier on their behalf so that they don’t have to do it. You know what I mean? So that they don’t have to worry about it. They can worry about their piece and you Can geek out about your piece and then work together on it.
00:46:32 Joshua Galloway
Exactly. And that’s why we’re very lucky to have such a wonderful group at new ecology. When I first started working here, I was just amazed that there was a group of people who were as excited about sustainability and even more so than I was, and all just loved talking about it and working on it.
00:46:49 Alina Michelewicz
The Inflation Reduction Act boot camps that you mentioned are a great resource and a great way for folks to learn more. I know they’re sort of regionally specific to them so might not be available through new ecology for all listeners, but if you were, if you were talking to a building owner or property manager or another Nonprofit who’s interested in learning more about Building practices or these incentives that we mentioned, where would you tell them to look?
00:47:19 Joshua Galloway
I would suggest they give us a call. And I say That kind of tongue in cheek, but it really is that conversation with the IRA boot camps. We started off only speaking with property staff once we had analyzed the buildings and we realized we needed to speak with property staff when we first started the analysis. So we understand, like how the building’s operating, what are the needs, what are immediate needs and what are some opportunities. And then we can add our experience to the process. But it’s really the people who live and work in the buildings, have the stories and understand how these buildings work. And so it’s a matter for us to kind of pull that information From them and put it into a package that helps them Apply for funding and gives them direction to move and so reading a website is good and there are several good ones for the Department of Energy and National Housing Trust has a great website as well, but it’s really a conversation that doesn’t have to be asked. It can be another sustainability group that you’ve worked with, but good just to sit down and have a conversation And be like “Here are our properties. This is what we’d like to do. We want to know kind of, how do we go about the process” and that’s kind of our next step with the IRA boot camp is helping on portfolio analysis and so elevate energy in Chicago is doing great work with This is helping owners figure out what are the metrics they need to look at in their existing properties to begin to focus on decarbonization and electrification. Because if you’re an owner with 100 properties, how do you start? And you can’t do an energy audit on every property and then take all that information and decide things you need to start with. Big picture- identifying key issues that you’re trying to address, And then get into the portfolio analysis and pick properties that you want to investigate more closely. One other response to that question is send us an e-mail at the info@newecology.org address and let us know where you are and what you’re interested in and we can help direct you to resources because it’s so different whether you’re in Iowa, Maine or Florida, what the response would be.
00:49:38 Alina Michelewicz
So portfolio analysis, can you talk a little bit more about that? So it’s like the portfolio say you have 100 buildings, a portfolio of 100 buildings, you’re looking at their energy usage and how they’re operating it to identify areas where there’s particular buildings or or even areas of buildings that are really Inefficient to address those first, So you’re well, Working towards not just the new construction and then the operations, but then also after a decade or two decades, we’re look Looking at what is happening within that portfolio of buildings and how we can address inefficiencies To fix those.
00:50:16 Joshua Galloway
Yeah. So with this group we’re working with in Pennsylvania, we sent them a list and said for your properties, please let us know for each one when it was built, when it was last renovated, what the heating fuel is, what the ventilation type Is, the resident population, what the funding source is and what the funding compliance cycle is. And so oftentimes there’s a 15 year compliance cycle. And so if someone has just renovated a building using low income housing tax credits, they will have 15 years before they’re eligible to renovate again. And so we look at that list and we pick the buildings to focus on for the boot camp On the buildings that are the oldest, are the furthest from renovation and the closest to refinancing. And so we start there because that is where there is available funding. And so if we look at buildings that were just renovated, it’s hard to find funding. It’s still possible, but harder. And so we try and work in concert with the owner in picking properties that they are already planning to renovate, And so have the resources, both people and financing, to address them in the coming year.
00:51:27 Alina Michelewicz
And the refinancing, it’s important to do it right before your refinancing because you can get additional incentives during the refinancing process, OK.
00:51:34 Joshua Galloway
Exactly, So the refinance, say you renovate a property and you replace kitchen cabinets and appliances and your heating cooling system 15 years later you can refinance and replace Some of those systems again and at that point we can help identify ways to decarbonize, electrify or really increase the performance of the property. So if you add continuous exterior insulation, you’re going to make it easier to heat and cool the building and make it cost less to operate the building, but that funding is only available usually on those 15 year cycles. And so that’s why we want to get in, have that conversation with let’s make the building better and easier to heat and cool, which would be more comfortable for residents and require less money for operations.
00:52:20 Alina Michelewicz
That’s great.
00:52:21 Joshua Galloway
I have a question for Michelle. Michelle, listening to these conversations, what do you see some ways that kind of new ecology serves the community and or ways that we could serve communities better in the Mid-Atlantic or in in New England?
00:52:37 Michelle Moran
Ohh, that’s an interesting question. The way that I see new ecology, especially through these conversations is kind of like we’re like the X-Men, every person, every person has a different specialty that they’re like so good at, you know, that’s their superpower. And then you find a group of these that have superpowers That serve in a similar way and put them in an office together or group together, right? So in the Mid-Atlantic, it’s interesting because I see that you guys are really, really good at incorporating communities. So I guess my suggestion or advice would be to just keep diving down into that. You already have the skill to like meet with key players and key communities and keep developing those relationships.
00:53:18 Joshua Galloway
Thank you, will. Will we be getting new outfits?
00:53:22 L.J. Eldredge
Now listen, I really like your analogy there. Except I would say that maybe we could go like Avengers. Marvel is much happier and funny, and DC is a little too dark, I mean (all laugh)
00:53:37 Michelle Moran
OK, OK.
00:53:40 Joshua Galloway
Thankfully, there’s a lot of really great community groups that are doing housing in Baltimore, and so we’re we are trying just to develop partnerships and listen to what is needed and then help as we can.
00:53:55 Joshua Galloway
I want to add 1 little funny bit when I told my daughter where I was going to work and I explained it was called new ecology and she said no. I think it’s old ecology with a little smile on her 7 year old Face and So Whenever I tell people where I work, I’m always like, don’t say old, don’t say old, new.
00:54:19 Alina Michelewicz
I kind of like it though all because you because like, you know, you’re talking about carbon sequestering and like straw. And it’s like like, those are all materials To be insulating with.
00:54:31 Joshua Galloway
Yes, totally.
00:54:32 Alina Michelewicz
It’s like it’s the new old. Yeah. Thank you both. You guys are both great. I mean, this is amazing really to think about what we do and how it connects to the bigger picture and also to individual residents who live in the buildings. So I just want to thank you guys for thinking about these things, for working here, for sharing with us, coming on the podcast like I am so grateful that we could have this conversation, And that we can share it with other people as well. So. So thank you, LJ and Joshua, for that pleasure.
00:55:12 Joshua Galloway
Thank you, Michelle and Alina, this was super fun and thank you for the idea of doing this.
00:55:17 Alina Michelewicz
That’s our pleasure for sure. Thanks for listening to this episode of building well podcasts and special thanks to our guests, L.J. Eldredge and Joshua Galloway. We learned so much to learn more. You can check out our website at newecology.org. You can e-mail us at info@newecology.org or you can give us a call like Joshua mentioned at 617-557-1700. We look forward to hearing from you about your projects, your community, your sustainable building needs anything, really.
00:55:52 Michelle Moran
Or you can find us on social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, etcetera at New Ecology Inc. See our show notes for this episode on your streaming service, Or at newecology.org/buildingwell/podcast. Thank you.
00:56:09 Alina Michelewicz
Thanks.
00:56:11 Molly Craft
This episode was made possible by the mass save Community Education Grant.
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