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• American futurist “Bucky” Fuller : a properly posed question is answered 100% of the time theoretically and 50% of time in practice.

• Q: How can we create sustainable cities?

– It can’t be just about reducing carbon emissions

– We have to consider water-cycle management, biodiversity & people, mobility and housing

– How can we leverage new technologies?

– How can we best measure progress toward goals?

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Green Building –

Pathway to a Better Future

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• LEED Certified ~35,000 non-residential projects through 2016

• 20% outside the US (Canada, China, Brazil, India)

• Projects in nearly 150 countries

• Now nearly 600 building certification programs worldwide

• BREEAM & LEED are only two global eco-labels; by 2020, add EDGE from World Bank/IFC

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• Resource savings (energy, water, waste)

– Average energy savings 15% - 25% vs. conventional

• Improved building designs & better materials

• Healthier buildings (Indoor Air Quality, chemical controls, daylighting & lighting quality)

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• U.S. Commercial Office Buildings

– 5% higher rents

– Faster letting (improves financial results)

– 6% higher resale value

– Lower operating costs

• Green buildings with Eco-Label:

– More acceptable to multinational tenants

– Help to “future-proof” a building vs. competition

– May lead to higher productivity

– May lead to better health outcomes

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• “3-30-300” rule

• In U.S. offices, approx. annual costs, $/sq.foot:

– $3.00 for energy

– $30.00 for rent

– $300 for people (salaries & benefits)

• Actual numbers are even more convincing (chart)

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Source: US DOE/EIA; Architecture 2030

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• Clarified what is a “green” building

• Reinvented architectural education & practice

• Changed building engineering practice, esp. to reduce energy use:

– E.g., 200 kWh/sq.m./year was normal for offices

– <100 kwh/sq.m./year now commonly achieved

– 50 - 75 kwh/sq.m./year is possible at low Δ cost

– Net zero energy now achievable (new projects)

• Better construction quality

• Educated policy makers & government agencies

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We Started with a Simple Idea…

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Vs.

“A Camel is a Horse Designed by a Committee”

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US Nonresidential LEED Projects

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US Nonresidential Market Uptake

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US Nonresidential Market Uptake

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• Existing certification systems (eco-labels) won’t get us the carbon reductions we need

• Building codes offer some benefits in “raising the floor”, but don’t change overall carbon footprint very fast

• Green building has failed to deliver enough benefits at current costs to gain widespread adoption

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• Tech trends push everything to be better, faster, cheaper, more engaging, etc.

• Commercial real estate is converging rapidly

• Green building & sustainable cities can piggyback on these “megatrends”

• We need tech-savvy, always-on, connected “smart” green buildings & smart green cities

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• Use Big Data analytics to organize operations

• Leverage algorithms to measure sustainability

• Cloud computing offers a fresh start

– Green building approach is 25 years old

• A unified, low-cost approach should make sense to building owners and operators

• Technology trends are your friend, moving fast is the method, and ingenuity is the means

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The Edge, Amsterdam, 98%+ BREEAM rating, 27,000 sensors

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A key premise: it's going to be far easier for software to

enter all other industries than for those industries to

hire software people.

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• Tech systems don’t help you directly to create sustainable cities; a new vision is required

• Why wait 5 - 10 – 15 more years to get started?

– Try a new approach (BAG): Set “Big Audacious Goals”

• Aim for rapid prototyping new approaches that work for most buildings & greatest building area

– Adopt “eco-districts” formula: start small, scale fast

• Crowdsource new ideas; Offer X-Prizes for results

• Take a leap into the future: PROJECT LEAPFROG!

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• An X-PRIZE is a highly leveraged, incentivized prize competition that pushes the limits of what’s possible to change the world.

• It captures a country’s imagination, inspires others with similar goals, spurs innovation & accelerates positive changes.

• Original X-PRIZE (1994): a $10 million incentive competition to inspire a new generation of private passenger-carrying spaceships.

• The winning vehicle, Spaceship One, was piloted to space twice within two weeks to win the competition in 2004 (10 years).

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• Clear precedents:

– Mobile phones in Africa (instead of land lines)

– Mobile payments in India & Kenya (vs. physical banks)

– Distributed power: PV, biomass and wind (vs. coal-fired central plants)

– Beijing 2030: only electric vehicles = no air pollution

– Space-based web makes massive data use almost free!

• Can a technology leapfrog put smart building measures into every building?

– Rate every building with “Off-the-shelf” platforms!

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• The “old way” won’t scale in time

– E.g., Green Finance tools need scale to work (to reduce transaction costs)

• Create scale in 5 years like these two companies:

– Airbnb: the world’s largest & most valuable hotel company with zero capital investment in hotels

– Uber: the world’s largest & most valuable car & driver company with zero capital investment in cars

• The lesson: If you’re short of money or time, you have to be long on ingenuity!

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• Create rapid sustainability pathways in LT with focus on absolute performance measures:

– Energy use: net zero for new projects; near net zero for renovations & retrofits (EU “Build Upon” program)

– Water use: whole systems approach

– Waste generation: net zero to positive

– Purchasing: only buy planet-positive products

– Carbon accounting using EU metrics

• Focus obsessively on lowering costs of green & creating an awesome user experience (UX)!

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• Blockchain for renewable energy & microgrids

– Allows payment for excess energy sharing among private owners

• Artificial intelligence for rapid decisions

– Example: Algorithms for building renovations allow decisions on measures without on-site audits

• Augmented (virtual) reality for visualizing choices

– Invite citizens to play the “sustainable city” game

– See changes easily over time & get results

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• Reduce energy costs and energy imports

– Achieve goal of 100% renewables well before 2050

• Healthy, more productive workplaces

– Lower health-care costs, higher profits

• Resilience in face of climate-change events

• Develop centers of expertise/export services

– Denmark: wind energy

– Netherlands: hydraulic engineering

– Nordics (SE, DK): sustainable urban planning

– Lithuania: ?

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Put yourself in a position to win!

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Bloomberg HQ, London, BREEAM 98.5%

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GreenBuildConsult.comReinventinggreen-

building.com/blog

@jerryyudelson

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