Building Good
by Jen Hancock, Geoff CapelleThis is a show about building a better world. Literally. The construction industry might seem like a conservative place, but we’re changing it. Building Good is a platform for conversations around topics like indigenous architecture, hiring and retaining women in trades and building sustainable energy grids. We want to build a better world, and we think the way to do that starts with the construction industry… so come and help us build good.
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Episodes
A concrete solution - with Rob Cumming
19m · PublishedIf it were a country, cement would be responsible for more carbon emissions than the entire European Union. More than four times as much as Canada. Reducing the amount of carbon that concrete production creates has to be part of achieving a net zero future, so we’ve brought in Rob Cumming from Lafarge to help us figure out how. He’s head of sustainability there, so he’s full of solutions to decarbonize concrete.
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
Understanding embodied carbon - with Luka Matutinovic
22m · PublishedA huge chunk of a building’s emissions are baked into the fabric of the building itself. Even if its operations are net zero, the building itself might not be. This is called embodied carbon, and to truly get to net zero the industry needs to address this blind spot. That’s one of the things Luka Matutinovic works on with his company Purpose Building. They’ve created the plan that will transition all of Toronto’s city owned buildings to zero carbon. Luka’s going to help us figure out how we do it for the rest of our buildings too.
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
The future is retro - with Chris Benedetti
19m · PublishedAchieving net zero by 2050 requires us to build differently, but what about the buildings that are already up? We can’t just knock them all down, even if they are inefficient carbon factories. We retrofit them. This can be expensive and difficult though, but it's possible. Chris Benedetti knows how to make it possible, and where the financial tools exist to make it happen. We talk to Chris in this first episode of our series “Zero by Fifty”
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
“Zero by Fifty” is our next series
1m · PublishedCanada has set an ambitious environmental goal: to have net-zero emissions as a country by 2050. One of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses are our buildings, so how does the architecture and construction industry help achieve that goal? In this series Building Good speaks to industry leaders to find out how we can achieve Zero by Fifty.
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Build smarter, not harder - with Jaimie Johnston
23m · PublishedWhen car companies build a new car they don’t reinvent the wheel, and they don’t have engineers assembling each car individually. Pretty much everything in our lives is built out of other smaller components that are prefabricated with some degree of automation. Except for buildings. Jaimie Johnston at Bryden Wood has been working on changing that for over 25 years and he’s had a lot of pushback, but this way of working could reduce costs by a third, reduce the impact on the environment, and make for safer workplaces. It could even help solve the labour shortage while getting underemployed people into work. So why has Jaimie had to work so hard to get the industry to notice?
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Caution: Men at work - with Natasha Fritz
17m · PublishedConstruction is rife with sexism. It’s not just catcalls on building sites, it’s tradeswomen being passed over for contracts. It’s being told you’ll never be as good as a man. It’s bad jokes… and sometimes it’s abuse. This isn’t just a question of crass language and a tough atmosphere, it’s contributing to the industry’s very real labour shortage. When construction and trades are this difficult for women then of course they are less likely to want to work in the industry, and on the occasions that they do they are far more likely to leave it. Natasha Fritz has had enough. She runs her own carpentry business and she is calling out men in construction for their sexist attitudes, because she loves working as a carpenter and she isn’t about to let them stop her.
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
Indigenous Architecture - with Brian Porter
24m · PublishedConstruction often rubs communities up the wrong way. Architects roll in with a construction firm and big money decides what’s getting built and where. It’s no fun for the people who live there… but this isn’t how indigenous architects work. Brian Porter runs Two Row Architect, and he tells us that they work totally differently to mainstream architects. The way they build is inclusive, involving the community right from the start. Their buildings are also designed differently, leading to spaces that are both beautiful and wonderfully functional. He also tells us this is a way of building that people are hungry for… so perhaps indigenous architecture is the future of building.
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
The future is battery powered - with Annette Verschuren
20m · PublishedA lot of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, depend on the weather, making their power output fluctuate. We need to store energy at times of high output. That’s where Annette Verschuren’s company NRStore comes in. They’re providing energy storage solutions (aka batteries) across Canada, and even installing microgrids in remote, fly-in locations. Annette is a true leader in sustainable power, so she knows that working with Indigenous communities is the best way to overhaul the energy grid in Canada, and that’s what we’re talking about with her.
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
The polymath’s view of architecture - with Anthony Fieldman
20m · PublishedArchitecture is an intersection of art and science, but the art isn’t just in a beautiful facade. The real artwork in architecture is in the space between. It’s the experience, the livability and now, importantly, the sustainability of a space. Thinking in this way requires a creative mind, and the best of those minds are more than just architects - they are polymaths. Anthony Fieldman is a partner and architect at DIALOG, but he views his role as much more than that. He is someone who takes a broader, holistic approach to Architecture, so we’re speaking to him about the nature of creativity and architecture’s potential as a force for good.
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
Empowering Indigenous clean energy - with Jordyn Burnouf
24m · PublishedThe climate crisis is no longer a future problem. As forests burn across North America we turn up the AC, which increases the fossil fuels we burn, which makes climate change happen faster. We need clean energy solutions, and we need people who know how to use them. Jordyn Burnouf is a member of Black Lake First Nation and grew up in a Métis community. She’s also an expert in clean energy from an indigenous perspective… which is about far more than just solar panels and wind turbines. We turned to her for community led answers to this urgent global question.
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- https://www.buildinggood.ca
Building Good has 47 episodes in total of non- explicit content. Total playtime is 18:51:02. The language of the podcast is English. This podcast has been added on August 20th 2022. It might contain more episodes than the ones shown here. It was last updated on May 17th, 2024 12:16.
