 We really have to come back to design. And it's not only for buildings, but as well for many other products. The key is good design and it's a holistic design. And this is why we have to move away from this industry driven to selling things across the world. Dr. Christine Lemaître is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas. Brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Christine is a real pioneer in sustainable building. As CEO of the DGNB, which stands for German Sustainable Building Council, she sets the course for a better planning and building culture in Germany for almost a decade. She was born in Gießen, Germany and studied structural engineering at the University of Stuttgart. After working in the United States in 2003, she started working at the Institute of Lightweight Structures, Design and Construction at the University of Stuttgart. In 2007, she started working at Billfinger, Berger, AG, acting the sales shaft as a project manager for R&D. In January 2009, she took on the role as director systems of the German Sustainable Building Council and since February 2010, Christine was appointed the CEO of this council. She has been a member of the board of directors of the World Green Building Council between 2016 and 2020 and chair of the European Regional Network making her one of the global forerunners for future proof building on a global level. She is also a member of the advisory council for Baukultur of the state of Baden-Württemberg and of the sustainability board of the German Property Federation, ZIA. She is a co-initiator, the Global Initiative Building Sense Now and received the EcoInnovator Award from Global Green Economic Forum in 2019. Christine is a true believer in making a positive contribution to our global challenges through buildings and as a dedicated advocate for more and transparent quality of our built environment. Christine, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, thanks for having me. It's so wonderful that you can make it in your busy schedule and thank you for giving me your short bio. So I know you, I kind of went on much longer and I really didn't wanna make it even shorter than that because you've been doing this for a long time. You've been involved in the built environment for a lot of years and it's important that our listeners understand this. A lot of our listeners probably aren't very familiar with the built environment, although they should be because that is what is creating the most vital part of our future but also one that will determine is that a sustainable future? Is that a resilient future? Is that one that will be future-proof? And so with that kind of a caveat in the beginning, I wanna ask you with all this years of experience and you've been in the positions that you've been in and seeing what you have seen, were you at all prepared for this pandemic time or this craziness? We've experienced these last 12 or plus more months? No, not at all, I think it was a shock like I think for all of us how our world can change so drastically in just a small matter of time. And on the other side, I think it has shown us how valuable we are and how global we are already. If it's not somewhere in Asia or somewhere in South America it's basically if it's somewhere it's everywhere in the world. And I think that relates as well to climate change. It's not an issue of the countries of the global South. It will affect us all. And I think this being a global community, I think this kind of understanding to me got really emphasized in these past 12 months that this is not like a German thing or a US thing. It's really, it's for all of us, we're on the same boat. That's absolutely for sure. There one big reason I asked for that because you've been doing this and you kind of practice what you preach. A lot of people during this time have gone stir crazy in their homes and I kind of made a joke in the beginning of my podcast in 2020, I had a professor actually from Trinity College with this library behind me. He does a program called Human Beast and we made this kind of wise comment but maybe also a little sarcastic that how are the human zoos that we've created working for us? And so what we've seen is that some people have created some wonderful homes, some wonderful living environments and they're very content. But many, many, and I would say probably the majority of us were caught off guard that we would now be spending an exorbitant amount of time in our homes, our wonongs, our apartments, our houses and we're not at all satisfied or a lot of us are not at all satisfied with these human zoos and we created them for ourselves. Obviously architects, designers and whoever designed your home or your apartment obviously took a big part of that. With that question in mind, from looking behind you, it looks like your human zoo is very well but did you also notice that maybe your human zoo could have some different changes, improvements, things that bubble to the surface, not just for you but also for those of your clients and customers and builders? Well, I think in one side I completely agree and to me that is always somehow crazy that if you're not by profession involved in the building industry that people just don't really pay attention to our build environment and us countries in the global north we spend an average 90% of our time in and around buildings. We live somewhere, we go to school somewhere, we work somewhere, we spend a lot of our free time in cities and I think now in this corona pandemic it was not just only the own house or own apartment it was as well all of a sudden the question where can I be and enjoy the outdoors? Because all of a sudden you could not like what you normally would do take the train and go somewhere and all of a sudden you were stuck to your environment. And I think that a lot of people kind of realize that now that is a very big part of our life. I have to say for me personally, for me it's one of my biggest passions is to always build something or change something in the apartment. So it's more I think for my family they're happy when I'm very busy and travel a lot because when I'm home I'm starting to come up with projects. So to me it was more like now I have the time to maybe even think about these things more but I really hope this is something that hopefully the pandemic one day will go away and that is something we keep. That this understanding is this is our built environment and especially coming to climate change. We're now already in the process where this extreme weather situations get more and more people can feel it even now in Germany. I mean, we now have the big flood in Australia again. I mean, these are like things that only happen once in the century and now it feels like they happen all the time everywhere. So we will have to adapt to so many things and our built environment and this is what I always tell people and our members this is something we can shape in a way that we feel healthy and happy in it and we have to take this positive opportunity much more. I'm sure it's a thing, but it's our built environment. It's our environment and this is where we live where we spend our life and we have to be much more aware of it. We have to look at it more from the quality aspect and really change this kind of attitude when it comes to designing cities, changing things in a city or even in your own personal space. So I really, I think to a lot of people they kind of got the point. I just hope it's gonna stick with them and it translates into concrete action and not something that all of a sudden then goes away because other things will be more important than all of a sudden. Yeah, there's always that fear that we will go back to business as usual or go back to the way it was and really that's a trap. It's actually not so good. We should be thinking how we can be future proof, how we can have more resilience or should this occur again? How can we still continue a nice existence, a nice way of living and interacting? We're gonna get into deeper models a little bit later in the conversation and our conversation more about livability of the built environment. But I would like to touch upon a few trends that have occurred during the pandemic. One is Massa Exodus out of major cities in Europe. A lot of people are moving to Sweden a lot of people are living in the big cities to go somewhere in the country or somewhere where it's more affordable or where they don't need to be in the combustion of a busy city because they're not working at an office building anymore. So there's no need to do that. New York's a big mass Exodus. But then also we're seeing more conversions of vans and buses into living things so people can kind of be mobile. That's a big, huge trend. And at the beginning of the lockdowns, globally the Home Depot's, the bow marks, the places where people get their hardware supplies to fix up their house or finally repair these things were just, man, people were going crazy not only with gardening but just fixing up the things that now that they're seeing every day in their homes to get them up to a more 24-7 livable condition or more functional than it was before where they didn't have time. There is kind of one other thing in that whole respect that is unique. People are really like having more domestic violence, more broadband issues, sharing computers. People are having environmental ergonomic issues whether they're in their apartment or their home. They're working from the couch or working from the bed. They're in this whole area of kind of the new ergonomics of mixing your work life with your home life among those who got sick as well or lost their jobs during this time. So we've seen so many things happen in this time. You specifically from your organization DGNB saw an uptake in builders, an uptake in different things. Tell us what experience you've seen in those trends, what that tells you, maybe what's bubbled to the surface and this whole environment. Yeah, well, I think like you just described it's a big social experiment and we'll have to see what sticks and what is maybe now a trend and every trend is followed by another trend. And I mean, last year when the pandemic hit, we were all shocked. We moved people into the home office environment right away and we were very cautious because sure, we were concerned. All of a sudden we had like two years of Fridays for future and making this whole climate change and sustainability discussion something for the whole society. And from one day to another, the media was just full with a pandemic. The whole climate change issue completely disappeared and we were very concerned, I have to say. We didn't know really what was happening and we felt like, oh no, maybe now they kind of are focusing on other things. And I have to say we were very positively surprised because we quickly realized that all our members were basically keeping up the work or even taking the time, not traveling to meetings and not doing events to really work on their strategies, especially on the municipality level. What we saw were like cities were really keeping the pressure, but at the same time already knew that they will have less income through the taxes from businesses. So that was really, I would say a very positive surprise and we as well as DGNB, we're doing a lot of events we're out there and this is a big part of what we do and I have to say a big part of what I love about the job is you meet a lot of people and you need a lot of positive people because otherwise it can be a very frustrating business because you made as well a lot of people who tell you all the time all the reasons why things are not working or why they cannot be more sustainable. So we basically said, okay, let's take all the energy and start finishing things or let's do reports we always wanted to do. So we published an SDG report. We did a study on the new taxonomy indicators from the European commissioner of this context of sustainable finance. So we did a lot of things and we put a lot of things out there to a point where basically members approached me and was saying, well, DGNB seems to be very hyperactive. People really noticed this kind of, there's a lot of movement and a lot of dynamic but I think it resonated really well with the market. So we didn't really notice in the contrary, we grew in membership. So we didn't, we were concerned that companies will cancel especially we have a very diverse membership from the 1,300 we have like small architectural firms all the way to big corporations. And we were very concerned that especially the smaller firms engineering companies would cancel membership but that didn't happen. So where we're still growing in membership we see more and more certification happening. We started last year then out of this especially where we saw a lot of dynamic on the city level because we believe the climate change decision will be made at the municipalities if cities are able to pull it together or not because they are all the topics come together. So we started initiative for cities. It's called climate positive cities. And it was like, in corona times we just send out an email to the contacts we had and then we had the first virtual workshop last year in July with 30 participants which was quite challenging to do something so conceptually in a virtual environment without really knowing the people. But it ended in September we launched initiative with 11 cities who committed and now we're around 30 and we have the first ones from Austria already. So we see a lot of thank God I would say there's still the growing dedication and the ones who started already working on it for them and it was more like sure we're gonna continue this down this road. So yeah, we're very very very positive surprised on how as well our community kind of came through the pandemic so far. So the US Green Business Council, it's in Germany. And so just for my listeners, I wanna say you guys are not just in German speaking countries you're also in Spain all throughout Europe and I believe there's no adversity for you guys to go with the standard to the US or the Asian countries at all. It's something for everyone. It was just initiated here, you guys are here and you've set the bar higher. And that's really why we're here to talk about some of the fabulous things that you're doing. I'm from the United States and so I kinda have this beautiful lens in both worlds, I live in Germany. But when you go to a normal house or even an apartment in Germany, it's really weird because when you're first there there's like, they do the counts of the bedrooms much different. You walk into the kitchen and they're like this is the kitchen. You're like, there's no kitchen here. And I was like, oh yeah, you've gotta bring that. You've gotta bring or build your own kitchen. And then you're like, there's no lights. And you're like, oh yeah, that's what they call the Russian lighting system. It's just the wiring hanging out of the ceiling. And so many people that I, friends or people that I know around, they move into a place and they just leave that Russian lighting and kind of a makeshift way of living. And so it's a unique environment but that's kind of, I hope it's changing. And so that's one question I wanna ask you is do you see that changing in Germany? But that standard is different, not only in Germany it's a different in Austria, it's different in Switzerland, it's different in the rest of the EU and it's for sure different in other countries of the world. What you guys are doing is taking these old outdated standards of the built environment and you're raising the bar. You're saying, okay, here's the standards out in the world but that's not worthy of human live, livability. That's not worthy of us. We should do a better, much more long-term environment and kind of collaborate more with those who will be living in those environments. What kind of trends? And the question I guess is really goes to this global citizenry. So we need a global structure. You mentioned it so nicely just a few moments ago that we're not so local or close in this area that it's really a global situation we're in and that really relates to the built environment. So you've set the bar higher but how do you feel about a world as a global citizen without nations, borders and division especially when it comes to the built environment? Well, I think you have to differentiate a little bit. I mean, what we stand for is a different design approach. Is this holistic approach on understanding and defining a building and as well designing a building. So this is part of the DNA of the DGMB system is the life cycle approach. So where all the buildings and districts we're certifying have to a life cycle assessment. And yeah, like you said in the introduction I started with DGMB in 2009. We were six people in a small office space and we had no idea what we were doing. I think maybe I can say that now without shocking anyone. And I remember when I was and we started working internationally actually as well in 2009 because we had other organizations approaching us and they were curious about this life cycle approach and life cycle costing, you know, where because we said, or this is a part of our philosophy is you have to look at it holistically and it is not difficult to build an expensive sustainable building. The challenge is to build a sustainable building that makes sense as well in an economic way because it's not about cheap buildings and I think that's what we've seen in the past decades building as quickly and cheap as possible and then someone else will deal over the life cycle with all the issues but it has to make sense in an economic way. And I remember in 2009 or 2010 when I was invited to Brussels or abroad presenting the DGMB, the German approach which I think people are always a little bit of well the Germans, you know it's always very accurate and very, very thorough and you know, they were looking at me when I was talking about life cycle approach like the German nerds, you know who can do a life cycle analysis of a building, you know how and no data. And now, and I have to say that's a positive thing like 11, 12 years later everyone talks about embodied carbon everyone talks about the great emissions out of the building materials. So, and I think for an industry where basically the innovation cycles are five years you know, every five years you see a jump in innovation it cannot get quicker it's not like the automotive industry or other industries. I think in this 10 years a lot has moved not scale and not enough scale for our or for my taste but at least, you know, it's moving. So, and this is this understanding of the holistic design approach this is something we want to internationalize we want to offer, you know, the knowledge the know how we have the mistakes we made I think because in the build environment we as well have to talk more about mistakes, you know making mistakes is an element of learning of our learning experience but when it comes to buildings we see so many bad examples but then you always see like the great renderings, you know of something that will be constructed there but then we don't have a culture of asking afterwards how did it turn out? And this is as well another part of our certification that you have to do some quality assurance checks in the end like for an instance you have to do an indoor air quality testing four weeks after completion of the building and if you don't meet the requirements the building is not certifiable and you cannot do anything to change that so that puts a lot of pressure on using the right materials, you know making sure there's a quality assurance on the construction side. So I think this kind of understanding of quality and holistic approach and design is very, very crucial. What I'm on the other side we're really trying to push for it in the end as well it's climate and cultural based when we build cities and buildings and because we can is not a good enough reason to build a glass tower somewhere in the desert because then we just have to heal the bad architecture with energy. So it's kind of the mixture and I think that's maybe makes it a little bit difficult to grasp because we're not a certification system organization we're an association who wants to make the build environment better and we have a certification system which we use as a market transformation tool which stands for these kinds of values but on the other side we're really pushing for hey, please take the time take a moment and think where are you in the world? What makes sense here? What's the culture? What's the climate conditions? And really go down and don't do this one fits all approach. I think we see that two way too much in the world but really go down and sit down with the architect with your design team and make the right choice for that building for the people in the end living there using the building. And so this is kind of the big gap and transformation we always have to bring across when we try to explain what we do basically has these different aspects to it. I absolutely love that and thank you for educating us and bringing us up to speed with us for those of my listeners who aren't aware of that. This certification is not your core objective, your vision but it is a wonderful thing that you're offering and I wanna let my listeners know why but also want you to kind of since you're the expert to explain it better than I could. There's leads, there's Bream, there's ISO standards, there's different built environment, the US Green Business Council, different councils. I'm good friends with Bill McDonough, William McDonough and Delta Development, Michele Brown-Gart for cradle to cradle and upcycling and big on Ellen MacArthur and the circular economy principles, ways of thinking but out there I have not seen a certification like yours so on all of those models that are out there there's always one part that's kind of lacking and missing and that's the economy. That's the in German, wirtschaft portion of that. Does it have a return? Is it long-term a doable project? And in your pillars, you have this transformation that you do in your certification and your built environment. First and foremost is the environment and second is the economy and the third is society and that all of those are well-rounded so that they're all kind of balanced and it also really ties to kind of donor economic thinking, circular economy thinking, planetary boundary thinking and it's really you guys are the leader for Europe's biggest network for sustainable building and I haven't seen anywhere in the world and this is what I'd like to know from you. If there does exist, I know you'd tell me but are there any other great certifications? We should be looking towards people thinking the same way that you guys are and offering the tools. I mean, you also offer the academy, the navigator, the systems, the tools to help not just builders but also members who could be architectures, designs, engineering companies that come in and have those tools to make sure that they can change that environment. Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know, I think we're very unique in that sense because we're a very content-driven organization as you just described. And I think this is the big luck we had when the DGNB was founded that we had so many from the beginning like really experts of the field who said, this is not about my business case. I really want to make a difference and they basically put all their knowledge for free into that certification system to really say, let's do something together that is away from always, because the building industry is very competitive. It's always everyone is competing against the other. And this is a spirit, how we were founded is about collaboration, it's about sharing knowledge, it's about talking about content. And this is what I still see today and I think this is a very unique thing because we are such a diverse organization, we could never do lobbying for just one interest part. So it's basic, but if people start talking about content and not project related, but really talking about what should be the energy standard or what, how can we translate circular economy on a building level? All of a sudden it doesn't matter if they're working for an architectural firm, if they're working for an investor for a building material manufacturer. And I think this is the powerful thing we're doing is basically always to bring people content driven together and to follow as well this data approach. So everything we put in the certification system we're constantly evaluating, does it work? How does the market react to it? So we're always trying to pull the market, push the market, but not overdo it. So it's really this transformational process, it's a lot of dialogue. And I don't know any green building council organization where the philosophy of the organization is immediately translated into this market transformation tool as a certification system. This is for us, when I tell you we, our philosophy is it has to be a circular building, toxin free, climate positive building, so produces more energy than it uses. It's good for biodiversity and so forth. You will find that one to one in our certification system. So this is really, and I think this differentiates us as well from, as well maybe environmental organization because we're not just saying, well, you should change this or that. We're basically translating what we think is right in a tool and we bring it to market. And so I think this is a very unique approach. And on the other side, like I said, we really believe in collaboration and we have great partnerships. Like in 2009, we started to work with the Austrian Green Building Council. Julia Slater, the Danish Green Building Council joined us and a year ago, the Spanish Green Building Council joined us and they all translated the DGNV system to their local conditions, codes and standards. And they're using it in the same way there. And from that, we as well get so much back. And I think this is something to me, it's quite important that we always keep open-minded as an organization that we as well, certain kind of self-critical and that we always try to stay on goal. So it has to be always doing the right thing and trying to push the market as quickly as possible towards the right thing. And I think another thing that differentiates us from other certification systems out there is really that innovation speed. We basically have a two to three years rhythm for a new version of the certification system. So basically there's an ongoing learning process, an ongoing feedback process. And it's always like, okay, the market has understood this. What's the next thing we could introduce into the market? And it's a holistic part. Like the initiatives you just mentioned, it is really to bring everything together because in the building, everything comes together. It's about the human-centric design. It's about the climate goals. It's about the emissions from the materials. It's about the health part of the building. It's about mobility. It's about biodiversity. So it's really this balance, I think is a very crucial part because on the building, you always have conflicting goals when these things come together. And if you just emphasize on one thing too much, you risk making this mistake or forgetting something important or using not the high, the overall potential of the building. And this is what our certification system is basically trying to grasp, trying to balance out and therefore as well make it transparent and make it data-driven. So the decisions are made out of the sustainability gut feeling we all have. When we see wood, we always think it's more sustainable. But if it's painted with the wrong paint, it's just toxic waste. So, and I think this is as well the value of the certification system that an investor can relate to it, a bank can relate to it as well as an architect, as an engineer, as a construction company because it's fact-based. It's data-driven. So you haven't really come out directly and give me your vision, your why, your purpose as an organization. But I've heard it many times. There was something that you said earlier and I kind of just want to touch upon this, whether you're someone who's moving into a new apartment or a new house or into a new commercial building or your office or for your production, that is in the past something that how can we do this as cheap as possible to make it affordable or to be competitive with the market? That's kind of some of the standards that we've seen worldwide. It's not just here. Definitely Germany has a higher standard than normal and costs is more. But there's this key principle that when it doesn't matter what you produce, whether it's food or an iPhone or an apartment or a house, if you cheapen a product, a house, an apartment, you're actually cheapening life. There are corners cut somewhere at the end, something has to pay for that cheapening of that. So whether you, okay, a couple of years ago you bought this cheap apartment and it had Russian lights and wasn't a passive house, whatever. And now you're on lockdown, you're realizing how much that's truly costing you and also costing our environment, costing your living environment, you're just cheapened your own life. And that's kind of why it says we need to pay a little more attention to how we build our human soothes and who builds them. So are they following to certain standards, to certain certifications? Are we using the people who are thinking, no, we don't just wanna provide them with four walls, we wanna provide our consumers, our customers with a future-proof home, a home that's gonna last them for multiple generations, an office building that isn't going to be a burden on the bottom line that will be a part of their organization. Many times in our world, especially in the commercial and production area, organizations will move into building, use it until they can't use it anymore and then almost leave it like a superfund site for the city or someone else to clean up and then go start over to a new green field or a new area. And that is a big impact on our world that cradle to grave as William McDonough would say it with the cradle to cradle thinking, you know, that's this throwaway mentality and on a planet of finite resources that really comes back quickly to give us the effects. And so I guess at this point, I'd really like to have you more or less express the overarching values and principles of what are totally different for those who haven't grasped it yet of what those bad examples I just gave. Yeah, maybe it's difficult to sometimes put it together, but in the end, I always translate sustainability with quality and future proof. And I think what you just described is what we let happen is that we made buildings into investment goods. And I have that discussion a lot and we have this real estate industry in Germany and then they like to use English terms in between. And one part is, it's not a house, it's an asset. And I asked a few years ago in one of these rounds I watched this guy getting crazier and crazier with the English terms and then the asset and turn the asset and blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, but you realize this is a house where people live in or they work in it. And I think this is something we let happen. We all together, I mean, this is one of the number one investment goods today are buildings, it's real estate. I mean, if you have like money in the bank, if you do a retirement for these companies, they take the money and they to a very high percentage invested in buildings. And for them, it just matters if it's fully rented because they may have to make a revenue. And I think this is something we try to not change completely in a way, but at least for the real estate industry where it's just a business that at least they have to fulfill quality standards when they've undergo their business. And I think this is something they've just been doing like you said, they want to make money and compared to other products where you have a full product line and the more you produce, the more the money is you could maybe make on a product. The problem is every building is unique. I mean, sure we have example exceptions in the small residential market, but looking at commercial buildings, you have one product. And sure for you, it's a business. People try to the least amount of money make the most out of it. So the money they make is a maximum. This is just not so. And I think this is something where we say, okay, if you build, if you do that, you have to fulfill sustainability quality standards and you have to make it future approved because we have a bigger responsibility than just building something like you said. And then a few years later, they're moving to another place. And another, I think big part of the game is the cities and the municipalities. It's their responsibility to make sure that there's no green field developments anymore. It's their responsibility that buildings are not just being demolished and replaced, but that buildings are being refurbished because if we look at the gray emissions, we need to work with the existing building stock. We cannot just rebuild everything all the time. This is not the way it is. So what we're trying is basically to introduce this understanding of quality and of future proveness of the buildings and then take it and address every different stakeholders in a different way because the circle of blame when it's about buildings is endlessly. It's always someone else's fault. I guess you had, I think when you talk about sustainability, it's always this, in Germany, we have a lot of this, yes, but it's expensive, yes, but the other one, it's always the other one who's responsible and mostly it's then the one who's not in the room, which most of the times are politicians. And then in the end, it's like the politicians and they should end the regulations. And this is where I have to say over the years, I have stopped thinking that there's this one reason why people would change. So what I'm trying to do is to close the gaps for excuses. So as we call it, no more excuses anymore. So whatever they tell you, you're like, well, we have data that proves it's not more expensive. We have talked to the architect and they would be able to do that. We have to talk to the mayor and he can do that. So it's a very tedious work sometimes, but I think this is my vision because we have to reach people. In the end, like we said in the beginning, people are making the decision what to build where. This is not growing. This is not a given. So we can make that choice. And I think, and I see that a lot with our members, but as well with buildings being certified or our partners as well internationally. If you have the right person who's really fighting for it and it's not just making out excuses why things cannot go, but it's really fighting for it, a lot of things can change. And I think this is my core vision maybe to come down to it is we have to reach people. We have to activate people and we have to get the lazy people to start moving and to the over-engaged people maybe to as well listen to other people so they're not over-challenging them. So it's really, in the end, I think we have to create a movement not only for sustainable buildings, but when it comes to sustainability in general, and it cannot just be a few people who kind of set a good example because we're not gonna save the world with lighthouse projects. We can only save the world if we scale it up. And for that, we need to reach people and we have to make them understand it's about quality and it's about the future improvements of what we design, what we build and how we maintain our buildings. I love that. Thank you so much. It's kind of what I'm saying. And if ever I say anything that's not in the line with what you guys do, just call me on the car. But I almost see that you, here's the government code standard building requirements, you know, whether it's a PUD or a HUD or whatever built environment, laws, rules, regulations and standards, there are almost see that you've taken the bar and set it much higher, but not just the sustainability, but sustainability, the environment, the economic and the society version, what is a better system, a better model that works for all of us and works long time, much more long-term? Are there any aspects in what you do that you would call regenerative principles or circular economy principles that are built in there? I know you guys have released some reports around circular economy and livability and different things like that. How does that take part? Because those are kind of more or less, they've been around for a long time, but in the business world in the built environment, they're kind of new, how do you build regenerative? How do you do regenerative farming? How do you do regenerative economies and how do we get circular economy? There are some tools out there, by the way, from Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Circulatics type of a program 2.0 that can help you with things and there are tools available, but I'm just kind of asking a little bit further, how do you guys get into that? Yeah, first, you're completely right. I mean, what we do is a voluntary standard. So basically, all the criteria are based on what's requirement by the law or by the code, if there is any, and then it's about awarding if you do more on the voluntary level. And I think this is very important because we all know if you have to do something, you approach it with a different mindset when you have this thing, oh, let's do, we could do more and then we'll be rewarded for that. So this is the philosophy of the DGNB system and the holistic approach as well is something, I think codes and regulations or the law will never be able to fulfill. I mean, maybe it's a German thing, but we have 37 criterias in the new construction scheme. If I would have to do lobbying and talk to the ministries about that, I would have to talk to five different ministries in Germany, but they don't talk to each other. So I mean, I think you can spend a lifetime trying to kind of make them understand, but from our experience, the market is more willingly moving with this kind of approach. And they're already doing more because there's a market standard which normally is way about what regulations is asking for. So this is where we always try as well to push the boundary, where we always try to find the balance where we see, oh, the market has picked that up. But like when we started, we had like interdisciplinary planning as an own criteria, so that an architect together with the engineers in the beginning is designing a project. We took that out over the years out of the system because everybody's doing that now, which I think is a positive thing. And so we had some elements of circular economy or the circular thinking right from the beginning, like this life cycle approach. We always had a criteria for deconstruction. So that during the design classes, they already had to think on how to deconstruct what they're designing. And then in 2018, we said, okay, we think we have to step up. Circularity is a very big topic. It's a topic that influences the resource efficiency but as well the climate goals. And then we felt like the markets maybe not ready. And the moment you put it down in a criteria, even if it's voluntarily, you have some clients who are like getting very serious about it and are really putting a lot of pressure on their design team. Why can we not get this credit and why? So we said, okay, let's do something different. So we did our version 2018, where we introduced the bonus system, like basically an on top motivational system regarding circular economy, where we basically took all the ideas and all the concepts from Cradle to Cradle, the Elemic Arthur Foundation, from different business models, like products as a service to tops and free materials and so forth and integrated, I think in around 60% of the criteria of the DGNB system, but as something like really on top, to give out inspiration to the market and to award them, but as well take down the barrier that they feel like we cannot really experiment because it's already like part of the criteria. So this is for us is a very big part is the circular economy bonus system we introduced in 2018. We just launched last year, the city district scheme in the version 2020, where we as well introduced circular economy and the city district level in the same philosophy. And then, but then we still felt and I'm a structural engineer by training. And so I'm very interested in, in fact, so maybe I'm an engineering nerd, but you see all these great example, you just referenced to a Park 2020 from Delta Development and they tell you all the thoughts they had in design and then you look at the building and then you wonder, but is it really working at the end of the lifespan? And then we said, well, the only way to find out, and this is I think maybe a very unique way on how we work is for us certifications as well a learning tool. So about two years ago, we said, okay, but we need to, we have to make a change now. It's not enough to put circularity into the design today. And then in 30, 40 years, we will see if we were right or wrong. So we started to develop a deconstruction certificate. So really for the deconstruction process of a today building. And I have to say it was an amazing learning experience because we worked with deconstruction companies who are normally completely out of the conversation talking about sustainability or, you know, they're very surprised when we approached them. But we learned so much. And this is basically now what we were now having the first project certified. We're trying now to address municipalities with that certification, but because there we emphasize, you know, that you keep the existing material in place, that you do a deconstruction design. So you really have a chance and the time to do something with the materials you take out. So they're not just agreeing that buildings are being demolished, but that they emphasize this as well, quality and transparency on this very, I think very important life cycle part of a building. And eventually we would like then when we generated more data and more knowledge, we will translate that into the new construction scheme and we'll introduce that the predicted demolitioning cost will be part of the life cycle cost. So coming back to the economic part that when you design a building today that you already have the numbers, what will it cost me to demolish the building? And one last thing maybe to that, because that was really for me, like I said, I'm a structure engineer and I studied lightweight structures and then you learn it's better to screw than to glue. And I was sitting there with this year of this deconstruction company and I was saying, well, you know, when you go into a site and isn't it better when it's screwed, you know, then when the things are glued together, he was looking at me like he didn't get the question. And then he's like, well, have you ever tried to unscrew a screw that has been fully loaded for 30 years? And I'm like, no. And he slapped us neither, you know? And then he took me on a tour, the big machinery they have. And I realized this is a completely different approach and we have to translate this kind of knowledge into design today because what we sometimes do in this very detailed level, they don't work like this. And so this is, I think where we as well have to close the knowledge loop coming back to the circularity part. And yeah, this is another part of the puzzle we're now working on. That is absolutely so beautiful to hear. And one thing you touched upon, but I just want to clarify. So it's not only the built environment, it's the deconstruction environment. It's also the real estate environment. It's also the restoration or renovation environment. Yeah, so you can actually take existing buildings, okay, instead of tearing that down, what can we still use the certification for to change it and make it future proof? And so you're really going into what I love and that is systems thinking, the systems. And you have a system on your website and a specific portal for understanding that better. But the systems is so important because it's all facets of the complete system. And when you mentioned the different ministries that aren't anywhere talking to each other or are aligned, I've dealt with that so often. That's the perfect thing, I don't know. Especially a journey, but it's a global thing. It's actually, the model's broken. The system of that governance, the system of way things work is kind of just broken by default. And it's in need of an overhaul. And I don't wanna get into politics, but for example, I did a large scale building as well. And I had to go to five ministries for my one building. And had to do with agriculture, had to do with economics, it had to do with energy, it had to do with these five ministries and all of them said, oh, that's agriculture, oh, that's energy, oh, that's this ministry. And to get them to unify, to get them to come together, it's much easier what I hear you guys have done, what I see, what you just mentioned is to set the bar higher. And let's say, let's meet all those ministries where they'd set the bar low, their requirements, but let's set the bar much higher so that not only do we meet those requirements so that we don't have to deal with the ministries in that respect to lobbying or getting the politicians to agree or change up with the new system, but to create a system or something that works for everyone much longer and gives that future proof. And so I love that you explain that to us. And because I felt that pain to do that and it's much easier to set the bar higher and kind of unify on a much different level. And yeah, you mentioned Schipel Park 2020, there's also a big new project in Saudi Arabia. It's also a controversial Neom city and then there's also the Red Sea project. They're controversial, but it's funny how they look so strongly to Europe, to Germany, to those certifications, those standards because the built environment here is so much of what they want in those desert areas or the areas where they wanna build those environments. And then in Germany, I work with a new organization that I just started working with as Wiesmann who does a lot in the built environment for Weimet and HVAC and refrigeration and things in their very big family company, but they have this strong vision of what the future of our built environment needs to be, how we, those vital things around refrigeration, around heating are important aspects that go into commercial buildings and to residential buildings and that really need to be start getting up to speed. And that brings me to kind of a question I have for you, it's a big question. I think in the built environment globally, we're kind of behind the eight ball, we're behind the times, we're not where we need to be to keep up with our exponentially growing world and our infrastructures in the built environment, residential, commercial are just not up to speed. Is that just me who feels that or is that actually the truth and what are your thoughts and feelings on this? Will we make the curve? Are we gonna meet up with the future and have those environments or what are your thoughts and feelings and processes on this and how it's growing and shaping up? Oh, yeah, I have to say in a way, I'm a little bit concerned because what we see is this, I always call it the McDonald's effect. You have the same type of downtown in New York, in Berlin and somewhere South America, in Mumbai, in Hong Kong. But you have a different climate and cultural context and I think it's about setting examples and I have that discussion a lot because Germany is a small country and then I always say, well, why us? The CO2 emissions in China, Africa, India. And I'm like, yes. And then I always tell the story, we founded this international initiative, Building Sense Now, where we as well try to activate architects and engineers to advise their client in a different way because it's not a sign of being modern to build a glass tower in a climate where it doesn't belong, in the culture where it doesn't belong. So, and I think we need to have a different approach to this kind of building and we did a workshop in India two years ago with 30 architects discussing that, climate and cultural sensitive design and as well the critical maybe overuse of air conditioning units. I mean, every 30 seconds in the next 30 years, there will be an AC unit sold somewhere in the world. And I think this is something where you see that the comfort understanding not even takes one generation. So if you get used to this, the air is moving, it's kind of cold, all of a sudden you feel it as refreshment and you want it. And this is what happens now in the Asian countries, what happens in Africa. And so we had that discussion in India, in a building that in the south of India, it's one of the hottest spots in India in Orville, you maybe know the city. And it wasn't building without air conditioning and just with this big ceiling fence. And after coats, it would be way too hot but you could work there, you could have a workshop. And we had that discussion all day, like now you're coming from Europe and tell us we cannot have your standard. And then in the evening, one of the architects came to me and it's like, well, what you just all explained, is it how you build in Germany? Do you do really in Germany all the things you should do? And I'm like, no. And I just wanted to tell him the story, you know, about how difficult the market is in politicians. And then he looks at me and he's like, well, but if you Germans don't know how to do it, how should we know how to do it? And I'm like, oh my God, this is the message we're sending to the world that we're willingly not being more ambitious or doing the things, but they think we don't know how to do it. And I think this is something what we have as well, very urgently to get out as a message globally. We have to, as they again, reach people and we have to make them understand that we make as well mistakes, you know, we over-insulated our buildings in Germany. Now we have a lot of waste, you know, you can just burn or, you know, I have toxic waste. So this is not the way to do. So we're making mistakes. And I think we have to discuss these kinds of mistakes. And now we're already in the middle of climate change. So for us, it's actually crucial to learn back from countries in the global South on what kind of building cultures they have where you don't need artificial cooling, but through architecture and city design on how you can keep your spaces cool. Because I mean, we all see what happens in Paris, in Rome, in Berlin, in this extreme summer months where people are dying because the cities are getting too hot and that will get worse and worse. I think we need a different kind of conversation and we have to move away from this very product-driven approach, what we especially see internationally and come back to this, it's about the design approach. It's about rethinking, learning, understanding. And this is where we are a big advocate for and where we're always very happy to share as well what doesn't work. Which I think is one of the key things. We have to move away from always the great announcement and all the marketing slogans. And one guy said two years ago at the climate conference, well, if all the companies are saving the world who are the ones destroying it then, I don't know, I think that quote has been re-quoted again and again. And I think that's true. And I think we really have to come back to design and it's not only for buildings, but as well for many other products. The key is good design and it's a holistic design. And this is what we have to move away from this industry driven, just selling things across the world. I mean, you just mentioned the new city in Saudi Arabia. I mean, there was one before it's called MasterCity. I don't know whoever went back and checked what came out of it. It didn't fulfill all the great ideas it set out to do. I mean, it was part that was built and that kind of works. But they're cleaning the photo white Taik elements with drinking water. Because the PV elements are not designed for the dust in the city. And if you've been to Cairo or any city, they have a dust problem. So we need products that are developed for that context and not just saying, hey, we have a product, let's sell it everywhere. And so this is, it's maybe a bit fine. I totally agree. But this is, I think, what we have to get out there as a message. Well, I mean, there's so many built environments like that that, you know, you're talked about MasterCity, there's bed set, you mentioned Auroville, there's Skippel Park 2020 is an example as well. But there's Hung Bayou, I think is how you say it. William McDonough's big city in China, that was kind of a total failure. It was made for farmers, but the farmers didn't want to commute to their farms every day. And that just didn't work because it wasn't built for the culture, the society wasn't built for the environment, it wasn't built how those people used that. And we need to think globally, but we also need to act locally. We need to realize the culture and everywhere, even in Hamburg, Germany, there's this indigenous culture, soil, products, the way people work and function here on a harbor and things that are unique to that built environment. And we need specific, not only products, but also innovations and tools that kind of really make that work properly and full alignment with you. Because I don't want to come back and hear how those, because they're all great projects, don't get me wrong, they're all great projects, they all have good intentions and a good vision of where they want to go. They fell because we're not using that systemic approach, that systems view, we're not using the local environment, we're not realizing the culture, we're not picking all assets or all facets of a complex system into consideration. And this is why I personally love the built environment so much because there's that schematics, the planning, there's the architectural, the design, which is before you even hammer one nail, before you lay any cement, before you site survey the field, the green field or do anything, you get to address what's the future? What's the future of this going to be and how you can design it properly and manage that before you even begin? And there were some that didn't take those things into consideration, they didn't say, let's systemically look at what problems I'm solving in this local region and the culture and the people and the indigenous organisms in that area before we start so that when we do it, it's gonna be a success instead of all that didn't work. And I mean, there's so many I could go on on these great built environments that are there, you know, bentorn and that and some work and some just don't and some of them never get out of this smaller community. I mean, the other one, Songdo, Korea, I was there February 2019. It's soulless, it's a ghost town. They built the whole thing, it's supposed to be the innovation city of the future and the firmware is outdated and it's all built around cars. They have these big roads and highways and that's not thought out for the future. That's not thought out for where we need to go. Yeah, I completely agree and I think it's one is the systematic approach and I'm a big advocate for that because that means you do a data and fact-based and you really think about which wheel do I need to turn where or which stakeholder do I have to activate in order to maybe move them, let the whole system move. But I think another thing, and don't get me wrong, I'm a full advocate for more experiments and for trying things, but what we need to introduce is this culture to discuss later what we've learned and if we made mistakes. I think there are so many projects and they all try to do something good and then some achieved more than others and what I would really like to see, maybe that's something we can do. Actually, in the end, you should do a conference. You should do a conference and could say, let's talk about what are the lessons learned? What have we learned? What didn't work? Where did we have to improvise? Because I always have that experience when I listen to someone talk and you have this super marketing, blah, blah, it's nice but you don't really remember and the things I remember are when someone is really sharing experience in a way where we tried this and it didn't really work and then we did this and I think this kind of different and honest conversation, if we would introduce that on a wide scale, we would be able to move so much quicker and we would really share the right knowledge and not just always like the high, the nice renderings and like this group of architects in India, they said, we don't hear these things. We don't, we just see the great example, we just get a lot of brochures about products and we think, this is how you're happy, this is how you build and we're like, no. And I think this kind of conversation, I would like to really introduce and emphasize much more globally. And so I hope once the pandemic is going down, we can start doing workshops again and because I think this is so, so important and so meaningful as well to people. The great thing about the built environment is that if we do it right, if we do it how you and your builders and the vision is, then it's also one that is in some respects, very pandemic and very future proof because it automatically gives everyone enough space, it gives the social distancing, it gives the breathability, the environment, the safe, long-term living, it's more than a passive house, it's more than a passive commercial building. It's just better for the future and lots of these problems that we're really been dealing with now and that are probably still coming for us here in the future with other pandemics or other issues around climate change. It's just a better long-term way to give a little bit of resilience, a little bit of regeneration into how we live and work and you know that I'm a sustainable development goal advocate, I'm big on sustainability environment and a lot of Germans would say, Eke Mueke or Treehugger, whatever they would say, but to be sustainable for me has really three strong pillars and that is person foremost economics. So you have to not think about all our bad economic systems in the world but on ecological economics. And so in order to understand the bad economic systems, you also have to understand our world's ecological economics and how it works and what's the model that works the longest. The second one is innovation, sustainable innovations, innovations that don't harm us to get us into that future but are ones that solve some of our global grand challenges with systems thinking. And then the third one is a lot of people really don't understand or don't get is I'll say I'm a resilient futurist or a sustainable futurist and they're like, what does the future have to do with sustainability? Is Marcus Spaceman now a rocket man? No, the sustainability has everything to do with the future, it has to do with are we going to be around in the future? Are we gonna have enough resources? Are we gonna be able to live? Are we gonna be able to pay our employees? Are we gonna be able to continue building buildings and have infrastructure? Are we gonna be locked down? Are we gonna have such climate catastrophes that that's not available in the future? And so I'm constantly thinking about the future using those foresight systems dynamic tools that will get us to a sustainable and even beyond a resilient future. And so those are some pillars but with all my sustainability and everything that you kind of know that with the SDGs that we talked about, we kind of I discussed with one of your employees, Pia about the SDG integration and one of your framework reports that you guys put out, which was fabulous that all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are tied to the built environment, to the future that we're going there. And I would say almost 11 of them are tied intrinsically to the built environment as well. And that we need to quit separating and this is how we get kind of a little bit more into livability separating our work, life from our home life and that those are actually never been separate ever. They're all together, but somehow we've kind of fought against those in that the sustainable development goals and where we're going in the future, they're for all of us. They're not for countries, they're not for cities, they're not for governments, they're for us as individuals here to provide us with a better life, to provide us with something for our families and children and on and on. We haven't touched at all on the simple fact that the built environment is the biggest impact on resources, carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions that it takes up a lot of our resources, it impacts a lot of our resources, breaks the water cycle in some respects in some areas and it's something that if it's not well fought out or progressive with our exponentially growing world can really lead to some big disasters in the future. And so I don't want to talk about the doom and gloom or even touch upon it, but this is such a complex thing. I don't even think we're gonna have time to bring it up here today because I believe I only have about five more questions for you and then we have to call it good but I just want our listeners to know we could talk about the future of concrete, the future of building materials. Are they sustainable? Are they a big impact on our environment? Do we have enough sand? Do we have enough? Are we able to take the emissions hit on those businesses usual building products? What are the new ways that we build? Now with the pandemic, where how are we getting the breathability of our buildings? Are they a breeder for pandemics? Are they a breeder for mold and viruses and things? And so there's so many things that we could talk about and maybe we're gonna need to schedule that for a different conversation, but I just want our listeners, my listeners to know that this is a huge topic that develops every moment of their life and the better built environment you live in, the one that's more sustainable and long-term, the better you will be, the better your life will be, the better your work will be, the better your family will be. It's just a better system and we need to be thinking about it. And that leads me to my hardest question for you today. It's the burning question, WTF. That's not the swear word, although we probably said it many times this past 12 months. It's what's the future? And you can answer that from you personally or you can answer that for your organization. Well, I think or I hope the future will be that sustainability will be the new normal, that all the issues he just described and touched on is that that becomes part of every decision we make, either personally or business-wise when it comes to our built environment that it's not an add-on, that it's not a marketing thing, that sustainability is a new normal, that it's maybe not sexy and not exciting anymore because everyone is doing it. And I think this has to be the future in order to have this systematic approach, that transformation, that scale we desperately need. And I think as well, the other part of the future is, I think, is empowerment. It's empowerment of the people living or working in a building that they start asking the right questions. It's not the challenge that everyone becomes a building expert, but I think everyone has to be empowered to play their part, that tenants or people working in an office, they should start asking the right questions. And I think on the other side, empowerment is, and I think that's the good message. We are able today already to build carbon positive or climate positive buildings. We've awarded some of them, even one in Singapore. These are buildings that over a timeframe of 12 months produce more energy than they consume. This is how we have to build the latest by 2050. And I think this is the good news and that's the future that we know what to do. We have the knowledge, we have the technologies, we know what doesn't work and now the challenge is to scale it up. But to me, that is the future and that takes a lot of the complexity you just as well described out of the equation because certain things are not gonna be exciting anymore because everyone will do a life cycle analysis and architects will just ask, we want to have a carbon neutral concrete, I don't care how you do it. And so it's about empowerment and it's about really making it the new normal to that everyone is just doing it. And I think this is what we have to keep on working on. That's beautiful. If there was one message that you could depart to my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that has the power to change their life, what would it be, your message? Start doing it, stop overthinking. Stop trying to, you know, with every decision, try not to solve all the problems at once. And like I just said, the solution's already out there, we know what to do and we just have to do it step by step. So this is what I really would like to ask everyone, stop the concerns because many things we've done in the past, the problems we have to deal with today, no one was overthinking them in a way how we overthink now the good things you try to implement into our society. So stop worrying, stop being super concerned and trust the experts. I think this is another big part. I think we should learn as well from the corona pandemic. I know we are now hobby medical staff, everyone is now an expert on vaccination and viruses, but they're actually people who are trained to do that and we have that in the build environment, we have that in other industries. So look behind the curtain, don't trust the marketing issues, but there are always experts out there, there are always expert communities such as us. So I think trust more and just try, you know, just get started and stop overthinking things. What should young innovators in your field be thinking about if they're looking for ways to make a real impact? Whether it's architects, builders, designers, engineers? Well, I think they should try to learn from the right, from the right teachers and they should really focus maybe on understanding one part really well, but have an overview and especially have an understanding for all the different stakeholders. Because I think this is in the build environment, you have so many different people kind of clashing in one project, you know, you have the finance driven investor, a bank, a client who's normally not trained as an architect or engineer, you have architect engineers and construction companies. And then if everyone thinks they're the most important one and they don't really accept that maybe the other one has some valid points, I think this is where a lot of the not so good solutions in the end come out because then it's more about the ego and who's right then about doing the right thing. So to me, it would be really have an understanding, listen to people. I think this is another big part that people don't really listen anymore. And really focus maybe on one thing where you see here, I can really make an impact. And then don't wait if your boss asks you to do it or your client, but really think about, I can just do this extra mile a little bit and I will have a positive impact in the project. And I don't always have to wait for someone. And I think last point, never lose the motivation because I know it can be very hard and depends on the environment you're working in. So find a way on how you can at least recharge and remotivates every Monday morning. I always say Monday mornings I come to the office and I want to save the world. Friday afternoon, I have to look into contract details and liability things. So, and then you have to over the weekend be able to recharge and start again from the high level because otherwise I think you get lost in the operational daily problem-based discussions. I like that this really needs to be that separation and good planning there. What have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start from the beginning? Well, maybe more understanding for the different stakeholders, what I just described and more to really focus on the holistic part. And to me, it was really when I was studying civil engineering, I had a great professor and he was always talking about a bridge he designed in India, like a big bridge. And he kind of pushed the client or the city or the municipality there in India to not weld. It was a steel construction, not to weld but to use boats like an old, it's not modern tradition anymore because he said it makes a difference. Bolting, the local people there can do and the women sell them food and it's basically a whole infrastructure over two to three years of the construction. If you do welding, you have like the companies from China coming in welding the bridge and moving again. And he was able to make them do that. And that to me was so impressive that basically with every building, it doesn't matter if it's a house, if it's a bridge, it's whatever we do, we can have this positive social impact as well. And I think that was to me was really like a key moment, let's say. But I think to have that more over time and over the years, I think now if I would start again, I would really emphasize on that, much more right from the beginning. That's all I have for you today, Christine. I mean, I would have loved to get more into the livability aspect of it, but I think we could talk for days because I'm just fascinated about the built environment and actually honestly really excited about where we're going and where we can go and how beautiful our future can be if we set the bar higher like you guys have done. And I really appreciate you letting us inside your ideas on this episode. And if there's anything that you missed or didn't get a say, now's your chance to let us know what we should absolutely know or if you missed anything you wanted to tell us. Well, I can just repeat, I think my big point, stop overthinking. And really make a positive impact with whatever you do and try every day to make that and not give up and not over-theorize these things either. It's a lot of things are just, it's if you do the right things and we all I think have a certain understanding of what is right and it comes to buildings. I mean, that we should not generate toxic waste, that we should have a built environment where we feel happy and healthy. These are just the right things to do and we don't need to have studies for that and we don't need to have experts for that. So I think follow your gut feeling and in terms of what's right and not what is always right for in the economic short-term sense. Thank you so much and I wish you a wonderful day. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Thanks. What's going on at the end of this video? Go to www.cdnc.gov to find out more about the new U.S. economic short-term and the U.S. economic short-term. And you can get your entire U.S. economic short-term and the U.S. economic short-term. Thank you for watching and I hope this video is helpful to you. I think this is the end of the video. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed watching it. See you next time. Bye. Bye.