10 Frequently Asked Questions on Cults and Missionaries What characteristics define a cult? Cults, or more specifically destructive cults, are characterized by the following differences for mainstream groups. In religious cults, the leader is the central focus of the belief. In mainstream religions, God is the central focus. Cult recruitment includes deception and concealment of identity and requirements of affiliation. Mainstream groups use no deception, and new members are fully aware of the teachings and expectations before they make a commitment. Cults use mind control techniques and forms of hypnosis to indoctrinate followers. Emotional needs are exploited, and people are held psychological hostages through peer pressure, guilt, and fear. Mainstream groups do not resort to unethical means to persuade followers. Leaders of cults make their own rules and laws, which are contrary to the rules and laws of society. They often reframe criminal acts like cheating, lying, stealing, and even murder as the will of God. Mainstream groups value healthy involvement with family, friends, and society. Cults separate and alienate people from family, friends, and society. Mainstream groups value healthy involvement with family, friends, and society. Cults are self-serving, often amassing financial fortunes for the leaders at the expense of the followers. In mainstream groups, leaders serve the people and contribute to the welfare of society in general. Do cult leaders really believe what they preach? We can't know what they really believe, but their acts speak for themselves. Many leaders of religious cults claim to be God's special messenger, prophet, Jesus, the Messiah, or God himself. In contrast, Jews believe that the Messiah will bring about peace for mankind, which is a noble and serious task. On the other hand, one cult leader who claims to be the Messiah goes to Las Vegas and gambles huge sums of the hard-earned money that his followers collect for 10 to 15 hours on street corners. Other self-proclaimed Messiahs sexually abuse men, women, and children in their groups. Most cult leaders have made slaves of their followers and caused considerable damage to the minds, bodies, and lives. Families too have suffered great harm. What happens to cult members 10 years after they join? A number have left in disillusionment. Most are still in the cults. These days we hear people say that their sons and daughters, and sometimes mothers and fathers, have been in cults 10, 12, and 15 years. Is Jews for Jesus a cult? Most Hebrew Christian groups like Jews for Jesus do not fit the specific definitions of a cult. However, many of them use cult-like tactics in their recruitment. Are the Hebrew Christian groups as big a problem as the cults? Both cults and missionary groups continue to grow at a rapid pace. 30 years ago there were a few thousand members of a handful of cults and not more than a few thousand Jews in missionary groups. It is estimated that more than 20 million people have been involved in cults since the 1970s, and as many as half a million Jews are now involved with missionary groups. How do people join cults and missionary groups? Joining the gradual process that starts with a personal contact by an appealing, friendly individual. Recruiters look for lonely, depressed, confused, vulnerable people. They offer help, friendship, love, and quick answers to complicated problems. The vulnerable may feel that their needs are being met and come to depend on this new source of support. The one-on-one relationship expands to an entire group. For a lonely person, instant acceptance by a friendly group of people is very enticing. Are people who join cults weak? Stressful circumstances such as school problems, loss of a romantic relationship, confusion over career goals, financial pressures, disillusionment can lead to sudden vulnerability. Needy people are not as discerning as they might ordinarily be and are easy prey for a deceptive, alluring recruiter. Are people who get involved in cults less intelligent than others? On the contrary, cultists are bright, idealistic, caring individuals. They get hooked because they believe they will be doing important work for the betterment of mankind. Don't we join a cult? They're joining a cause. Intelligent people also have needs, frustrations, and disillusionment. It's more a matter of feelings than intelligence. If people always dealt at an intelligence level, we wouldn't have the divorce rate we have, nor would anyone ever make mistakes. How often do we ignore what we know and act on what we feel? Is there a person that can avoid getting involved in a cult? We hope so. The first and most important safeguard is to realize that anyone can end up in a cult. Monetary crisis situations make people vulnerable. When you acknowledge that it can happen to you, you'll be more aware and less gullible. This is especially significant considering the deceptive, seductive, and extremely persuasive tactics of recruiters. Second, if you're going through a rough time and you're far from home, be especially careful in whom you place your trust to help you. Call home. Let your parents or siblings know that you're having difficulty. Contact a friend. If you're in school, contact the Hillel or a local rabbi.  Cult recruiters are not always just friendly strangers. They can be classmates, people in your dorm, or even professors. If you're asked to go to a lecture or a free dinner, don't yield to the pressure or go out of curiosity, not knowing the nature of the group. Don't give your name, email address, or phone number. If you're considering accepting their offer, take their number. And tell them that you'll be in touch after you check them out. Then check them out with your local Jewish community, a local rabbi, or call the Jews for Judaism office. If the recruiter pressures you, walk away. Cult recruiters count on your good manners to listen politely, which gives them the opportunity to persuade you. Those are things we should not do. Can you tell us what we should do? Care about yourself as a person and as a Jew. Caring about yourself as a person means that you will not allow anyone to take advantage of you, that you will not be victimized, that you will not be compromised. Caring about yourself as a Jew means that you will accept being part of the continuity of your people, that you will know what Judaism stands for and what it means to you. Thanks for listening.


Pacific, another foreign government leader bound for the American capital. Like most state visitors to our shores, he is met at a nearby airport by the official White House helicopter and ferries along the Potomac River past familiar Washington sites to his host at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the President of the United States. President Johnson received the Prime Minister of Thailand, Tanam Kitikachon. Most men were concerned about the war that still raged in Vietnam and the peace that remained so elusive. During state visits in May and repeatedly on other occasions, President Johnson was no less fervent in his pledge to the free peoples of Asia. In a message relayed for the first time to Thailand by the communications satellite, the President affirmed that we would negotiate in good faith, but we would never compromise the future of Asia at the negotiating table. But one of the most important electronic contacts between Orient and Occident came in the early hours of May 3rd. The government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam is of the view that the former talks between Hanoi and Washington should be held immediately. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam welcomes the French government's willingness to offer Paris at the site for the talks between Hanoi's representatives and the United States. The signals of radio Hanoi broadcasting a note of hope. The North Vietnamese government at last was ready to enter into formal talks about the prospects of peace. At the White House, President Johnson worked through the pre-dawn hours that Friday in order to deliver his carefully praised response. I was informed about one o'clock this morning that Hanoi was prepared to meet in Paris on May the 10th or several days thereafter. After conferring with Secretary of State and Defense Ambassador Goldberg and Ball and Secretary Harrowman and Mr. Vance, I have sent a message informing Hanoi that the date of May the 10th and the site of Paris are acceptable to the United States. The diplomatic deadlock over a site for the peace talks was finally broken. The North Vietnamese had revealed a willingness to talk but only on their terms and at places where all the advantages would be theirs such as Warsaw, Phnom Penh or Burma. But the president who had already offered at least 15 locations had stood firm for a conference site that would be acceptable to both sides. And the American negotiators Averill Harrowman and Cyrus Vance would face a communist delegation headed by Swan Tweed in the French capital. But the war did not end with the start of talks at the Avenue Claver. Clark Clifford, Secretary of Defense, CIA Director Richard Helms, General McConnell from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Walt Rostow, the president's special assistant. These were some of the security advisors who worked with the president in meeting the enemy's newest combat challenge, red for blood in May. It was Hanoi's jungle password, a promise of new bloodshed and terror. There was a communist version of the old Prussian dictum of Von Klausowitz. War is a continuation of diplomacy by other means. During May, American special detection equipment including starlight scopes revealed that record numbers of North Vietnamese soldiers were infiltrating into South Vietnam. 30,000 communist troops a month on their way south to celebrate the 78th birthday of Ho Chi Minh by launching rocket and terror attacks on such cities as Ple Kru, Kanto, Da Nang, Saigon and other southern cities. Four more weeks of death and destruction to innocent civilians and over 100,000 new refugees. The communists paid dearly for their desperation tactics, losing almost 5,000 men a week. For the allies it was also costly, especially the Americans, who lost 562 men one week, 549 the next. May was the bloodiest month of the war. And although the Paris talks held a faint promise of peace, the president grieved over the fact that by Memorial Day 1968, over 20,000 Americans and 23 times that many Vietnamese soldiers had fallen in these three years of struggle along the frontiers of freedom. The battlefield is the scarred and lonely landscape of man's greatest failure. But it is a place where heroes walk. There will come a day when the last American soldier will have stacked arms in Vietnam. Quang Dao King and the hundred other places which once were battlefields will echo to an ancient roll call. The roster of brave men like these who stood and who fought when freedom passed. We have a special treat in store, a concert by the District of Columbia Youth Symphony. The first time I heard this orchestra, I put it in the back of my mind that sometime I wanted them to come here and play for us and I'm so happy that they could today. Mrs. Lyndon Johnson invited 1,000 fifth and sixth grade children to a concert on the South Long. She demonstrated that the White House is not only the home of presidents, it is also a national shrine to be shared with the people. As her husband entered the fifth year of his presidency, many of the programs Mrs. Johnson had sponsored to improve the quality of life in America were now showing results. One example of this transformation was at Buchanan School, a low income neighborhood school in the nation's capital. At one time children had no place to play except a hard asphalt lot and closed by a chain link fence. The school first caught Mrs. Johnson's attention because it had so many broken windows. With a generous gift of $400,000 from the Vincent Astor Foundation, the old playground was changed into an around the clock school and community recreation center for all ages. It's exciting design soon brought inquiries from communities the country over and enthusiasm from the neighborhood. For while Buchanan Plaza belongs first and foremost to this school, it also belongs to everyone in the neighborhood. It is a place where all ages can come together and find when they get there that there's lots to do. Since our committee for a more beautiful capital was formed a little over three years ago, we have devoted particular attention to improving the physical surroundings of public schools in the city. We have done so to make the school a place of pride in the neighborhood. We have done so out of the belief that children will respond affirmatively to improvements that they can see and touch and take part in. I think this place, Buchanan Plaza, is the wave of the future. School yards must not be locked at 3 p.m.  That door time is learning time just as much as the hours spent in the classroom. In her role as White House hostess, Mrs. Johnson helped the president meet foreign guests such as President Borguiba of Tunisia. Chief Justice and Mrs. Earl Warren were featured guests at the White House judicial reception. A tribute to the members of the Supreme Court. She also helped honor the nation's servicemen at this year's military reception. We're the first lady with Mrs. Humphrey and Mrs. Eisenhower, guests at the yearly White House luncheon for Senate ladies. It was a treasured moment for Mrs. Johnson, who saw old friends from her days as the wife of a senator on Capitol Hill. Her guests would be the first to be served on the new White House, China, unveiled earlier in May. It was the first full China service ordered since 1952, and its pattern reflected the first lady's interest in the floral beauty of America, wild flowers from the eastern Appalachians to the deserts of the West. Traveling to Arizona in May, Mrs. Johnson praised local conservationists, including former Senator Barry Goldwater, for making a parkland of a billion-year-old Camelback Mountain that overlooks Phoenix and saving it from those who had hoped to build a revolving cocktail lounge on its ancient crest. In Pineville, a little peed montown near Charlotte, North Carolina, Mrs. Johnson admired the restoration of the humble birthplace of James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United States. And when I return to Washington tonight, I will take back with me a message for the President. Today, I saw a place and a people who work and strive in the present, but respect the best of their past. Today, I was fortunate enough to see a bit of a national memory preserved. By the close of spring 1968, the first lady had logged nearly 150,000 miles, journeying from one end of the country to the other, encouraging Americans to rediscover the beauty and heritage that lay within the nation's boundaries. Such was the theme of this month's women's doers' luncheon at the White House. Thank you, Ms. Edmonton. That was a stirring, moving speech. I'm being interrupted. He is a friend of mine. Ms. Johnson is taking the leadership and seeing the country herself. She sees more of it than I wanted to see, because the more she sees the country, the less she sees of me. I came here today not just to see you, to see America through you and to thank you, but to have a chance to see her again. In May 1968, a poor people's campaign converged on Washington. It was led by the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, successor to Dr. Martin Luther King, who had died a month earlier, from an assassin's bullet. Like most of the marches on the nation's capital, Cox's Army in 1894, the Bonus War Veterans in 1932, and the 1963 march, it was in the name of a better share of the American dream. Its purpose was to dramatize the needs of the country's poor, and in particular, to impress those needs on the Congress. A deep awareness of the needs of poor people was central to all the President's domestic efforts during his years in office, and to his programs still pending on Capitol Hill. The Congress now has, under consideration, some 80 billion dollars worth of recommendations that the President has submitted in connection with social matters and welfare and poor security payments and additional food allotments and so forth. We think the people of this country must always have a right and we hope the opportunity to present to their government, to their viewpoints. As long as that is done lawfully and properly. Do expect that the poor will be better served if, after that viewpoint is presented, that the Congress and the appropriate administrative agencies can have the time to try to act upon it and execute it. We expect the leaders to present their viewpoints. We expect to seriously consider them. We believe the Congress will do likewise, and then we expect to get on with running the government there as it should be. The President in the business of running the government was very busy on behalf of his great society domestic programs during May. To underline his strong concern for a better cared for citizenry, the President selected for his new Secretary of Health Education and Welfare Wilbur Cohen, a pioneer in the movement for comprehensive social legislation. Today the reformers would do well I think if they just take Wilbur Cohen's life and study it. In a time when we're hearing so much about power. Black power and white power and green power and student power and perhaps someone should do analysis of another kind of power. Wilbur power. Certainly it's the power of optimism over pessimism. Certainly it's the power of involvement over indifference. It's the power of the patient, persistent reformer over the noisy zealot. And I have found that it's power that gets a job done. I'm proud to have worked for you for four and a half years and worked for eight months more because you have done more for health and education and social security than any President in the history of the United States. During the month President Johnson signed measures and lent the support of his office to many programs and groups which are striving for a better life, economic improvement for minorities, stronger insurance protection for those who travel our highways and for those who walk the streets of American cities.  For almost a year and a half we've been trying to help that policeman with our safe streets and our crime control program. The prime case in point is a gun bill. Some of the 6,500 murders. Some of the 60,000 robberies. Some of the 43,000 aggravated assaults that occur each year in this land of ours might have been prevented by passage of an effective gun control law. The American consumers movement gained great momentum with the signing of the truth in lending bill which was designed to safeguard the public against deception and usury in the marketplace. It was the product of eight years of work by consumer-minded public servants like former Senator Paul Douglas and Cedric Kroll of the Treasury Department. Also on hand were Congresswoman Lenore Sullivan and Betty Furness, the president's spokesman for the buying public. In another bill targeted toward the consumer the president sought to provide credit relief for the homeowner who like many Americans now was beginning to suffer from high interest rates and other danger signs of an overheated economy.  Congress said the president could no longer ignore the ominous threat of inflation aggravated by the heavy costs of war. Time was running out as Mr. Johnson carried his warning to every available forum. While we have let this tax bill languish we have seen mortgage interest rates go from 5.5% to 7%. Three years ago no one would have ever believed that an 8% mortgage rate was possible in the United States but today interest rates are nearing the highest point in 50 years and I think this is something that should disturb every American but if we do not act now an even worse shock is in store for you and I want to warn you about it. But Congress had been reluctant to raise taxes especially in an election year. Finally however its leaders showed a willingness to pass the tax bill if federal expenditures were reduced by $6 billion. When Congress asked the president himself to slash $6 billion from his budget Mr. Johnson saw this as an abdication of congressional responsibility as he made clear in one of his more animated press conferences. But I think the time has come for all of the members of Congress to be responsible and even in an election year to bite the bullet and stand up and do what ought to be done for their country and the thing that I know that needs to be done more for their country than anything else except the step we're taking this morning to try to find a peace solution is to pass a tax bill without any ands, buts, or ours and if they want them to effect reductions then as each appropriation bill comes up offer their amendments like men out on the floor call the roll, but don't hold up a tax bill until you can blackmail someone into getting your own personal viewpoint over on reduction. Now the president can propose but the congress must dispose. I propose a budget. If they don't like that budget then stand up like men and answer the roll call and cut what they think ought to be cut and then the president will exercise his responsibility of approving it or rejecting it and vetoing it. But fiscal leaders in congress would not relent and it was left to the chief executive to trim $6 billion out of an already tight budget. The president explained to his cabinet the tasks that lay before them. Congressional supporters of great society programs he said would have to be persuaded that the budget cut was the lesser of two evils. Well, the anything like the headache or anything like is bad is saying to the world that we have no fiscal responsibility we will not pass that bill. Therefore, I want to ask for something I've never asked a cabinet to do before and I want to see if there is how much muscle we've got left, if any. I would like to use it out on at least 250 men that you've associated with most of them for the last eight years and see which ones that you have to take these little charts and go up and sit down and talk to them and say from the international standpoint Mr. Katzenbach says to the people that he knows best I think our country is in trouble and here's why and I hope that you can do this and if you do it I don't think it'll turn our program into pieces and I want you to know this I can take this sixth bill expenditure reduction and survive and still breathe and still walk and still exist if I get that 10 billion tax bill if I don't get the 10 billion I've got to take the sixth flush The tax issue was a sanguine example of the very real separation of powers that distinguishes the American system of government it also showed that presidential decision making is not a simple process but despite the give and take between executive and legislative branches of government a warm friendship remained on the more personal level between the president and the lawmakers for Mr. Johnson like 18 presidents before him had also worked among these ranks during his three decades of public service he had been both their minority and majority leader and now during the month of May they had invited him back for old times sake to break tradition and speak once again as their former senate leader I always profit from what I've learned from the members of this great body the president told his old colleagues and I appreciate all that you have done to ease my burden to help us better govern this nation summer treads on the heels of spring so it was observed of ancient Rome by the poet Horace and so it is in Washington by now much of May was receding in memory gone with the tulip and magnolia the persitia, jonkul giving way to the vernal rains and new generations of flowers and in Vietnam the monsoon shifts during May from northeast to southwest with the skies clearing along the demilitarized zone there would be more fighting in that unhappy land by Vietnamese, Americans, Koreans, Thais and by Australians by minister John Gorton of Australia came to Washington in May with Vietnam very much on his mind even as we stand here our men fight in Vietnam together as they fought in other wars to protect small nations from the overthrow by force of governments elected by the people and even as we stand here diplomats in Paris seek to discover whether there is hope of ending that fighting and securing a peace just, lasting and honorable giving to the people of south Vietnam a chance themselves to choose their future path without fear or threat you, Mr. President bore the lonely weight of decision to continue to resist force with force you, Mr. President by your recent gesture brought the North Vietnamese to talk you, Mr. President relinquish chance of further office to give those talks such chance of success as they may have and for that we admire and salute you the President included Mr. Gorton in intimate White House foreign policy and security discussions two leaders agreed on continuing cooperation in the maintenance of stability and security in Asia and in the Pacific President Johnson also invited Prime Minister Gorton to his Texas ranch toward the end of May there they would confer with General William Westmoreland reporting in from the battlefield in Southeast Asia General Westmoreland reported that although the enemy would make frenzy battle efforts to panic the Saigon government and sap the patience of Americans in an election year his forces were in fact deteriorating in strength and quality the very happy General Westmoreland has returning to Washington to take the place formerly occupied by General Blackjack Perkin and George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower as head of the chief of staff of the United States Army and the leader of the United States Army in this country President Johnson's surprise announcement in March that he would not seek another White House term recalled another president's similar announcement in 1952 Harry Truman, whom the Johnson's visited this month had also been confronted with a communist adversary on Asian battlefields and at the conference table like President Johnson Mr. Truman had come from humble origins and always identified with the people and both men had known the unmerciful width and caricature of American cartoonists I understand that some of you gentlemen may be thinking of changing your occupations too you'll have to turn in your drawing pads because you're going to miss me that much my butt knows 10 gallon hat I've always envied you your freedom of expression you are the living proof of the wonders of democracy where one man's artistic license is another man's credibility gap I'm going to miss you too it will be nice to bite into my morning Texas grapefruit without you biting back in your morning newspaper I suppose though I could have had it worse after all I could have been up against a columnist with all of your talent thank goodness Walter Lippman never learned to draw President Johnson obviously relaxed in the mellow and affectionate atmosphere of a party gathering in Texas commented on a life freed from politics but a life still deeply committed to the nation's unfinished business when I saw my dear friend of many many decades here at the head table of Raymond Buck it reminded me of the good old days when I used to be in politics I played here from the Temperate Union that once called upon a great government leader Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill make her complaint and she said Mr. Prime Minister I am told that during this war you have drunk enough brandy if it were poured out in this room to come up to here all of a standing Churchill looked at her and listened very attentively and he looked at the floor and he looked at the ceiling and he said my dear little lady so much we have done so much we have yet to do there's so much that we've done in this country all of us live better than our fathers and our grandfathers and those who made it possible for us to enjoy our liberty and freedom but there's so much yet for all of us to do one of the things yet to be done was on behalf of the nation's youth the president delivered his last major speech of the month at Texas Christian University to open our political system to the participation of the many I strongly believe therefore that the time is already here for this nation to recognize and to grant the right to vote to 18-year-olds we have everything to gain by extending to these young people the most precious right and responsibility of citizenship the right to vote the president had always regarded the youth of this country as his special charge for although he was completing his last year in the White House Mr. Johnson had plans to complete his public service in the manner he started it 40 years earlier as a teacher of youth thus for the president and first lady May was the month when all promises were honored and new pledges were made the fleeting moments of private relaxation during the month that their Texas ranch were no diversion from their public concern for the welfare of America which found its most poignant expression in the springtime of 1968 and in the final reckoning each of us is going to be accountable and this is our year of decision and our decisions now will bind the destinies of men for the long years to come throughout the lives of our grandchildren if we are to seize the full promise of this moment if we are to continue turning the tides of time and fortune in man's favor it will take a strong and a unified America to do it it will ask all of our old faith and wisdom and courage


What is considered the built environment? ERIK defines the built environment this way. Built environment comprises the man-made elements of our surroundings, such as buildings, as well as infrastructure, including transportation, telecommunications, energy, water, and waste systems. As you can see, it is much more than buildings, and I encourage you all to think of the impact of the built environment. Not just the headquarter buildings, but warehouses, production buildings, utility buildings, infrastructure that powers all of them and the roads that connect them. We'll talk about sustainability, but how do we define sustainability? Sustainability defined by the UN is more or less an umbrella term that says, sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In the built environment, sustainable design has predominantly been defined and measured by the LEED system. LEED framework brought needed awareness and tools to designers and contractors, as well as building owners. Using the LEED framework, sustainable design to date puts the focus on construction and operation of a building through its useful life. However, with our current approach to sustainable design, construction, and building performance, we are not addressing the take-make waste of the linear economy. The linear economy relies on continuous and affordable resource consumption and ability to dispose of large quantities of generated waste. By embracing sustainable design and LEED, we are currently doing less harm, but we need to do better than that. We actually need to do good. So as designers and architects, we're looking to regenerative design and circular design to build on the momentum we gain through sustainable design. A quick comparison between these two, and perhaps it's a little oversimplification, goes like this. Sustainable design is focused on the building performance. The time frame of sustainable design is the life of the building, from construction to operation to demolition. Regenerative design, while also concerned with building performance, addresses the impact of the building on the surrounding ecosystem. The time frame of regenerative design looks further to the past and to the future, considering the environment that existed before the building was built and the long-term impact of the structure on that environment. And circular design reaches out yet further to address the supply chain and the end of design life recovery of all materials and products that make up the building. So, as we look to give back, let's dive a little deeper into regenerative design. Regenerative design can be broadly defined as design that reinforces natural systems in which all living systems depend for their continued well-being. Imagine buildings that produce more energy than they consume, clean the water they use, and purify the air they breathe. Regenerative design, as it specifically relates to the built environment, understands the building's relationship to the place through its life cycle, recognizes the needed regenerative capacity, becomes a partner to the place instead of purely extracting from it, and achieves harmony between the people and the place. The most widely accepted framework for regenerative design is the International Living Future Institute's Living Building Challenge. That's a mouthful. The Living Building Challenge asks the question, what if every single act of design and construction made the world a better place? The Living Building Challenge is organized into seven different pedals, seven performance areas. And I'll go through those just briefly. First is the place pedal. The intent is to articulate where it is acceptable to build, how to protect and restore the place once it has been developed. The water pedal. The water pedal realigns how people use water and redefines waste so that water is respected as a precious resource. The energy pedal. The intent is to design a safe, reliable, and decentralized power grid powered entirely by renewable energy. The health and happiness pedal. The intent is to create environment designed to optimize our well-being. The material pedal is to create materials economy that is non-toxic, ecologically restorative, transparent, and socially equitable. The equity pedal. The intent is to foster a true inclusive sense of community that is just and equitable. And last but not least, the beauty pedal recognizes the need for beauty to enrich our lives and to honor the impacts of the things that we make. And how does regenerative built environment think about carbon? The goal of regenerative design is to reduce both embodied and operational carbon to carbon zero or carbon negative. When we say carbon negative, it's sequestering more than it is releasing. So a couple of case studies. An example of a regenerative design is the Sierra Grande PK through 12 school in Blanca, Southern Colorado. It's a net zero building designed using passive house principles designed with a super insulated high performance envelope and powered by a PV array. The PV array in the building, the PV array for the building will produce as much energy as it consumes during a typical school year. Another example of regenerative design is the Living Certified RW Kern Center. The Kern Center is a multi-purpose facility that generates its own energy, captures and treats its own water, processes and recycles its waste. The building includes classrooms, offices, community cafe and gallery and serves the primary entry point of the campus. And then some of the pedal highlights for this building include the use of rainwater and greywater and net zero energy building achieved by PV array combined with a high performance envelope. Regenerative design is a basic tenant of the circular economy and circular design. Circular economy is a systematic approach to economic development designed to benefit businesses and society and environment. In contrast to the take make waste linear model circular economy is regenerative by design and aims to gradually decouple economic growth and the consumption of finite resources. Circular economy reframes consumption as a climate environmental issue.  Circular design replenishes natural systems designs out waste and keeps materials in use. So circular design thinking is being applied at all scales from global supply chains to circular cities to individual projects requires systemic participation and a network of information. Circular business models are key to transformation from a linear take make waste to a circular reduce reuse recover economy in the design and construction sector. And must work alongside design strategies governance and regulations for the transition to be successful. And this graphic in particular shows the looping of the circular economy. Circular design as it specifically relates to the built environment is about maximizing utility of resources, extending product building and material life and providing a proper end of life recovery. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation resolve framework outlines six actions that can be applied to products buildings cities or even entire economies. And the framework to the built environment the actions that might be taken are as follows regenerate regeneration. We've been talking quite a lot about regenerative is regenerating and restoring natural capital share. Occupy less space and minimize the amount of time the space it's idle asset optimization will result in less built environment. Use digital technology to operate at a maximum efficiency and performance design space for flexibility and to be repurposed, accommodating new features through time loop. Create new uses for buildings or product materials through re manufacturing recycling or upcycling design buildings and products for disassembly and material recovery. Virtualize replace resources with replace resource use with virtual use physical space with digital space. This will result in less material consumption and less resources used in travel. And exchange replace traditional building solutions with innovative materials and products designed for longer life cycles repair and disassembly. Place product centric delivery with service centric delivery, turning products for repair reuse or recycling. And that's really begun in the carpet and the lighting industries. How does a circular design thinking address carbon circular economy and circular design opera systemic systematic response. Sorry. The circular economy and circular design opera systematic response by both reducing emissions and increasing resilience. An example of a project that applies circular design thinking is the wedge table. It's a natural foods market cafe community gathering space. This project also applied other strategies, but I'm focusing on the circular aspects of the project. The project purpose repurpose the 15,000 square foot 1960s building using the structure in the skin and adding in a little insulation there and taking advantage of its natural daylight. Two leading examples of circular design are the key quarter tower and the park 2020. These also had other strategies they applied, but focused once more on the circular strategies. The key tower takes a 1970s tower at the end of its design life and repurpose is it using 60% of its existing structure. Reclining and reshaping it creating flexibility and method of assembly and the 2020 park project. Designed all the buildings in the office part for disassembly and material recovery. Material passports allow materials to be identified categorized in the models for future use in upcycling. And I mentioned material passports. Buildings as material banks is a collective project with mission of enabling a systematic change in the building sector by creating circular solutions. Material passport is a tool that they developed to offer a platform and repository for storing linking and providing relevant information on materials and buildings to relevant actors in the value chain. Material passports describe the characteristics of materials that give value for future recovery and they get used in the loop rather than returning to new and raw materials. So with the idea of reusing and materials rather than extracting materials. We returned to the discussion of carbon and embody carbon and sequestered carbon. So this is a good time for Paul to take over and start discussion on carbon. Well, thank you Nina. I appreciate that overview of the progression or journey. You might want to call it that we've been on is designers of the government over the last few decades as we go on first from sustainability, which really didn't become a common term in our vocabulary until about the middle of the 1990s. I think we're all the way through today when we're starting to leave behind that term and started to embrace these newer principles for generative design and beyond that, even the circular economy. So with that, before I get started, I would want to take a poll. Let me see if I can get this poll to work. Yes, there it is. Hopefully, are you seeing a poll on your chat screen. The poll questions is does your organization have an existing carbon footprint analysis the choices are yes and no. If you can see that please click on your vote I'd like to know of the folks in our audience today have you done a carbon footprint analysis, either in whole or in part for your organization. So I'm not seeing any results yet so I'm not sure I guess I can click show results, and I'm not quite sure if I'm doing that right. There it is. No, I think that's not it. So show polls. So I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, but can people indicate to me and chat if you are seeing that poll, and if you can vote on that. I'm not seeing it yet, Paul, but I'm seeing 75% or yes and 25% or no, and we'll see if we get participation on that. Okay, good. So you're seeing 75% yes 25% no thanks Nina appreciate that. All right, that's great to know. And then there's a second question, does your carbon footprint include real estate so let me see if I can get to that next poll. If I go about getting the second one. Right there we go. Thank you. So if yes, there's your footprint include your entire real estate portfolio that is all the building for infrastructure, buildings grounds roadways landscaping and so on with the organization has as part of its financial structure. So, when you see results Nina can you tell me what they are. I'm giving it a moment because we're getting a few more responses. It looks like the overwhelming answer is no to that one. We've 25% it yes and 75% it no so far. Okay, and that's exactly what I was looking for. And what's fascinating to me is a lot of organizations and corporations have begun carbon footprint analysis. What I've seen so far happening out there is mostly the focus seems to be on the supply chain, not really paying close attention yet to their own real estate portfolios. So that's what we want to talk about today. So I'm going to go a little bit deeper here into the, into the carbon footprint process so those of you that have been through it probably quite aware of this but in the common use or application of carbon we have three different scopes scopes one, two and three you can see them there described on the screen. A scope one is actually pretty limited in that it's fossil fuel is used on your property or sites. It's your vehicle fleet, and it's any on site landfill and wastewater treatment. That is not always very significant or this not necessarily the largest share of most corporations or organizations footprint. And finally scope to when we get into purchased electricity, purchased heating and cooling and purchase potable water which was going through the fresh water that we bring on to our sites. Then we really start to get into some of the significant impacts that an organization can have through And finally scope three are those that are slightly best direct employee commuting and travel solid waste can be significant depending on the nature of your operation. And finally electrical distribution losses and electrical distribution losses are an interesting one. That's talking about the difference between the electricity that actually gets delivered and used at your site versus how much electricity actually has to be generated to the power plant. And in some cases some locations that can be a very significant difference. So those are the three scopes of carbon footprinting that are commonly referenced out there. We wanted to share with you that at Cunningham group we have done our own carbon footprint. But you're seeing the results on your screen screen. So on the right hand side you can see and now this was actually not this year which would look very different of course. But this was last year, but we still had very full traveling processes in place we have six us offices and two overseas offices. So no surprise an organization like ours, more than half of our footprint was traveling between all of this project sites projects, going to clients locations and to sites and meetings. The transportation you can see was 57% and that air travel was by far the largest at 53%. Our buildings actually run around 22% and then there were a few other miscellaneous minor things such as paper it hardware. The big takeaway for us though when we did this analysis was that we were just over 5.7 metric tons per employee per year. Turns out that's about average for a large scale design firm. And based on this analysis we established a goal working with our board of directors to completely offset or reduce that by the year 2022. So we have just another 15 months to get there, at which point we plan to be a carbon neutral in our operations. Now, in addition to understanding the impact of our operations on the environment as designers it's even more important for us to understand the impact of all the things that we design the building projects the landscaping the sites that we create. And in one of the organizations that we really like that had driven a lot of change in that regard is this thing called architecture 2030. An architecture 2030 was put in place in the year 2006, and it set up these very simple goals that you see about decarbonizing the built environment. When it started the goal was to reduce below the average building 60%. 2015 through 2019 was 70%. Today through 2024, the target will be 80%. And as you can see 2025 90%. And finally, by the 2030, all the design firms that have signed on to the architecture 2030 challenge have committed to seeking carbon neutral buildings. It's a very aggressive challenge, and there's a lot of work to be done to get there. But that's what many of us are pursuing.  We model all the energy that could be used in those projects as well as monitor that after they're completed. And we report the results of our entire portfolio that we design each year to this national database. And this is our report for last year. The only graphic I want to call your attention to uses one right over here on the left, the one that reads 49.9%. That was our total portfolio last year, millions and millions of square feet of building hundreds of projects. We were sitting just about 50% reduction in carbon or energy from our buildings. Remember last year the target was 70%. So we were 20% behind. So we are working very hard to close that gap we hope to catch up within a few years. And interestingly, of course today this year the target is even more aggressive and in 80% reduction. I want to give, give with you a share with you a visual depiction of Cunningham Group's total environmental impact. And we're going to start with just those internal operations that 5.7 metric tons per year. And that's pretty easily categories and visualize as you see right here. To the main categories, all the way from the tiny things like paper and IT hardware to the building energy it takes to keep our offices heated and cooled ventilated. And everything plugged in to the energy and carbon we released due to our commuting and finally all of our transportation. So there's that roughly 2 million kilograms a year, by the way is a good point for me to mention. We're expecting that this footprint for this year will be half or less. And what we're trying to do right now is actively determine what do we think it's going to be. Once we return to some kind of a new normal, would it be perhaps three quarters of where we used to be where we're still trying to figure that out as our many of our clients. But now let's put our internal operations in the context of the things that we design. And as architects, we understand it's so important to walk the talk and to set an example for our clients and others. But really as a design for what we design is where we can make the really big difference. So let's compare our internal operations now reduced to that little block to the carbon impacts of everything we design in just one year. So now you're seeing all the natural gas and all the electricity that gets used by our new buildings in one year. This is last year. And now you can see that what we design in a year makes our internal operations relatively small in comparison. Now we're all the way up to 168 million kilograms, whereas before we were just 2 million kilograms. But we can take this a step further, because there's another really important part of the built environment that we want to talk to you about. And it's this thing that we call embodied carbon. And let me explain to you what that is really quickly. So again, here's that internal operations. Here's all the operational carbon from the new buildings would have put in place in just a single year. And now here is the carbon emissions due to all the materials that as architects and designers, we specify and cause to be installed in our buildings. This is the interior products that carpeting the sheetrock, the ceiling tiles, the furniture that goes into our buildings. This is the envelope the enclosure, the roofing the windows, the walls that wrap our buildings and seal them from the outside. And finally, this is the structure all the concrete steel and wood that actually holds things up. So now you can see we're starting to get to a really significant impact. We're up to half a billion kilograms of total impact again, just in one year. So you can see now that our internal operations, while important to us are actually much less significant than what we design and what materials we use. And there's one final piece to this story. And here it is. I'm going to share quickly. An organization such as ours, Cunningham Group, has been in business now for 52 going on 53 years. So our impact isn't limited to just what we design in a single year. We have an entire portfolio body of work of buildings out there that continues to use energy and to be responsible for greenhouse emissions. So now when we look at what's the annual impact of our entire past portfolio, combined with everything we're doing on an annual basis. Now we're at this incredibly large number. And you can see now that our internal operations are just the very tip of an iceberg, a very large iceberg. In fact, I wanted to find a way to share visually a depiction of what this actually would look like. How much carbon is that? How much is that in the atmosphere at standard temperature and pressure? Well, it happens to be, it would be a sphere almost exactly a mile or 1.6 kilometers in diameter. So the challenge that we've accepted as a design firm is to take that sphere that's a mile in diameter, our carbon emissions every year, and to work closely with our clients past and present to reduce that balloon of carbon to nothing in 10 years by the year 2030. It's an enormous challenge and undertaking, but that's what we're here to tackle. Alright, so I think I have another poll. Let me see if I can pull up this poll. Let's grab this one. And okay, so there's a question. What sector of the economy is responsible for the most greenhouse gas emissions? Is it transportation? Is it building? Or is it industry? So I'll give you just 15, 20 seconds. That should be pretty easy for you to take a guess or maybe you know the answer to this, but go ahead and give us your answers on this one. Nina, are you seeing any results yet? I'm not sure if you're muted, Nina. I can't hear you. Sam, giving it a moment. I saw a couple more come in. It looks like 40% are saying transportation, 20% are saying building and 40% are saying industry. Oh, that's a really interesting split. I'm always fascinated the split of answers I get to that. And what I've observed through these, it really depends very much on the composition of the audience. A lot of engineers are there, CSOs, different kind of people. So I love that mix. So here, let's give you the answer now. Thanks for taking the poll by the way. And that was the last of our polls for today. So I'm going to close my window here. All right, so this is how we typically think about global CO2 emissions by sector of the economy. And this is a representation of the global emissions, but in reality, US emissions track this very, very closely, almost identical that quite. So here you can see that the first take on this question, is it industry is the largest at 43% and that transportation and buildings are just about even with each other, 23 and 28% respectively, about a quarter each. But what we have decided to do recently is to dig a little bit deeper and understand what's buried in that big gray blob that you see labeled industry in this picture. And when we scratch the surface, what we find is that a very large share of the industrial sector is actually dedicated to creating and transporting the materials that end up where in the built environment. All the concrete, the steel, the glass, the processed materials, they actually are a very significant part of worldwide industry. And you can see now probably where I'm heading. If I add up the 28% that's annual building operations, that is, you know, keeping our buildings heated, lighted, cool, ventilated, etc. If I add to that the 11% of worldwide industry that is directly related and dedicated to building materials and construction, all of a sudden, I find that the built environment materials and operations combined is 39% of global emissions. In other words, buildings in the built environment are in fact the single most impactful sector of the economy in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon. And so as architects, as designers of the built environment, we are both guilty of using this and we have a responsibility to do better. And it's that sense of responsibility we want to bring forward and share with our clients. So, let me use a few more diagrams from our good friends at architecture 2030 who are very gracious and granting me the opportunity to share a few of their lovely slides with you. So when we think about the built environment now and carbon, there are three main topics that should concern us. The first thing is this top right new building operations. Actually, in terms of new buildings, there's a lot of good news. Building codes have progressed to the point where buildings are using less than half the energy they did about 15 years ago. We have many net zero energy buildings on the boards or in construction are already complete. So new buildings are actually on a trajectory to achieving these important goals of being net zero energy net carbon neutral. We actually have a much bigger problem with existing building operations today that enormous trillions of square feet of existing building stock across the world for which there's no built in mechanism to have those things upgraded and improved in terms of their carbon emissions. So that that's a remaining piece of the puzzle that needs tackling and probably will need some legislative intervention to make a significant difference. And now on that top left, this is the whole materials construction infrastructure piece. It's the new frontier for us as designers in terms of thinking about decarbonization, because it's something we ignored for a very long time. So we need to get much better at thinking about that 11% that is materials and construction. In fact, just as we have targets from 2030 for carbon reductions, a relative to new building design getting to zero by 2030. We now have embodied carbon targets for all the materials collectively that we use and put into our buildings. And here are those targets right now. We believe it's easily possible to achieve a 40% reduction and we're heading for a 65% reduction in 2030 and zero emissions for materials by 2040. So you can see that 10 year lag behind the progress we're making on operational carbon, but we want to follow a very similar pathway to both. All right, so a couple other aspects I just wanted to mention to you about embodied carbon and cases and the concept you've been hearing about or familiar with. So a few of the averages that we see out there. The structure, which is usually the steel, the concrete, some of the earth that supports those the wood, perhaps that is where we have the most impact of embodied carbon of construction materials. And what we're putting the most attention in particular right now to concrete and then steel those those are materials that are enduring very close focus from scientists and engineers around the world. After that, the next most impactful part is the wrapping the enclosure of our buildings, the roofing the siding the windows, the doors, all those things that keep the weather out of our buildings. And finally, interiors, all the carpeting sheetrock and things like that. Those are the 50% 30% 20% split as designers we're starting to understand and to tackle a little bit better. In fact, we're at the point now and this is typical for many of the better firms out there. We are doing carbon modeling I should say embodied carbon modeling on many of our projects fortunately there are great new software tools that allow us to do this relatively easily. So you can see that pie chart is showing a typical that was a smaller project of ours. And you can see the percentage of contribution of global warming potential from each of the material categories that we used in this project. Now I want to switch gears just a teeny bit and talk about this thing we refer to as the global carbon budget. You can see this chart. It's a very simple one. What this chart is getting at is if we look at emissions today of greenhouse gas. We are right at 40 gigatons that that's our annual output of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. We hope to would be reduced drastically this year it's only dropped a teeny bit. Although that was nice to see a drop rather than an increase. But what we need to do as a society as a planet is we need to have a rapid decline in those emissions. In fact, we need to say that 40 gigatons is and was the peak. We should never have another year as high as 40 tons. We need to continue to drop until we get to zero emissions by 2050. Now if we were to achieve that that ambitious goal, we would end up emitting another 600 gigatons of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere. And that is not a good thing. 600 gigatons still leaves us terribly exposed to the worst ravages of climate change. We need to do better than that. So here's a suggestion to do better instead of 600 gigatons remaining that we can put into the atmosphere. What if we drop that to 500 gigatons? Here's what that looks like. We need to drop to 50% in the next 10 years and then a more gradual decline. That would give us a 50% chance of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change of 50% chance of keeping to 1.5 degrees C. Something that would be more comfortable that would give us a 67% chance of only getting 1.5 degrees would be this even more aggressive phase out. And what I'd like to suggest that your corporation or organization can look at this phasing out of global emissions and have a curve that basically puts you on a very similar trajectory. Whatever your total carbon emissions are today, we'd like to see you drop 65% in the next 10 years and ideally phase out by 2040. That's a really simple model any of us can use in our organizations. So now I want to walk you through a hypothetical exercise. How would all of this apply to a hypothetical corporation that meets the characteristics you're seeing on that screen. I'm not going to read all those things to you. A couple of highlights are suppose you have a million gross square feet of buildings and that you have 2000 office workers and about 250 light manufacturing employees. You know, a fairly typical kind of mid-sized corporation. How would a corporation like that look at the ongoing issue of carbon emissions from its real estate portfolio. So we're going to map this graphically as simply as we can with greenhouse gas emissions on the vertical axis left and cumulative emissions over time on the right. So here's what a corporation like that would look like if I start to dig into its carbon. The first thing is going to be all the embodied carbon from the site. That's the landscaping, the concrete, the asphalt, the loading docks, the signs, all the things outside the building. And that's a pretty significant chunk of carbon and that carbon doesn't go away. Once those materials are there, that carbon has been emitted into the atmosphere. But the site is much less than the buildings. So a million square foot of buildings are going to make the site seem relatively small. Now you start to see we're somewhere around 50,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas. So we're already up to somewhere on 22 metric tons for every employee. And it's very typical in the corporate world to have what we call an interior refresh every seven years or so. And that means that usually a lot or most of the interior materials are removed, sent to landfill and replaced. That's a very impactful thing that happens, that seven-year refresh. So it bumps up the embodied carbon another notch. Now let's look at what's the operational carbon doing. Okay, all the lighting, heating, cooling that's happening. You can see, of course, that starts out. It's just a small bit every day and every year. But over time, the operational carbon accumulates to very large numbers, whereas, of course, the embodied carbon stays relatively constant. And you see how those two relate to one another proportionately. Now what would be a strategy to start to reduce? I meant to back up. So now I'm at 22 metric tons per employee of embodied carbon and every year another 5.9 metric tons of operational. That's a lot of carbon going out into the atmosphere. So here's some strategies that I could implement to improve that. The first one was what if I simply upgraded all my buildings to meet nothing better than the current building code, assuming that the buildings maybe 10 to 15 years old. I could bring them up to code. That would then reduce instead of being at 5.9 metric tons. I'd be down here at that lower, lower line at 3.2 metric tons. Pretty big improvement, right? Almost as much as it takes to offset all the embodied carbon. Let's take another strategy. Let's say that I wanted to upgrade one more step. Suppose I wanted to upgrade to this 2030 challenge. What does that look like? Now, all of a sudden I'm way down here to the point where the embodied carbon actually is bigger than the operational carbon even after 12 years. So I'm getting to have very efficient buildings now. Now you start to see what that picture looks like and I'm down to 1.2 metric times per employee per year. Pretty drastic reduction, right? But let's start. Let's try a few more strategies. Suppose when I have that 7-year refresh, I implied 100% circular economy principles. Every product I use had some kind of circular story behind it. It's recycled. It's local. It's regional. Or the materials that I'm taking out instead of going to landfill are themselves being repurposed. So if I did something like that, all of a sudden that bump that you saw at 7 years goes away and my embodied carbon actually stays flat. Well, I'm starting to do a lot better, right? And the next one is a very popular strategy right now. Of course, could I look at renewable energy? Absolutely. So suppose I put enough renewable energy cost at 100% of my annual operating cost. Now, to do that renewable energy, I have to first increase my embodied carbon because there's a lot of body carbon in the panels, the wiring, and everything it takes to get them there. So I bumped that up about another 10.4 metric tons. But that lets me flat line. So that big triangle of green, light green, that operational carbon is actually avoided by virtue of having invested in that embodied carbon. Can I do even better though? What if I said, you know, I'm not even happy with that bump up at embodied carbon. I'd like to do something about that too. So what if I installed even more renewable energy? Maybe now instead of putting on the roof, I had some over a parking lot perhaps. Now what would the story look like? Well, I have to do that. I have to invest even more initially embodied carbon. But now I'm in a scenario when those panels are generating so much energy and avoiding so much emissions, I'm selling energy back into the grid. And therefore I am getting to a situation where after eight years, I'm back to carbon neutral on those panels. And after those eight years, I'm now starting to offset some of the original embodied carbon that it took to build these buildings. So that would be a pretty exciting scenario to be involved with. Here's another strategy. It's a strategy I'm often asked, well, we've got all this landscaping and lawn area and pavement. Do we really need all that? Is there any way we could convert some of that? And the answer is yes. In fact, these big lawn areas are almost always net emitters of carbon dioxide. And the lawn is actually a pretty bad thing environmentally. If you can convert it to a landscape to look more like this, all of a sudden, excuse me, you have a landscape that is sequestering carbon annually, which is a great thing. Unfortunately, on the scale of a corporation like this, converting those 10 acres or so of lawn and pavement to a landscape is a drop in the bucket. It'd be a great thing to do and we'd love to see all of our clients undertake something like this. But now we're only talking relatively few tons of sequestering happening. There's one other strategy I wanted to share with you. This is the last of these. This is about water. I wanted to go a little bit farther with water in this analysis, but it got a little too complicated for the purposes of our illustration. But there is a fair amount of embodied carbon, excuse me, operational carbon related to fresh water being brought to our operations and all the wastewater that's generated. And it doesn't have to be that way. This is the composting toilet array. Probably many of you on the call have seen this at the bullet center in Seattle. So it is possible to make a very significant debt in operational carbon by tackling the water issue as well. So here's a quick summary of things to think about when you ponder your carbon footprint and the real estate portfolio. Because as we now know the real estate portfolio is somewhere around 40%, almost 40% of carbon emissions, and that 40% would apply to many of your organizations as well. So it starts really by looking at your buildings. When you're building new, there's so many things you can do now to minimize the embodied carbon going into those initial materials. And when you're renovating, you can use the circular economy principles in material selection and design to help shed some of that embodied carbon. And of course, there are all these strategies that we've just walked through. These aren't by any means the only or necessarily the best strategies that you can consider. That's always very much site specific and company specific. We work with our clients to select the strategies that best align with their values and goals and their financial circumstances. So these are just examples. I don't want to imply that this is the only or the best way to do this. So with that, I think I'd like to wrap up and just close it here and say I appreciate that Nina was able to talk to us about regenerative design and that progression from sustainable to regenerative to circular. And we really believe corporations and organizations can have a healthier relationship with the natural world, if they follow this progression to. And we can use carbon accounting and footprinting as a primary tool in understanding our impacts on the environment and as a tool to drive positive change. So with that, I think Nina and I are ready to turn it over to questions. And I will go ahead and stop sharing. Thank you. And let's see, we can kind of go to get back to Chad. I'd see one question was how to mine for materials during a building demo. And that probably refers back to this whole concept of buildings as material banks. And I even want to expand that conversation a little bit and go back to this other concept that was only briefly mentioned but I think is really exciting. One of the things that we're seeing come about now it's being promoted in this sector is called a building passport and a building passport just like the name suggests is a list of all the materials that go into a building and their fractional share. So it might say concrete 30% steel 20% etc etc etc. And the goal is that every building would eventually have a material passport.  I'm going to pick on Boulder right up just up the road from here because they're talking about this today. Boulder says what if when building permits got submitted that building permit included a material passport. What then eventually knows a city of Boulder exactly relatively close to exact how many tons of concrete and every building material we have here. And then when we start to think about the future construction economy, we could really understand what what materials need to be brought in and what materials are already in place here that we can mine from those existing buildings. But the other really big thing to understand about mining and Nina also mentioned this, it's so much easier if the building is designed and built with that already in place for planning for disassembly. When the buildings plan for disassembly, then that's not too hard a thing to do. What we struggle with right now is almost all older buildings and very few new buildings have that in place yet. So needed you want to talk about some of the challenges you see with with designing. I think you kind of hit it it's a it's a mind and the design thinking shift that we have to do be able to do this because, like you said, you know, you have to you have to consider how to pull it apart from the day you conceive of the building itself. And you need to start tracking what you've got in it from the day and, you know, thanks to systems like bam is coming up with and, and some of the other BIM systems we're using to start tracking this. We can, we can have a building that's a repository for materials and look at future mining of it. So yeah, I think you covered it pretty well Paul thank you. Wood and wood is a great example to we're seeing so much more wood now used especially CLT or cross laminated timber. And that's a great thing because it's equestering so much carbon. And my only concern around the use of that would not only one concern is that I want to make sure that that can be easily disassembled because if that would isn't this is can't be disassembled and used again in the future. Ultimately, it's going to go to landfill or it's going to get burned and that carbon that would become carbon emissions again. It'll only be a short term gain. So if wood is to have a really positive impact on the carbon problem in the built world. We have to use wood in a way that it can endure as structural material. Another question here, Paul. How does the US compared to Europe or Southeast Asia. We can talk about that a little bit. We do a lot of work at Cunningham in China. In particular, we've worked in other Asian countries. But we have a lot of good friends and colleagues in the European Union to and we've been talking about this economy and I think it's safe to say that northern Europe in particular has emerged as the leader in this circular economy development. We have several consulting firms there that have really pushed this concept and there are several cities, individual cities that have made very public statements saying we are going to become cities that fully embrace the circular economy. Now, once we're going to have material passports and look at building as material banks, we're going to be doing all these things. Some of those cities are London, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm. If you do a little research on circular economy, you'll find those coming to the fore. But we're pleased to report that the US is not too far behind. You know, there are some bright spots here in the US. I mentioned Boulder earlier. The reason I mentioned that, they're on my mind because they have undertaken a circular economy effort and are just a year into the beginnings of that. There's also been some great work in Charlotte, North Carolina on the circular economy and the regenerative approach. So, although we're a little behind the EU, we're catching up. Asia is interesting. Nina, do you have any thoughts, having observed our work in Asia for many years? Yeah, I think I'd prefer to say that Europe is leading us and the rest of us are looking to follow some of the great examples we're seeing there. I think the things that we've sort of talked about earlier, and you kind of touched on, a lot of this is a big, it's a systems change. It really takes information and knowledge sharing and a systems change to make it happen. It's about every piece of the supply chain and every piece of the way differently for how we share information about it, but how we go about putting it together where we source it and what we do when design life is complete. So it's an evolution, if you will, and people are pushing it and it's moving quickly. And as you mentioned, there are several cities in the US that are really pushing it. All right, we have another on here. You're going to read that one, Nina. That's a big one. Two major themes across sessions yesterday and today emphasize investors need and expect number one consistency and standards and measures and number two transparency and accountability and reporting. How well is the built environment industry doing to collaborate on addressing both standards and reporting toward measuring impact and meeting ambitious sustainability goals and challenges was necessary for greater collaboration. If I need to repeat some of that I can certainly. There's a lot packed into that one question isn't I'm going to focus on this one. How well is the built environment is we doing to collaborate and addressing standards and reporting toward measuring impact so I mentioned this thing the 2030 challenge a few times. And that is sponsored by our national organization the American Institute of Architects. And so at this point, there are over 300 firms that have signed on to and they are almost all of the larger firms. So those 300 firms represent probably the majority of all the construction activity in the United States. And in those 300 firms have voluntarily put together something called a design data exchange. We share open our information with one another. Now it is anonymous so we don't track it to individual clients, but but we can share with our customers our clients and society at large. Exactly how well we're doing as an industry toward the decarbonization goal. In fact, I can tell you that of all these 300 companies that reported the billions of square feet included there. We're right at 49% greenhouse gas emission last year. And I'm sure there'll be over 50% this year. So I think as a profession, we're doing pretty well on transparency and and sharing information and being open where I think we're lagging behind is the standards. It's still almost all voluntary. I mentioned building codes have moved and they've helped us. But again, building codes have only taken us about halfway where we need to get. So the really exceptional projects that Nina that you shared that you put on the screen. Everyone of those projects is a case where a client said to the design team. I want to do way better than the code is requiring me to do. You know, it's an important value to me and therefore I'm going to express that and share that so I'm going to go beyond. I think there is tremendous needs for us as a profession and we need help from outside the profession to continue to move the standards that the governor activities. And I made a, I put a hint about this, the existing buildings of what really scare me. We, I think we need a legislative solution to force or compel over time and gradually. The existing infrastructure to get better because without that, it doesn't matter how good we make the new stuff. I hope that was the beginning is least of an answer to that complex question. There was a lot in that one. All right. I think the questioner says, yes, thanks so. All right, I think that's. Any more questions out there. And I think are we at our time. So. Thank you very much.


think about my breathing. Think about my horse's breathing. How do they feel at the canter? Our horse breathes pretty regularly because of the biomechanics of it. And I hear she's getting ready to blow out. So that feels good to her. I'm aware of my seat as I'm doing this. I'm thinking about using my eyes.


Join me and my co-hosts every Saturday at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Pacific for cartoons and movies at the 50th Street Studio Twitch Channel. See you there Hello, everybody. Thanks for coming this week. This is Keith at 30 seconds sci-fi This time I'm gonna tell you about Night Flyers by Oh George R. R. Martin I Remember reading this novella when I was young back in the 80s probably and I remember being unimpressed with it I reread it again and I feel the same way unimpressed with it. I didn't think it was particularly well written Characters weren't exciting the story wasn't terribly engaging and it was Very derivative obviously very derivative of alien and Dark Star both of which were written by Dan O'Bannon the particular parallel being that both movies involved a Ship's central computer and an alien the computer was even named mother, which is significant to the Night Flyers Just not not a good book and the movie from 1987 wasn't good either Catherine Mary Stewart looked amazing in it, but that's the only thing that had going for it Thank you for watching this week Please become a sponsor follow the links on screen and in the description below where you can pledge a monthly amount or make a One-time donation Every little bit helps. See you next week