Today is the 50th Earth Day. Proposed as a day to honour the earth and the concept of peace, the first Earth Day in 1970 took place in colleges and universities across the United States. The first Earth Day in Canada was held in 1980 and featured educational lectures by experts in various environmental fields, garbage and litter pick-ups, and tree planting. Today, Earth Day is celebrated in 192 countries around the world.

Working from home and social distancing doesn’t mean that we can’t participate. The National Informal Stem Education Network has an extensive list of at-home activities. Here are some more from us at Recollective and our colleagues at SES Consulting:

Earth Day at Home Challenge ideas:

• Remove invasive species from your home garden
• Fix or repurpose something in your home instead of replacing it
• Collect grey water and use it to water your plants
• Learn about the emissions related to your diet and make a change to have a lower carbon diet
• Plant a garden or a climate-resilient tree
• Learn about the benefits of heat pumps or heat pumps ideally suited to Metro Vancouver climate
• Try reading over streaming
• Practice active transportation: go for a walk, run, or bike ride
• Check in on your neighbours: strong communities are key to our resilience to climate change

Paula Apperley, our Office Manager, is now a Fitwel Ambassador. Fitwel is a holistic building rating system for commercial interiors, multi-tenant & single-tenant office spaces, multi-unit residential buildings, retail, community sites, and workplace campuses. Focusing on seven Health Impact Categories, Fitwel scores on 55+ evidence-based design and operational strategies that will lead to happier, healthier homes and workplaces.

Here in Vancouver we take our health seriously; we already have wonderful public parks, bike paths, and outstanding scenery, but how accessible are those amenities to you? Fitwel not only quantifies access to amenities, its weighted points system prioritizes the strength of the health impact of each strategy. 90% of our time, and even more now in these times, is spent inside, and Fitwel’s aim is to make that time as healthy as possible. The business case for health is clear: not only can a healthy workplace attract and keep employees, it will also lower costs related to health issues such as absenteeism and stress.

Paula joined Recollective 8 months ago and was very excited to be working in the green building industry as sustainability is so important. She is looking forward to working with our clients on their health and wellness initiatives. Contact us if you’d like to know more about Fitwel or about how Recollective can help with the Fitwel Certification Process.

Since April Fool’s Day is cancelled this year we thought we’d share some helpful tips we’ve found useful these last few weeks of working from home. Recollective’s investment over the years to put our systems online and accommodate remote working has enabled our team to continue to provide our clients with the professional services and exceptional experience that they expect from us.

Internally, we have set up a daily morning scrum to share a brief overview of our work day and an afternoon tea break video chat to connect and relax a little. While we miss our co-working space the HiVE and all our colleagues there, we’re grateful to have access to the HiVE’s virtual kitchen set up in a Zoom meeting room. We enjoyed a virtual happy hour last week and are planning more to come.

Transitioning to working from home full time can be quite a challenge. Sticking to a routine, changing out of those pyjamas, and having a separate work area can all help with productivity. Sr Green Building Specialist Tim Tewsley found this helpful guide to lighting when on a video call – though if you’re going to turn yourself into a potato or decide to stay in bed you won’t need to worry about lighting.

We hope everyone is coping well in these unprecedented times. Feel free to share your favourite work from home tips!

The 2019 Passive House Symposium was held at UBC Robson on November 19th, 2019. Reconauts Navid Hossaini, CEO, Jason Packer, President, and Chris Kendall, Associate & Sr Green Building Strategist, were all able to attend. We extended invitations to a number of clients and colleagues and were happy that representatives from Kasian Architecture, Carscadden, Coromandel Properties, and DYS Architects were able to attend with us. The Symposium showcased a depth of knowledge on the issues that we as sustainability consultants address and hope to solve for our clients.

Anthony Pak of Priopta presented an enlightening talk on embodied carbon. The CO2 emitted throughout the lifecycle of building materials including extraction, manufacture, transport, and construction make up 11% of total global CO2 emissions and will be responsible for almost half of total new construction emissions between now and 2050. According to the UN Global Status Report 2017 the equivalent of an entire New York City will be built every month for the next 40 years, so it is important to reduce these emissions. Vancouver’s Climate Emergency Response aims to reduce embodied emissions from new building and construction projects by 40% from today’s baseline. For further reading you can check out Pak’s article on this topic here.

Brittany Coughlin of RDH presented on the Performance Gap between modeled and actual energy usage. A 2016 UK study showed that there is on average 34% deviation between modeled and measured energy usage. Underlying causes include modelling protocols, installation issues, complexity of design, and occupant behavior. The Passive House energy modelling tool, PHPP, is known for greater accuracy, particularly for predicting heating and cooling in residential buildings, but high performance projects can still face challenges predicting overall energy use. It’s becoming increasingly common to track performance data which is creating new opportunities to reconcile modeled vs actual energy consumption. . We can improve modelling through training and education of not just the modelers or architects, but also of operations personnel and occupants.

Another session of interest focused market reaction and included representatives of the financing and insurance industry.  There was a good discussion about balancing the long-term benefits of high performance building against the upfront premiums. As carbon taxes go up in the coming years, Passive House buildings will cost less to operate and will become more attractive to build.

These were only some of the topics covered at the Symposium. Overall there was a strong focus on using Passive House strategies to build resilience for our changing world. From finance, building trades, all the way to final building occupants everyone can strive to live more sustainably and look at what choices we can make as individuals in order to make a positive, collective difference.

Recollective was proud to be a sponsor of this event.

Recollective is proud to partner with Passive House Canada to sponsor the coffee break at the Net Positive Symposium 2.0: Designing for the Future, Building for Now this Thursday, November 20th at Robson Square. We hope to see you there!

Check out the event page with the list of speakers here:
https://passivehousecanada.silkstart.com/events/designing-for-the-future-building-for-now-a-symposium

B.C. is moving toward net-zero buildings by 2032 and Step Code is a big part of this paradigm shift. Life Cycle Management Lab Professors of UBC wanted to introduce their students to Step code, so on Friday, October 25^th our Principal Navid traveled to Kelowna to give a day-long workshop to a group of 20 engineering grad students and postdocs. He covered Step Code basics and requirements, design strategies, and facilitated an energy modeling group exercise. The students had a lot of passion for high performance buildings and were keen to learn about why the province is implementing an Envelope-First approach with Step Code.

If you also want to know more about Step Code, check out their website: https://energystepcode.ca/how-it-works/