Katie Schmid, Deputy Executive Director at the NYC Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, joins Radio BE-Ex for a conversation on the City's efforts to tackle environmental justice (EJ) in the building industry. Hear about the strategies underway to incorporate EJ into building decarbonization and clean energy infrastructure and how t…

In this episode, BE-Ex Director of Educational Resources Katie Schwamb discusses the importance of education with In Cho, a professor and architect who has started her own non-profit, Passive House for Everyone. Listen for an in-depth conversation on Passive House principles, empowering students, and In's successful career path.…

Radio BE-Ex is kicking off a new season with a conversation with Pat Sapinsley, a BE-Ex board member and Advisor to the Urban Future Lab at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Tune in to hear Pat share her thoughtful insights on the speed of innovation in energy efficiency and architecture, the ability to scale climate tech solutions, and on her stor…

Weatherization is a great first step for building owners to improve efficiency, decrease utility bills, improve occupant comfort, and pave the way for major capital improvements that enable long-term LL97 compliance. BE-Ex's Nicol La Cumbre-Gibbs dives into the what, why, and how of weatherization in this Radio BE-Ex short.…

Radio BE-Ex presents a 2022 interview with Sara Karerat, Managing Director at Center for Active Design (CfAD), covering the connection between public health and the built environment, and the expanding body of research that underpins CfAD's Fitwel healthy building certification system.By Building Energy Exchange

We’re still working on the cover design for our upcoming book Understanding Sciatica - a frustratingly long back-and-forth process with the designer that I wish I’d started much earlier… In the meantime, I thought I’d re-send this podcast that Annina and I recorded in September 2020. It’s still the most popular episode of the pod. Might nerve pain …

Empire Building Challenge collaborator and sustainability strategy consultant Lane Burt joins Radio BE-Ex for a conversation on decarbonization planning, and tools that help portfolio owners develop detailed decarbonization roadmaps for their buildings.By Building Energy Exchange

Radio BE-Ex welcomes Michael Izzo (Vice President, Carbon Strategy, Hines) for a conversation on the role of global real estate firms in decarbonizing our built environment, and emerging approaches that may define the next wave of low-carbon buildings.By Building Energy Exchange

Steven Winter delves into his storied career as Founder of 50-year-old energy & sustainability consulting group, Steven Winter Associates, and past Chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council—overseeing the launch of the LEED green building standard and Greenbuild Conference.By Building Energy Exchange

Radio BE-Ex welcomes Carlton Brown, Founding Partner & Principal of Direct Invest Development, and pioneer in the US green building movement, for a lively discussion on the past, present, and future of sustainable urban development, and how the impacts of better buildings can extend beyond their occupants, empowering the communities in which they s…

Kate Simonen, Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington, founder of the Carbon Leadership Forum, and leading force behind the recent Embodied Carbon in Construction (EC3) Calculator, joins Radio BE-Ex for a conversation on reducing embodied carbon in the building sector.…

Radio BE-Ex welcomes Donald Chahbazpour (Director, Regulatory Strategy — Future of Heat, National Grid) for a conversation on implementing gas decarbonization through policy, strategy, and technology.By Building Energy Exchange

Hear from Susan Ubbelohde, Co-Founder & Principal of L+U Associates, speak to the importance of relying on daylight and designing sustainable, daylit buildings. Susan Ubbelohde is a leading expert in daylighting design & research, with a focus on visual comfort, energy efficiency, sustainability and delight in high-performance building design.…

Radio BE-Ex invites Lisa Heschong, an experienced architect, educator, and author of Thermal Delight in Architecture, as well as the recently published Visual Delight in Architecture: Daylight, Vision and View. Join us to learn more about the importance of daylight and visual access to the outdoors in buildings, and prioritizing daylight access as …

Thanks for reading the 38th edition of my newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! EDIT - The sound quality of this podcast is quite poor - you have been warned. I will try to transcribe it one day. This edition, it’s my pleasure to bring you my conversation with Ash, a project manager from Chenn…

Radio BE-Ex invites Stas Zakrzewski, AIA, LEED AP, Principal at Zakrzewski + Hyde Architects, for a discussion about decarbonizing buildings at any scale: from embodied carbon of building materials, to Passive House design, to encouraging a circular economy in the building sector.By Building Energy Exchange

Thanks for reading the 31st edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! Hi from San Jose, California, where I’m visiting the in-laws! Here’s part two of my chat with Adam Dobson, where we discuss neuropathic pain, nerve assessment, exercise and rehab for sciatica, and more! Fi…

Architect Carl Elefante, FAIA, FAPT, LEED AP, highlights AIA's commitment to climate action and the central importance of retrofitting existing buildings in addressing climate change.By Building Energy Exchange

Thanks for reading the 30th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! I must say things have been pretty quiet on the book front this week! In the time I’ve had to work on it, I’ve mostly just been wading through the literature. It seems like on any topic there’s really only…

Jamal Lewis (Director of Climate, Energy, and Health at the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative) joins Yetsuh Frank to discuss equitable strategies for achieving decarbonized, efficient, healthy and safe housing.By Building Energy Exchange

As the risks that the climate crisis poses to physical assets becomes clearer, more and more stakeholders in the real estate sector are looking to guidelines like the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) and reporting platforms like GRESB to help them measure and reduce their exposure. With carbon emissions emerging as a key in…

Daniel Zarrilli, New York City’s Chief Climate Policy Advisor and OneNYC Director, is a leading force behind the City’s fight against climate change. Responsible for the OneNYC 2050 strategic plan, Dan has been at the heart of the City’s climate action initiatives for nearly a decade. His work spans the launch of a comprehensive $20 billion climate…

As our buildings move toward full electrification and our grid moves toward 100% renewable sources, the interaction between the two will become increasingly complex. Supply from the grid will fluctuate across the hours, while buildings will cease to only use energy, becoming both sources and storage for electricity. Few individuals have as relevant…

Brooklyn-based BlocPower has delivered clean energy projects to nearly one thousand buildings since their 2012 founding. With a special focus on heat pump technology, the organization backs healthful, cost-effective, and energy-efficient building improvements, often associated with large, high-profile projects, but historically out of reach for sma…

For nearly thirty years, Ashok Gupta has dedicated his career at the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) to understanding policy related to global warming, energy efficiency, renewables, sustainable building design, and transportation. During the Bloomberg administration, Gupta was selected as NRDC’s representative to the Mayor’s Sustainability…

New York’s climate objectives cannot be met without widespread building retrofits. City and State initiatives like the NYC Accelerator and RetrofitNY are focused on accelerating the development of a self-sustaining market for scalable high-performance retrofit solutions. But what role will finance need to play in order to support the required scale…

Thanks for reading the 25th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! This week I spoke to Kate Charlton again! When we spoke last year, she was recovering from her second bout of radicular pain, getting back into her training and everything was going well. Since then, Kate’…

Thanks for reading the 19th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! This week I spoke to Professor Raymond Ostelo! Raymond recently published a fantastic review of the evidence behind the treatment options for sciatica (link should be open access). In our conversation, we talk abo…

Thanks for reading the 17th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! For this week’s podcast I spoke to Mark Laslett! Here’s the timestamps for our conversation, with some links to one or two papers Mark mentions: 1:38: On somatic referred pain. 2:40: “Do you have a theory of what'…

Thanks for reading the 15th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! Today I was up bright and early to attend Annina Schmid's online course on assessment of entrapment neuropathies. Annina was kind enough to talk with me afterwards for a podcast! Our conversation mostly focused on…

Thanks for reading the 13th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! This week I’m talking to Giacomo Carta. Giacomo is a basic science researcher in neuromechanics, neurorepair and neuroplasticity. He’s also a physical therapist! We discussed his research and his hopes for the fut…

Thanks for reading the 11th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! This week's podcast is a Sciatica Story with Drew Jordan Drew got sciatica about one year ago. He was on holiday and tried surfing for the first time which seems to have triggered it, and he spent a lot of time si…

This is a repost from 2018, an article caled Wired Into Pain: a history of the science of pain. I hope you enjoy it. I’ve also recorded an audio version to go with it! [2024 AUTHOR’S NOTE: I think this piece (from 2018) is still a hugely valuable introduction to the history of pain science, rich in detail. But there are some mis-steps towards the e…

Welcome to the eighth edition of my sciatica newsletter! This week’s podcast In this week’s podcast, I talk to Michelle Angus. Michelle is a consultant physiotherapist working for the Complex Spinal Team in the Emergency Village of a tertiary spinal referral centre at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. In this podcast, she tells me about: * Managi…

Hi and welcome to the seventh edition of my sciatica newsletter! This week's conversation is with Kate Charlton, a physiotherapist and triathlete from Northumberland, England. Kate has had two nasty episodes of sciatica and in this podcast she tells me about what it was like, what did and didn't work for her, and how she graded her return to sport.…

Hello and welcome to the sixth copy of the newsletter! In my TherapyLive talk I pitched that when we treat radicular pain we should think in terms of nerve health and sensitivity rather than nerve compression (although the former includes the latter!). To illustrate what I mean by "nerve health" I showed pictures from a study by Albrecht et al. in …

Hello everyone! Welcome to the fifth copy of the newsletter. I was delighted to speak with David Butler a couple of weeks ago about nerve root pain. With his permission, I recorded our chat so everyone could listen. And then I realised I’d started a podcast! I’ve avoided the temptation to give it a cringey pun title and just gone with “The Sciatica…

Although water efficiency has been a prominent feature of green building programs for decades, the most dramatic improvements in water use have largely been relegated to regions where drought is common, like California and the mountain West. But with the costs of water rising dramatically across the country, including New York City, our use of this…

In honor of Daylight Hour 2020, we welcome one of the foremost building science engineers in the US to Radio BE-Ex, Steve Selkowitz. As the long time Group Leader of the Windows and Envelope Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Steve has driven the advancement of high performance building envelopes for decades and was a primary force b…

The increasing influence of Passive House in the building industry has led to renewed interested in a host of building materials, from high performance windows to innovative air and moisture control systems, to insulation with very low embodied carbon. Ken Levenson of 475 Building Supply joins our host, Yetsuh Frank, to discuss the application of t…

Although Passive House has been successfully applied to a huge variety of building types, it all started with small residential projects looking to push the envelope on interior comfort and energy efficiency. What is it that makes Passive House such an ideal lens for small residential projects? And how is this appeal different for architects, owner…

New York State has one of the most progressive climate action plans in the country– a commitment to 100 percent carbon free electricity by 2040, and carbon neutrality across all sectors of the economy by 2050. Achieving these mandates will be a major challenge, with the building sector impacted as much as any other component of our highly industria…

As communities across the globe look to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis the role of the built environment will be paramount. How might the buildings we live, work and recreate in improve the transition back to a world not dominated by sheltering in place?By Building Energy Exchange

Few people in North America are more knowledgeable about the implementation of Passive House than our guests for episode 2 of Radio BE-Ex: Lois Arena of Steven Winter Associates, and Monte Paulsen of RDH. Both have been at the forefront of applying Passive House to the largest buildings, and the most diverse typologies, both new construction and de…

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day with an inspiring conversation among industry leaders Sara Neff of Kilroy Realty and Dan Egan of Vornado. Both Kilroy and Vornado have committed to carbon neutrality for all their buildings, in 2020 and 2030 respectively. With high profile portfolios on both the east and west coasts, targeting these goals…

Enjoy!