Gillian Giem: Rapidly Reducing Buildings' Carbon Footprint

Speaking of Resilience

This episode of the Speaking of Resilience Podcast was recorded right before Governor Whitmer announced and signed her climate executive directive, which sets a goal for the State of Michigan to be carbon neutral by 2050, and to cut emissions by 28% within 5 years. These goals are economy-wide, meaning our electricity generation, transportation sector, and the heating and cooling of our buildings must all be carbon neutral. We can think of these as three pieces of the pie.

Achieving these goals and doing it equitably is possible and is necessary if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. In today’s episode we are going to talk about how to rapidly reduce the carbon footprint of our buildings, and focusing on Grand Rapids, which has been leading a lot of this work in MI.

Our guest is Gillian Giem, the Program Manager for the U.S. Green Building Council of West Michigan, where she works to accelerate equitable investment in Michigan's carbon drawdown through smart energy management, mobility, and the adoption of high-performance buildings. We talk about how green buildings not only make a huge impact on reducing climate pollution, but also save money and can enormously improve people’s quality of life. And we talk about specific programs Gillian works on like the Michigan Battle of the Buildings, bilingual Energy Assistance Program, and Grand Rapids Zero Cities Project.

Watch this episode on Youtube

Speaking of Resilience is created by the Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities and the Michigan Climate Action Network. This episode was produced by Miriam Owsley and Jeff Smith, hosted by Kate Madigan.