23 - Alexander Gard-Murray - Passive House Massachusetts
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James: Hello and welcome to Marketing Passive House, the podcast where we hear from architects, designers, builders, suppliers, owners, and other experts in the passive house and high performance building space. We'll be talking about what's working and what's needed when it comes to marketing buildings that meet or aspire to the passive house standard.

James: I'm your host, James Turner, and today I'm joined by Alexander Gard-Murray, Executive Director of Passive House Massachusetts. Alexander, welcome to the show.

Alexander: Thank you so much for having me.

James: It is my pleasure. And so before we get into it, and for people who are just meeting you for the

James: first time, could you share a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you started on your passive house journey?

Alexander: Sure. As you said, I run Passive House Massachusetts, a nonprofit that educates advocates and supports passive house building in the Commonwealth.

Alexander: We have free events every month in person and online. We have free trainings that we bring to people's offices. We conduct research. We basically just try to do anything we can to help people build better buildings in Massachusetts. And what led me to this journey? Well, I used to be an academic I was a political scientist for a long time.

Alexander: I was working, studying climate policy, but I got pulled into building decarbonization through a Twitter thread. The only good thing that came to me on twitter.,

James: The only good thing Twitter's ever done.

Alexander: Yeah. By a guy named Nate Adams, who's now a friend. And it was about how central, one-way ACs all ought to really be two-way heat pumps. And that pulled me into this whole building decarbonization world, becoming more of a, a policy researcher and advocate. But you can't really work on HVAC. And not realize that if you want the big efficiency, climate, affordability gains, it's not enough to just electrify. You also want to tackle demand, and that's what really drew me into passive house, which is pretty much the gold standard for doing that.

James: Cool. Very cool. I love that. I, I love the, the little tendrils of knowledge that go out and snag people in. And that it was Twitter.,

Alexander: Pour one out for energy Twitter.

James: Yeah. Right, right. And also that you're from the policy side, from the the academic side. I think that's really interesting that you, you know, you came to the conclusion that if you really wanna do something, this is the place to make an impact.

James: Is that fair to say?

Alexander: Definitely.

James: Hmm.

Alexander: I was working, looking at a bunch of different policies and then zeroed in on building decarbonization as I think an area where we, there are really big gains to be made and Massachusetts has some really smart policies in place, and now, a lot of it's about implementation and delivering on the promise of those policies.

James: right. And I feel like your, when I, when I came across, like when I decided to call the podcast Marketing Passivhaus, I, I hoped that people would be willing to extend their sort of understanding of marketing to include saying the word passivhaus in a policy meeting and you know, having people over and, you know, casually remarking on how comfortable it is even by the window, you know, in a

Alexander: doing, they're all doing marketing.

James: That's right.

James: Yeah. Marketing as a, a idea spread, not a, not, not like a, you know, I dunno,

Alexander: Well,

James: well as, as well as a, a marketing act.

Alexander: Yeah, we don't think of ourselves obviously as we're, we're not selling something as a nonprofit. We're not you know, just trying to convince people to buy our services. You know, we're communicating with people about the benefits of passive house or the problems that passive house can solve for them.

Alexander: We're communicating with people to help understand how they can deliver these buildings well. But if marketing is just helping people see the, the benefits of something like passive house and that's, that's something we're doing.

James: Nice. Yeah, that's, that's how I see it anyway. I don't, I know it's not probably universal, but it's that, that I can't, I can't think of a better word that encompasses all of those things. Anyway so with that, no, no, you go ahead.

Alexander: Oh, I was just gonna say, I think there's a, his interest, and I think there's a historical idea of marketing. It's not just being about advertising, but of actually creating a market. Right. Thinking about how do you get people to understand that they have demands that maybe they didn't think they had before?

Alexander: And I do think there's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of things that passive house does really well that people need. People know they need intuitively when you talk about to them, but they might not be thinking about it when they're looking around at houses. They might not be thinking, well, how well does this do moisture control and mold control?

James: Right.

Alexander: But we definitely know the difference between that building that does it well and the building that doesn't do it well. But I think it's not always top of mind for people. So I do think part of the passive house story is how helping educate people on all the things they ought to be asking from their buildings.

Alexander: And in that sense, I think the word marketing is really apposite.

James: Yeah. Nice. Excellent. Yeah, I, I kind of, I resisted marketing for a long time. I was very, I'm a very, you know. Anti-establishment ish type, type, type of person. Na, you know, musician and not, not, you know, not full counterculture all the time, but, but definitely questioning things. And then it was finally hit home that, that if you don't do marketing for good ideas, then no one will know about them and the people who need the solutions that these actual things could provide them will, you know, go without, and the people making the solutions will not have the ability to keep making their solutions. And it sort of changed my mind.

Alexander: I think a lot of, in my previous work, there were a lot of times where the interests of, say, environmentalists or efficiency advocates, were in deep tension with commerce and, and, and making money and, and what companies wanted,

James: hmm.

Alexander: it's actually one of the great things about the passive house world is that many of those goals are really well aligned.

Alexander: There are a lot of companies working to make money, whether it's developing buildings or being the architects, or engineers, or selling products, you know, selling great windows or doors and their interests are really well aligned.

Alexander: With the, all the people who want to reduce emissions and increase energy efficiency, all those goals are coming together. And that alignment makes for a really productive, positive community.

James: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's probably worth mentioning at, at this point that bringing them into alignment sometimes requires some regulation, maybe like legislation type of actions, right?

Alexander: I think the, the, the policy actions that Massachusetts has put into place and the incentives. That support passive house building I have been really important for, for catalyzing activity.

James: mm-hmm.

Alexander: I think it's been less about driving that alignment. I think the alignment was already there.

James: Okay.

Alexander: But the standards that cities and towns can voluntarily adopt to require passive house for large multi-family buildings, the incentives you can get through the States' efficiency program, Mass Save, the extra competitiveness for affordable housing incentives. I think all of those have helped reinforce that existing alignment. But it was already there, I think. It's just that a passive house already aligns the interests of people who care about efficiency, who care about the environment, who care about health in buildings with the people who, who are trying to deliver them.

James: Yeah. Nice. So yeah, it's like a, a friction remover. More than a, more than a,

Alexander: Re

James: a, a bump.

Alexander: Removing, removing friction, catalyzing activity, getting everyone pointed in the same direction.

James: Nice. Yeah, and I, I, I've already had multiple conversations where Massachusetts gets held up as the, the sort of the one at the Vanguard.

Alexander: I think the biggest indicator is that a lot of people are building passive house in places in Massachusetts where they don't have to. The incentives are helping, and obviously 30% or more of the state requires it for their large multi-family buildings, but plenty of people are doing it even when they don't have to.

Alexander: You know, the largest passive house office building in the world is in downtown Boston Winthrop Center, and they didn't have to make it a passive house. The code didn't require it, but they chose to go that route.

James: Hmm.

Alexander: And so I think that alignment is there even without the requirements,

James: Nice.

Alexander: But the requirements I think are still really critical for driving that activity, for bringing the whole building community along. Those requirements play an important role.

James: Now in your time. With Passive House Massachusetts, have you had the opportunity to see people go from not knowing to knowing from non-believers to believers or however.

Alexander: I've seen that in a variety of contexts. I mean, I've, I've talked to a lot of people. We did a whole interview program that Beth Campbell, our education program director, led talking to people. Practitioners in the state. And it wasn't so long ago that passive house was uncommon in Massachusetts, right?

Alexander: So almost everyone in the community working now are people who, you know, five, 10 years ago were not building passive house buildings and are now doing it. And so I've seen lots of people go through that transition. And it's really striking when you meet someone. We, someone gave a speech at our symposium in December where, you know, they said, you know, five, 10 years ago they were, they were new to this and now it's basically just their normal.

Alexander: This is how they build, they apply the, the techniques to all their buildings, whether or not they're their passive house or not. They, they apply those techniques because that's just changed the way they operate. This is a general contractor.

James: Wow.

Alexander: So I, I think it definitely many people have, have kind of undergone a transformation with that.

Alexander: And I've also seen it in communities. I've been to cities and towns thinking about adopting requirements and seen people who are skeptical about adopting these requirements. People who are unsure about passive house and, and what it was, or, or why they should want it in, in their towns. And then I've seen them go from skepticism to, to voting in favor and voting to require that. And so I've seen that and it's great to see.

James: Yeah. Any insights? I feel like this is, this is a, a great moment to, to sort of dig into that. If you have any insights on, on what you noticed making people see that, or how, how they, how if, if another person in your position, in a different state or city wanted to try to do what you've seen happen in Massachusetts.

James: Do you have any advice on the best way to go about it?

Alexander: I think there are a number of things that came together to make this work in Massachusetts. The first thing is just Passive House itself, right? Passive House is just. Such a good way to build, such a good standard to meet that. I'm not saying it sells itself. I think marketing passive house is still important, but I think none of this would have happened without the fundamental qualities benefits of passive house.

Alexander: That's, that's the first thing. Then I would say that there was a lot of work to kind of prove Passive House. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center did this great study showing that the cost of building large multifamily Passive House wasn't 10%, wasn't 20% like some people feared, but actually 2 to 3% on average. And I think that helped people open their eyes and see, oh, actually this is achievable. This isn't some pie in the sky thing. This is something that's actually practical. Then that got reinforced with incentives through the Mass Save program, with extra points in the competitive allocation of low income housing tax credits, so affordable housing, and then the creation of the specialized and stretch energy codes, but particularly the, the specialized code. Which requires passive house for large multifamily buildings above 12,000 square feet. I think those were crafted in a really intelligent way such that they were things that cities and towns could adopt and know that they weren't going to blow up what they were trying to do.

Alexander: So, Passive House' qualities. Really good support from the state and, and quasi state agencies. And then finally, just a lot of hard work, a lot of town meetings, a lot of zoom calls by people at Passive House Massachusetts from before my time. Our president Hank Keating, our board our whole community. People from Zero Carbon Massachusetts going town by town, city by city to make the case and to respond to people's concerns.

Alexander: I think all of that was, was really important for, for getting us to where we are today. And of course, the people delivering the projects, right? None of this could happen if the people actually delivering the projects weren't doing such a great job. That kinda brings it full circle 'cause the, the qualities the passive house has are all up to the fact that people are delivering them and meeting this standard and proving it can be done.

James: Making a passive house flywheel, if you will.

Alexander: Yeah.

James: Interesting. That's, I've, I've long wondered, you know, do you just have to get lucky with someone on the inside or, or is there a, a, an effective sort of blueprint for getting codes adopted, getting codes changed and

Alexander: I don't think luck, luck always plays a role in policy change, right? You can identify particular people who, who have been really important to this process. Beverly Craig at Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Ian Finlayson and Paul Ormond at the DOER, Hank Keating at PH Mass. You know, there, there have been a lot of, of critical people that we'd be lucky to have, but I would say. In some ways, the defining characteristics of the Massachusetts experience has been that there are all these interlocking parts. It wouldn't just be enough to have PH Mass pushing say, or to have the incentives. You, it's all these different pieces together and having people pushing on all these different things.

Alexander: So you've got supportive codes, you've got people working to educate, you've got people putting it into the affordable housing system. You've got people doing these demonstration projects. I think it's pushing on these multiple fronts simultaneously that... all those things support each other just like a passive house where all the components are interdependent. It's that same story of, of interdependence across these different activities. So if I was going to, to give advice to people somewhere else, I would say think about how you're creating that interlocking ecosystem of progress. How, how are you pushing on multiple fronts? Because all of those things will help each other over time.

James: Very nice. Well said. And thank you. I'm always slightly, you know, taking notes for myself in the background. Nice. So on the other, on the, the non legislative side of things, on the, on the more person to person side, do you have any, any I'm assuming you you have to explain your job to people who don't know possibly over and over again.

Alexander: My daughter who's two and a half she thinks I'm a building doctor.

James: Oh, nice.

Alexander: So that's, that's my job. I'm a building doctor,

James: Perfect.

Alexander: in communicating about passive house. And I think most of our work is not legislative these days. You know, most of our work is on getting these buildings delivered, helping support people who are delivering them, you know.

James: Mm-hmm.

Alexander: But in communicating about passive house, I think I've really come to see the story of passive house as a story about a affordability. You know, when is the cheapest time to make a building work really well? It's at the beginning. Right. It's when you're designing and building something new. That's the the cheapest, easiest time. And passive house makes so many things more affordable. It's obvious, I think when we think of passive house, I think. Obviously we think about energy use and energy bills and how passive house brings those down, but it also makes a whole host of other things that we really want and need from our buildings more affordable. The our, we want our comfort. We want health, we want resilience, we want durability. And passive house brings those within reach for people. And on top of that, passive house helps affordability for everyone who pays into the grid, not just those who are owning or occupying a passive house. Because passive house limits the growth in peak loads.

James: Yeah.

Alexander: And then on top of that, passive house is really good for affordable housing. And it's really making all those benefits affordable, really bringing down the, the cost of having a good building, of having an electrified, grid. That's, I think the, the story of Passive House, a nd I think an important way to, to understand it. I'm happy to unpack all of that, but that's, that's how I come to it.

James: I like it. I mean, if there's anything that you're particularly thinking of unpacking. I, I, I'm definitely all ears.

Alexander: Yeah. Well, I think one thing I find myself emphasizing is, as I said, I think people, often, when they think about energy efficiency, they think about the building itself, the owners and the occupants. And obviously passive house crushes the heating load, 75 to 90%. It brings down total energy use, you know, roughly 40 to 60%. And that's great if you're owning or occupying a building. But I think because of the focus on that, people don't realize that the benefits extend to everyone on the grid, not just those who are in a Passive House.

James: Right.

Alexander: And that's because of how, how the grid works. So much of our cost of electricity, people are very conscious of electricity costs are going up. And what I think people don't realize is how much of that has to do with serving not just all of our loads, but our peak loads, right? The times when we need the most energy.

Alexander: Because we don't use the same energy every day, right? It changes across days and across seasons. And the biggest seasonal driver is heating and cooling. And this challenge is getting steeper, right? The more we try to electrify our heating, which is something we should do, the more Massachusetts is turning into a state where the, the highest energy demand days are going to be in the winter, and that's going to drive up the cost of our electricity, of our energy. Because we have to have enough infrastructure, power, plants and wires to meet those worst days, the coldest day of the year, but then all that extra infrastructure just sits idle a a lot of the rest of the time. Historically we've just kinda been trapped in that problem, right? If you add more buildings, you're adding more peak load and you're adding, you have to have to pay a bunch more for infrastructure and raise costs for rate payers. And I think something people don't realize is that passive house offers a way to escape this trap because you're adding buildings, but the peak demand, you're not really adding peak load. Or you're adding minimal peak load because the, the heating requirements are so small, so we have a choice as a State.

Alexander: We can either spend, you know, millions on better buildings, or we can spend billions on infrastructure that's gonna sit idle most of the year. And that's crucial to affordability. But I think it's something that people don't spend a lot of time thinking about because they're. Focused on the quite obvious and quite significant energy efficiency benefits within the building. But we can look beyond those and see the, that the benefits go to everybody.

James: That's great. Yeah, I've never, I don't think we've, I've talked about this angle at all. And you know, new Brunswick is further up the east coast, similar, right? Like in the winter, that's when we get hit the hardest. And right now there's even, there's a, there controversy around building a, a natural gas plant.

James: For exactly, for peak loads. And we have a largely electrified grid, so they're kind of, there's a lot of pushback on, you know, hey, let's, let's add gas into our electrified grid. But, you know, anyway, that's, it's a whole other thing, but it, it's exactly because of this, this problem. And,

Alexander: And the great thing about passive house is that it's, it's neutral, right? The, the passive house doesn't care where the energy's coming from, whether it's natural gas or electricity. It's going to be good either way because you're just reducing the needs. So Passive House is agnostic. Which is I think, really helpful.

James: Yep, yep. And I suppose like we were talking about, you can add more buildings without having to add much or if anything, to peak load, but then there's also the potential to retrofit and ultimately reduce peak load maybe. Would that be fair to say? Or is that too big of a lift?

Alexander: I would love to see we, we are seeing retrofits. That are retrofits of existing buildings. We had some exciting projects and I hope we're going to see more of them. They're not required in the code because, you know, I think our focus right now is on the, the places where the easy, the lowest hanging fruit is, which is, you know, new buildings, especially large multi-family buildings.

Alexander: But I am hoping that long term. As we learn to do this better and better, and as the costs come down further and further for, you know, for the components that you put into a passive house, the premium is already pretty small for a new multifamily building. But we are, we do hope that eventually that will make it cheaper to retrofit.

Alexander: 'cause obviously retrofits are more expensive than, than a new building that, that delta to get to passive house. But we hope that that will cost will come down over time.

James: Nice. Yeah, I mean, just thinking in terms of levers to pull, to affect peak load too, right? Like there aren't, there aren't that many and if you're, if you're growing all the time, then unless you're, I dunno, I guess demolishing buildings as you go, that would, that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Alexander: I, yeah, I don't think with our house, with our housing crisis, we're gonna see a lot of,

James: No. Nor should we, nor should we.

Alexander: soon, but yeah. But we do want it to be better.

James: Yeah, definitely. Nice. There's a lot to think about here. I like, I, this is a side that I, I knew that I'd, I'd get to, and I haven't had many chances to talk about, like the sort of bigger picture, the big, the big bigger picture.

Alexander: I think it's natural to focus on the energy efficiency within the building, because that's what the teams are delivering, and that's what the client, or the tenant, or the buyer, that's what they're buying. But I do think when you zoom out, it is important to recognize these broader benefits because it's a big part of the affordability story and how passive house helps affordability for everyone.

James: Nice. Yeah. Great. I, the, the one thing I wanted to, to touch on before we go, I'm conscious of time, but I am curious to know in, in a, in the, like now taking it totally out of your, your taking your, your policy hat off and you're at a, I dunno, a mixer, a downtown business. Hoo-ha. And you're talking to someone and they're like, oh, what do you do?

James: And how, how, what's your way into talking about passive house to, to complete, like people who aren't trying to be interested if you're just, just like in the cold. Do you have any experiences with that?

Alexander: Oh yeah, plenty of experiences.

James: I figured.

Alexander: The other day I was talking to somebody and we were, we were at a, we were at a cafe, we were at a coffee shop, and I happened to have like a, i, I had brought my own, you know, thermos and, and they had gotten a little disposable cup and I said, well, you know, passive house is kind of like. The difference between your disposable cup and my thermos. You know, if we walk out in the snow, you know who, whose drink is gonna stay warm longer. Of course passive house, you also need to breathe. You can't breathe in a thermos. So you've got some efficient ventilation as well, but you know that, that captured their interest. But usually I begin by asking people what they care about in buildings. What do they like about buildings?

James: Mm.

Alexander: Because most of the things that passive house delivers are things that everybody wants, right? Everyone wants their buildings to be healthy. Everyone wants them to be comfortable, resilient, durable. They want to avoid smells. You know, they don't want mold growth. Those, there's usually something that links to people's interests. And if you ask somebody, you know, what do you care about in buildings, they'll usually bring up something. Like, they'll say, ah, you know, the building I live in right now is nice, but the basement is full of this icky mold that I hate.

Alexander: You know? And so almost everyone I talk to, I think everybody I talk to has something they dislike about their existing building or something that they wish they had that passive house provides.

James: Hmm.

Alexander: So I don't find it hard if you just ask people what, what do you want out of your buildings? That, that usually provides a, a pretty easy way in.

James: Amazing. That's great. And that, that slots in perfectly with my. That's, I dunno, my, my, my raison d'etre of just talk, talk to people and listen to them and especially with Passive House, It, it, it just, it provides, it's, it really does.

Alexander: Yeah, find out what they want. Right.

Alexander: The other thing I was gonna say is that I think passive house has helped me think differently about efficiency. There's a tendency to think about efficiency in terms of what we call simple payback, right? If I spend X more dollars to make a building more efficient, how many years will it take to earn that money back? And passive house buildings tend to do pretty well by that metric, but the problem is why, do we stop? You know, say it pays back in six years. Why do we stop in six years if you're continuing to save money? Those savings that don't end when they pay back the initial investment, they keep accumulating. And if energy prices rise as they have been doing quite significantly lately, they accumulate even faster. So I think when we think about the financial implications of efficiency and of of passive house building, I think it's important not just to think about how many years until this pays itself back.

Alexander: That's a good place to start. But what is the long-term performance? How much are we actually earning long term? Relative to the, the baseline where we didn't spend on efficiency? And, and thinking of it as a, a financial investment that keeps paying off well into the future, I think is important for fully understanding how it affects the bottom line.

James: That's a really good point. Yeah. Like the, the whole ROI, it doesn't just have to get down to zero. Right? That's not. That's, that's great. It's a really good observation. You can, you, you could look at it if you know the longer then, then it's like a game, right? The longer you stay in the house, the, the more money you save or whatever.

James: It's like the.

Alexander: Steve Hennigan from Credit Human gave a terrific keynote about this at, at Phius Con last year. I think the more people who realize that this is an investment, the better off they'll be.

James: Nice. It, that makes me think of Beth Eckenrode of AUROS Group. She talks about the building's optimum performance. So she's talking in terms of the sort of opportunity cost of not like how much money are you leaving on the table by not reaching the optimum performance of your building?

Alexander: Yes, and you're locking yourself when you build a building that uses way more energy than it needs to heat. You're locking yourself into that for a long time. And you can retrofit it later, but that's gonna be more costly. So, yeah, I, I think, yeah, thinking about that opportunity cost is a great way to frame it.

James: This has been great. And before we go, where can people find out more about you online?

Alexander: I would encourage anyone to visit us at PH Mass dot org.

James: Excellent. Well, thanks so much for joining me today.

Alexander: Thank you so much. It's been great.

James: Same. You've been listening to Marketing Passive House. I'm James Turner, and I hope you'll join me again next time. I.

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