12 - Enrico Bonilauri - Emu Passive
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James: [00:00:00] 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 Enrico Bonilauri, architect trainer, passive house certifier, and the CEO of Emu Passive Enrico. Welcome to the show.

Enrico: Thank you, James for having me.

James: My pleasure. Thanks for being here. So before we get into it, and for people who are just meeting you for the first time, could you share a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you started on your passive house journey?

Enrico: Yes, the journey has been long and varied. We founded the company, Emu, in Italy about 15 years ago as an architectural practice, soon we discovered passive house as the building science handrail [00:01:00] to guide our design decisions. And so I became certified in around 2010 ish. As a consultant. , And after that we also realized that you can design the most pretty buildings and the most passive buildings that you'd like, but if you don't have anyone to build them on site that quality stays on table. And that's something that I have a little bit on design certified Passive House Plus because really the quality. Needs to be built to meet the standard. when we moved the company to Colorado in around 2016 ish, we stopped practicing architecture and we started focusing on builder training.

Enrico: And now we focus on integrated passive design build training, where we try to bring together builders and architects to work together and to talk to each other. So that is kind of how we became. Probably the main hands-on training [00:02:00] providers for Passive House in the US. I have become a certifier over the years. We do little bit of Passive House consulting, but we really try to focus on those trainings. 'cause we need a lot of that to, in order to, for passive house to take on.

James: Absolutely. Oh, that's great. Yeah. That, that's kind of the, the first time I saw Emu passive, I was like, ah, like, it, it, it's totally, it's, it's, you know, I think of education is marketing and training is marketing and lobbying is marketing. So I used the term marketing very. Broadly, and I think what you're doing is exactly like, yes, you're providing training, but you're also providing the idea that, hey, there's this other way this, right.

James: Like

Enrico: We, we, we made a conscious decision about 10 years ago. We were designing a few passive house buildings at the time, we sat down and we asked ourselves if we were having a big enough impact by designing [00:03:00] buildings, and the answer we gave ourselves at the time was no. And so we decided to get into education as a way to propagate ideas and methodologies that, beyond the certification of individual buildings, just allow people to become better professionals, both on the design and construction side. And so that is a more durable and longer lasting impact for the construction industry overall to grow and to learn about, not just about passive house itself, but like more advanced building science, greater value for occupants and developers and anybody involved. Passive house allows for buildings to be considerably more healthy and durable with greater indoor quality than code-built buildings. In fact, something that we do focus on. In our training is really trying to understand how bad building code is for, for not just energy efficiency, but also for air quality, or thermal [00:04:00] comfort or lack thereof because that allows people to become trained to talk the language and convince their clients to do better, even in places where legislation is not requiring passive house yet. So that is kind of like our mission is to bring the most advanced building science to mainstream construction.

James: Nice. Well, how and how's it going?

Enrico: We have passed 1000 people trained in the US. We have a challenge that we set for ourselves to train 5,000 builders by 2030. that is an ambitious goal, but I think we're gonna make it. We also provide a lot of free presentations. So if you go to emupassive.com and look for our calendar, you will find. Several, free presentations about specific topics air quality, windows and thermal comfort, building retrofits. [00:05:00] This is just free presentations that we have , but we do a lot of that research. We use our consulting projects to do also climate specific research and project specific research.

Enrico: We have one, for example, on passive house and warm climates so we talk a lot about topics that may not be the canonical possible principle introductory. We do a lot of more advanced research and we share that with those free presentations. So that kind of helps us elevate the conversation, not just about passive house itself, but about building science in North America overall.

James: Mm. And so do those free sessions act as a sort of like a, a funnel, if you will, like, are they sort of bring in a, a larger number of people and then a few of those people go take the next step? Is that

Enrico: Yeah, it's, a funnel. But it's more a funnel for the passive house concept overall. They're intended as a research and they're really intended for, [00:06:00] to cover specific topics. So I don't think we have ever given a Passive House 101 or a basic presentation because there's plenty of information like that out there. Throughout our evolution as a company, we have learned what different people in different companies look for in their projects.

James: Hmm.

Enrico: Talking about Windows, for example, we had a project in Gunnison, Colorado, a very cold climate where the client was a CPA, so very focused on return on investment, money — naturally so, and I was trying to convey how passive house windows were better. By means of, I was talking about U values, like, oh, but the U value of point 14 is better. Like, yeah, but what's the payback? The dollars like. I was framing the, the topic in a completely wrong way,

James: Hmm.

Enrico: not about energy. It's not about energy.

Enrico: It's [00:07:00] sometimes about money, but less so than we would expect. It's about health, comfort, durability needs. And so I, in that conversation, I flipped the conversation well with a code-minimum window in Gunnison, Colorado Climate Zone seven, very cold climate. You're gonna be cold.

Enrico: As opposed to having a high performance passive house window, you're gonna be not cold. And, and she would not believe that. Like, whatcha talking about I'm buying a brand new window, my expectation is to be warm That's, that expectation is misplaced. then I, I went on my rant about windows and code minimum, but basically I had to frame the conversation in a way that would be important to the audience in the case that. That homeowner really talking about you by means of the passive house building science, you can calculate window, the surface temperature on the inside of a window [00:08:00] depending on. the performance of the window and the local climate, and if you convert the U value, I was insisting on to degrees. She finally understood and once she understood, there was no questions.

Enrico: It was passive house windows. They, it was, the project was not intended to be certified, but it was an investment that she was doing to, to have a new home, to have a comfortable space and once she understood the value, there was no question. She went for it. So that is how I had to reframe the way I was talking about building science in a way that the audience could understand that then that is very important if we're trying to push for passive house or better, better building practices overall.

James: Absolutely. Yeah, that, that was kind of what drew me to. It in the first place. Like I, I'm a marketer, I'm a copywriter. I think about the voice of the customer. I think about the audience a lot. You know, like you can say the same thing differently depending on who's the [00:09:00] buyer and who's gonna influence the buyer

Enrico: Mm-hmm.

James: and so on.

James: And I, I felt like that that's, it's a, it's a, it's a, a marvelously rich subject, passive house because there's so many different angles. It's not just like this one, one solution.

Enrico: Mm-hmm.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: back to your question about the free presentations being funnel, they they are, but it's more trying to explicit how bad current building practices are, and how are how better they can be, depending on different metrics, whether it is, uh, air quality or building retrofits or decarbonization, electrification.

Enrico: There's, you know, there's a ton of different metrics, so there's not one conversation that fits them all,

James: Yeah.

Enrico: but it's really intended to, show what is not working right now and how more advanced building science can solve problems depending on specific topics. So this, that is how we generate those free presentations.

James: Nice. Do you find the different [00:10:00] audiences and I'm not trying to, you know, peek too far behind the curtain, but do you, do you find that the different audiences have different. Pain points that are the strongest, like do you find, like if you run a session on walls, you get this type of person window?

James: Like is there some kind of correlation that you've noticed or

Enrico: I have seen a lot of different, sorry. I have seen, in those presentations we do see. A different ocean audience attending depending

James: I.

Enrico: topic. Like when we talk about windows, we do get a lot of architects. We do get a lot of developers.

James: Hmm.

Enrico: when we talk about construction defects, we get more builders in, in

James: Right.

Enrico: So there is a topic driven audience type. I found outside of those presentations, but on social media, is that the same exact post? We'll have dramatically different outcomes, whether it is on LinkedIn or Instagram[00:11:00]

James: Oh my.

Enrico: and the, the, and it's, you know, it's social media. So we build our own echo chambers in a way.

James: Yes. Yes.

Enrico: And on, I guess the content we have is more technical, so we are. Widely successful on LinkedIn where you have a lot of design architects, engineering kind of network. When we post the same data, like literally, I mean data by numbers and graphs on Instagram, it's crickets. You know, and when we, instead, when we post photos of details for like, Hey, tape this way, or air seal the other way, wildly the popular on Instagram is more visual, but less data driven opposed to LinkedIn, the same taping detail may maybe like my, my cousin may put a like, but my cousin, very nice. But, know, so I, I found that [00:12:00] pattern between the two different platforms and those are the two main platforms that we use. We don't use TikTok. We don't, we used to use Twitter like 10, 15 years ago. We don't anymore.

James: That's fair.

Enrico: Instagram and, and LinkedIn, we get very different outcomes with the same content.

James: That's very interesting. It struck me as you were saying that the the Instagram would be like the the how, and LinkedIn would be the why maybe.

Enrico: Very fair.

James: Yeah,

Enrico: that's very fair. And, and LinkedIn is definitely more design oriented. Not, not, not just aesthetics, but the, again, the why or engineering opposed to Instagram is a lot more visual, like videos of the actual construction.

James: Right.

Enrico: But the post that we have on post or stories or reels on Instagram that we do with the data. People don't care.

James: Yeah. Yeah. They didn't come on Instagram to look at charts, right? They, yeah,

Enrico: no. That's not what they're looking for.

James: That's interesting. And so I was curious, do [00:13:00] you get people inquiring about this is totally off? I don't, I dunno, but do you get people inquiring about your services? Like not training? Like does Insta, I wonder if Instagram attracts more like clients, more homeowner type people who would see something cool and be like, oh, that's.

Enrico: That's a good question. Our business is driven a lot by word of mouth,

James: Hmm.

Enrico: and I think Instagram helps realize the memory of email that people have. And

James: Right.

Enrico: about. Projects or training that we have people. Oh yeah, of course it's email. Then they may share that and they may refer people to us. LinkedIn is a definitely different crowd. I think we are getting more, validity by

James: Hmm.

Enrico: on LinkedIn because it's more technical, but our client base, I think, comes to us really from [00:14:00] a word of mouth perspective.

James: Right, right. In the trainings, so something that I've, I've been curious about too, is that at the, like what level of engagement maybe a person has, but, so do you find that you get a company will buy up spots and get you to train their workers, or do you get individual people who are like working a job but want to kind of.

James: Learn a skill on the side.

Enrico: We have a very wide range

James: Mm-hmm.

Enrico: we have individuals from carpenter, architect, homeowner owner builders all the way to. Larger contractors that book up the entire training for the long internal training purposes. So we have the full spectrum

James: Hmm.

Enrico: as a buildup. About half of the people that come and take the training are builders,

James: Mm.

Enrico: either GCs or project managers, site supervisors. About a third are active and [00:15:00] designers, the rest is product, labs, homeowners, developers, pretty much any, anything else.

James: Other.

Enrico: Yeah. But the, we, we have public bootcamps where one can come and take the training themselves or the team of 3, 4, 5 people. We have teams that come in like 10 or 12 and above that we have companies that book private training sessions for the bigger team.

Enrico: So it kinda depends on what the company needs really.

James: Right. Yeah, I've seen those. The, the personal I'm, I'm forever now, you know that I'm in more of the passive house world. I, I hate, I have to click the other box. There's no, there's never a box for like, podcast host or it's like I am a homeowner. I'm not, I'm not close to doing anything with my home, but that's the, the closest fit.

James: And I'm like, but you know, I, I hope to make it to one of your boot camps. Yeah. At some point.

Enrico: I, I look forward to

James: Yep. [00:16:00] Yep. Have you noticed I mean a, a, a trend trends of who's taking what, and also just in general an, an uptake or whatever, since you started the, the trainings in, you know, almost 10 years ago, go.

Enrico: So to give you an idea, I, I love numbers. The first year we provided the training was 2017, and in the whole year we trained 15 people. In one bootcamp in Denver a month ago, we trained 30 people in one session.

James: And one.

Enrico: This year we're expecting to train about 250 people across the US so definitely greater interest and greater penetration.

Enrico: There's also a lot more money locally available for workforce development than there was 10 years ago,

James: Interesting.

Enrico: and that comes from. Different states, different cities. Sometimes the utilities pay for the, for the training. So there's [00:17:00] definitely more interest in more advanced building science education. As far as composition. Of the classes. I'm, I'm the one that, that cleans up the numbers in the background, so I'm trying to remember. We definitely see more professional training, but that's, that may be a consequence of how we are framing our narrative as a company.

James: Right. Right. Well, that's cool. Do you ever do collaborations with state or utility companies? Like do you ever, do you ever approach them or do they approach you?

Enrico: that is

James: Or is this too much?

Enrico: well, we have, for example, one of the biggest. Deals that we have right now going on is that Excel, the electrical utility in Denver now reimburses 90% of the training fees for, for our passive house workshops to [00:18:00] people, to professionals that operate in the territory in Colorado.

James: Wow.

Enrico: something that I poke them. Last year. Year. But it was an ongoing conversation really.

James: Hmm

Enrico: already of s, was a couple of people that were highly engaged with the passive house community,

James: hmm.

Enrico: talking was more just tipping over the needle, but it's something they were already planning on

James: Right.

Enrico: We have plans to engage with other utilities and, and other states and counties and cities because now we have a history of, hundreds of people trained with the performance of the training, the after the fact outcomes. So there's a lot of solid data proving that that is a solid path to help decarbonize or meeting decarbonization goals for depending on who the entity is.

James: That's awesome. Yeah. I, I make, and it's, it's neat that you're now, well, that it's, it's sort [00:19:00] of widespread enough that at the, at those higher levels, there's, there's interest. Like they, they realize, hey, if we build all our houses better, we'll use less energy. They'll last longer. That kind of.

Enrico: It is still fairly checkerboard. So there is areas that is where the local support is a lot stronger, starting of course with Massachusetts and their massive goals and the stretch code in. We had a fair amount of development in Colorado and California recently. Other, other, states are behind. They're catching up. Like there's new incentives in Austin, Texas, for example,

James: Okay.

Enrico: Seattle. There, there is something like, there is movement. But it is very, it's not coordinated because. The federal level is not really leaning this way.

James: No, no. That's fair to say.

Enrico: Yeah.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: but there's a lot of grassroots and, and movement [00:20:00] and smaller municipalities and states have their own goals, and that is, we see that happening right now more so than 10 years.

James: That's great. Yeah. I think, yeah. What I find so fascinating too is that no matter what angle you are, like, no matter how you're a stakeholder in the energy decarbonization, having a house, being in a house. No matter where you fit in that I feel like passive house is kind of the best answer to almost all.

James: Would you say that's fair? Like

Enrico: I think it answers a lot of needs in a adult way, in,

James: Hmm.

Enrico: way. I

James: I,

Enrico: in an engineering mature way

James: hmm.

Enrico: More so than. Looking at check boxes and, you know, some LEED, for example, was groundbreaking 25 years ago, but now you can kind of fudge meeting certain goals by [00:21:00] adding bike racks or, you know, ose passive house. Does not address many things, does not address transportation, does not address embodied carbon, for example. But you can weave those other goals into the passive house standard because it is so performance based and you can make very strong decisions as long as you meet the performance.

James: Hmm. Okay. I like that. That's a, that's a great answer to that, that line of thought. I think, you know, I'm, I'm not as skilled or knowledgeable in the industry, so I.

Enrico: Well, I'm, I'm also referring to, you know, if you spend time on Instagram, you, you come across BSM beer groups that, you know, they have some great goals of spreading knowledge about building science.

James: Mm.

Enrico: And that's, that's great because otherwise the conversation about building science is limited to building code.

Enrico: And building code is extremely behind on many [00:22:00] things. if you want to get to certain level of performance or if you want to make informed decisions, you do need to look at the actual performance. And that is where the bs and b approach is kind of limited because in just using. Kind of check boxes or more advanced checkbox check boxes than building code.

Enrico: You kind of lose sight of things actually perform.

James: Right.

Enrico: an example of this is at looking at thermal bridging. You know, thermal bridging is bad. Yes, everybody knows that. But there's a ton of thermal bridging that you can actually live with and not care about, you know,

James: Hmm.

Enrico: opposed to other thermal bridging that are bad. And the good or bad comes back to what we are trying to do. One side is meeting the carbonization goal and the performance goals, but really the biggest and worst effect of a thermal bridge is that by allowing [00:23:00] extra heat to escape to the outside, it allows for lower surface temperatures on the inside, which opens the ground not just for condensation, but also mold to develop.

James: Mm.

Enrico: And that is something that passive house addresses in a very adult way, because sometimes you do need to have thermal bridges because maybe it's a remodel, maybe it's some structural

James: Right.

Enrico: it provides you the tools to assess whether it is a risk for health or not.

James: Hmm.

Enrico: is how you can avoid mold and condensation. And so, wood frame thermal bridging, who cares? And it like, because the impact is so small from a mold and moisture standpoint, and also from the thermal bridging or from the energy performance. If you look at the actual numbers, it's very limited as opposed to: steel beam cutting from the inside to the [00:24:00] outside because the architect wanted to have an overhang with no columns. And then you have literally a vein coming down that beam because it's, it's a huge, massive thermal bridge.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: And I, I say that based on 15 years of thermal bridge modeling, if, if you look me up on LinkedIn or YouTube, we have a ton of information out there just because this is part of the overall research and plus. Is so glaring. The outcomes that is is something we're trying to push and promote with our training.

James: Hmm.

Enrico: If you look at the passive house principle, if you look at on social media, you find different ways to mitigate the thermal bridge of a wood stud, is like. Who cares? I mean, the impact, impact is very small.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: And at the, on the same conversation, you're going to find flashing details using aluminum, steel, copper, those are very bad thermal bridges. [00:25:00] And there's an tunnel vision on water management that is kind of old.

James: Hmm.

Enrico: In that there are better ways to address that than metal flashing these days. and to stick to some aluminum flashing details or steel flashing details, you have a lot of risk for mold and condensation. But if you only look at the one metric that is water management, they look great. But if you look at mold and condensation, they look extremely bad.

James: Right.

Enrico: that is when I refer, I'm referring to using a more adult approach to building science, like more holistic.

James: Mm.

Enrico: Passive house provides you the, those tools, even if you're not trying to certify your project.

James: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it comes down to its performance. It's not, is there a thermal bridge? Yes. No,

Enrico: Thermal bridge is any corner, any stud, any, there's... Thermal bridging is [00:26:00] embedded in the concept of insulation. So there, there are going to be thermal bridges.

James: Right.

Enrico: It's how bad those are and how, which ones do we choose to mitigate and which ones we don't. Because there's a budget in terms of time, resources, money, you cannot mitigate. The only way to have a completely thermal bridge-free construction is a sphere with no corners, no doors, no windows. You're basically living inside a basketball.

James: Yes, yes.

Enrico: Don't wanna do that. Sorry.

James: Suspended with magnets

Enrico: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just

James: inside a frame.

Enrico: know?

James: Yeah, yeah,

Enrico: You know.

James: right.

Enrico: But

James: Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah. It's kind of like it's a human thing. I think you, you get to sort of 95% and it it good enough for anyone and everyone, and then there's this like obsession with the last what if, what if we could make it absolutely 100% perfect and.

Enrico: yeah.

James: It's not [00:27:00] really worth it for the lived experience, probably, I would say.

Enrico: Well, it's, it's not realistic, and so in having to, like, design is a compromise. You know, you have different priorities and different and one thing that may come across for, from just looking at passive house principles is, oh, I have to eliminate all thermal bridges. And like, that's not true.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: We have built and designed passive house projects with plenty of minuscule thermal bridges and who cares? Like they are up, they've been up for 10 years. Performance is great. There's no mold or condensation. Energy bills are low. And so in a way, the advanced building science allow you, allows you to drive the decisions throughout the process,

James: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Enrico: you know 'cause. There's gonna be imperfections, there's gonna be like, again, the hardest thing is to build these things.

James: Right.

Enrico: So, if you see some design [00:28:00] certified passive house project, that that doesn't mean anything.

Enrico: In my opinion it's like, oh, you did a great drawing, cool, you know? And do people live in the drawing, like, what are we trying to do?

Enrico: Is, is this a design competition? Is this the construction industry? I think we're trying to improve the construction industry overall.

James: Mm, mm-hmm. The actual lived built environment, not just the what's possible type of thing.

Enrico: We can get philosophical. There was an architect in the 1800s in France that was famous for these visionary designs with like pyramids on the moon and balls and whatever. Never built a home. Never built anything. Is that a good architect? Like I think he was great painter.

James: Hmm.

Enrico: Are those buildings, those are drawings, it doesn't mean anything.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: I see a lot of design certified passive house design certified projects on social media and until the rubber hits the road, that doesn't mean anything.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: You [00:29:00] know, so

James: A good, a good note for sure.

Enrico: I guess it is, it is my PTSD from 10 years or so in spent on Italian construction sites, which is like, hmm. Yeah.

James: Not the best place for

Enrico: Oh, you, you learn a lot.

Enrico: I'm not gonna lie. You learn a lot on how to manage expectation and people intentionally so they actually do deliver what they're supposed to.

James: nice. Nice.

Enrico: Yeah. And then I cannot speak more than that.

James: That's fair.

James: One, one thing that I like, this feels like we've covered a lot of ground. I just wondered if you had any like objection-countering. I feel like a lot of marketing is objection-countering. And do you have any sort of hot takes on sort of the most common things that people.

James: Throw back to you that you're like, no, no, no. And

Enrico: So with us primarily focusing on training moreso than the cost of training, it is the time of the training that we get objections about. [00:30:00] Our core training is the hands-on training. We work on builder training and that consists of two days of theory, two days of hands-on, and then half a day of the, of the exam. And that is four and a half days. That is, is hard for working professionals to take off or to send their employees to take. So that is is the biggest pushback we have since last year. We have introduced an hybrid format where the first two days you can take on demand. So the actual demand for in-person is two and a half days as opposed to four and a half.

James: Right.

Enrico: It is an investment. It is a significant amount of time, even if it is just two and a half days. There is time that our brains need to develop and retain those ideas.

James: Mm.

Enrico: College degree takes three years, four years. Same with the trade school. You know we cannot make it shorter. There is a hands-on component that we cannot make [00:31:00] on demand online.

James: Right.

Enrico: and so. To counter that objection of being taking too long, like we have created the hybrid format. But more than that, you, you can give up the hands-on portion. You can take the training completely online. We offer that tool, but it is definitely a less enriching experience because a lot of these Umhmm. To work in the field, there's only so much you can learn from a PowerPoint.

James: Yeah.

Enrico: It's the same concept as, as the architect, from the 1800s that there was just doing great drawings but never built anything. You cannot really learn how to air seal by looking at the PowerPoint deck, you know?

James: Yeah.

Enrico: so there is some need to be in person and to go through those processes and, and to try out different products and to try out different details to see what works.

Enrico: And that's kind of. What you have to pay to become an [00:32:00] expert in this.

James: Right. You just have to do it.

Enrico: Yeah,

James: Yeah,

Enrico: yeah. Unfortunately, you cannot buy five gallons of experience and then drink it overnight. It'll be awesome, but like, I've never seen it at Costco or Walmart or anywhere. You just don't get to do that.

James: Indeed so. Well this has been great. Before we go, where is the best place for people to find more about you and Emu Passive Online?

Enrico: So our website is emupassive.com. That is where you can find the information about training that we offer. I am fairly active on LinkedIn, so if you go to LinkedIn and look for Enrico Bonilauri, you will find me or Emu passive. You will find the company.

James: Nice.

Enrico: are also active on Instagram, but someone else is managing that account. But you will find more photos of projects and training on on Instagram. So those are the three [00:33:00] main ways you can find us. You can also find us on YouTube. The thermal bridge analysis I was referring to, if you go to YouTube and look for Emu Passive, you'll find us there.

James: Awesome, and I'll link to all those in the show notes, and if you want the why go for LinkedIn and if you want the how go for Instagram. Yeah.

Enrico: Correct.

James: Awesome. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Enrico: Well, thank you for your time and thank you for listening.

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