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Ep. 25: Catalytic Enabling Officer (CEO) at GPEKS Group – The King of Green Development
53 Plays1 month ago
“We’ve reached the stage where we need to be more than green, we need to be more than sustainable, which is an upgrade from green, we need to become regenerative.”
The future of sustainability isn’t only about doing less harm—it’s about reversing damage. Regenerative design takes this challenge head-on, integrating nature-positive strategies in construction, energy, and agriculture to create systems that not only sustain but actively improve the environment. By shifting away from conventional materials like concrete, steel, and timber—which contribute heavily to carbon emissions and deforestation—there’s a massive opportunity to build homes and infrastructure that are healthier, longer-lasting, and energy-independent. The key? Using abundant, locally sourced materials like compressed earth bricks and integrating passive solar design, renewable energy, and closed-loop food production systems.
Frederic Pouyot is a pioneer in regenerative construction, advocating for building systems that are cost-effective, durable, and fully energy-autonomous. His projects blend earth-based building techniques with advanced energy solutions, creating communities that generate more energy than they consume. His approach challenges the outdated paradigms of conventional construction, proving that regenerative housing can be built faster, at half the cost, and with a fraction of the environmental footprint. He is also involved in large-scale projects integrating solar energy and sustainable transportation, including a high-speed, elevated rail system.
Frederic is the Dean of the International Real Estate Development Institute, President of E3 Habitat, and CEO of GPEKS. With a background spanning solar energy, international development, and regenerative architecture, he has consulted for governments, utilities, and organizations like the World Bank. Now, he’s turning decades of research into action, developing regenerative housing communities and infrastructure projects across Canada and beyond.
Learn more & connect:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frederic-pouyot
- Earth Construction NGO: E3habitat.org
- Executive Master in Green Land Development: https://sites.google.com/view/iredi/
- Development Company: gpeks.com
- “The Ploughman’s Folly” by Edward H. Faulkner
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10241734-plowman-s-folly
- “Common Ground” documentary
https://www.12lawsofnature.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Regenerative Development
00:00:00
Speaker
We've reached the stage where you know we need to be more than green, more than sustainable. We need to become regenerative, not just energy efficient buildings or better agriculture. We need better than sustainable developments. We need to go into regenerative development. We need to reverse the damage that's been done to the earth.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Regenerative Design Podcast. I'm your host, Mathieu Mehuys, and in this show, I interview the leading authorities in the world of regenerative practices.
00:00:29
Speaker
People who do good and do well. Are you a person that cares about your environment and our planet? Are you a person that wants to leave the planet to our children to be something that we can be truly proud of?
00:00:42
Speaker
Something to enjoy for many generations to come. But are you also a person that believes we can do all of this and do good in business? Well, I have really good news for you.
Podcast Focus and Guest Introduction
00:00:54
Speaker
You're here listening to the podcast that is all about making our planet a better place and making your business more successful. Enjoy the show.
00:01:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Regenerative Design Podcast with your host Mathieu Meheuys. Today we have another great guest. His name is Frédéric Pouillot. ah He's the Dean of the International Real Estate Development Institute.
00:01:22
Speaker
He's also the President of the Board of Directors at e three Habitat, a company that's focusing on creating the regenerative materials for the construction industry.
00:01:33
Speaker
And he's also the CEO of JPEX, ah another company that's actually focusing on real estate developments, also energy production and transportation.
00:01:45
Speaker
So that's a whole mouthful. Frederik, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Excellent. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad and excited to and your show Yeah, me too. um We already had a bit of a conversation before this episode, so I really ah admire the work you do when it comes on to green development.
00:02:05
Speaker
Now, let's we'll we'll definitely dive deeper into that today a lot about how people can actually start developing ah green infrastructure for higher economical profits as well.
00:02:18
Speaker
So I'm very curious to go there. But first off, tell me your your backstory. Where did everything start? like ah How did you grow up and and how did you come to be the man you are today?
Frédéric's Environmental Journey
00:02:30
Speaker
Well, I was born and raised in France. I was born in the center of France, Massif Central region. And um I grew up, my family was ah very um ah sensitive to the environment. My father was um ah revolted against ah nuclear energy in France and I think that had an impact.
00:02:55
Speaker
um and um I was quite concerned actually yeah when I grew up seeing the the number of incidents and um as you may know like France had actually the per capita the most ah nuclear capacity installed in the world but not the biggest in total capacity but ah bigger than Japan or per capita or or the US which has a lot of coal which France pretty much banked all out on on nuclear energy and um that scared me and I was also when I grew up a very nice saw the the pollution and from the factories and that that was something that i really touched me and and just wanted to do something about it.
00:03:39
Speaker
So ah that prompted me to study in the area of green building and and green energy. And um so that's how I started. ah And um then I realized that if I really wanted to make impact, the problems were not so much technical as they were business-wise.
00:04:05
Speaker
people, there was a need for awareness. I thought i should go into a business. So after studying architecture and engineering related to green building, I studied, I went to business school and um I then I started to to work. um I worked for the largest solar energy company in France, Solaire de France.
00:04:27
Speaker
I actually was hired to ah do the um one of the biggest campaigns for solar energy. I was approached, and when I finished the university, um ah yeah i was approached by the the association ah Actually, well, our our university was approached by the the Solar Industry Association at the time called Helioplan.
00:04:50
Speaker
um So I volunteered. i Basically, I yeah said I was interested and i so I met them. And ah so that about- In what year was that?
Transition to Consulting and Renewable Energy
00:05:00
Speaker
That was in the eighty s And the 80s already doing solar. Wow.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah. So i yeah I got a budget. And so I did a basically, i um they give me a budget for ah transportation. But I actually bought ah a truck, a little truck in which I put solar energy equipment.
00:05:21
Speaker
And I organized and reserved um on 55 places, public places, from Monte Carlo all the way to Spain all along the coast and every day at five o'clock in the morning I was in public markets organizing displays and so I had I had spent a few months first of all from Marseille I was the association was located in Palais de la Bourse in Marseille just on there on the Vieux Port de Marseille was a very experienced that's why I did all the organization there with the the president of the Helioplan at the time.
00:05:56
Speaker
And then, ah yeah, then I yeah basically ah got my truck and and got all the manufacturers to double up the but government subsidy that was available through the association and also to give equipment to to display.
00:06:13
Speaker
And so I went on ah public places, basically, um And I spent the greatest part of the day doing that for 55 days. And um as a result of that, um the the the largest solar energy company was so impressed with my passion and my dedication on that that they helped me right away.
00:06:35
Speaker
Wow. And um we did the way we… that was first on ah on a voluntary basis and… And only then you got the job? No, I was actually paid. I was well the i was wellpaid actually, to do that ah that campaign.
00:06:50
Speaker
but um Then you got ah another formal formal position in the company. and Yeah, but that was a contract. who So that was just a temporary job, a contract type of thing. I was not an employee. was was subcontracting.
00:07:04
Speaker
um So I did that. And... um Then I realized, well, really, if I want to really make a big impact, I really need to spread the world ah internationally.
00:07:17
Speaker
So I went back to school. um I went to a school in the University in Nice, where I studied ah two things there actually i studied international trade at basically a branch of the Institute d'Administration d'Entreprise called ITEX Institute des Techniques d'Exportation and at the same time also I studied international public policies at the European Institute for High International Studies which is actually is a Belgium based organization none of this exists but yeah they had two locations one in in Belgium and one in ah in East France
00:07:54
Speaker
So, um yeah I studied at the time the policies of the European ah Economic Zone and all that, and that's, or, you know, that actually, yeah, Europe the way it is right now.
00:08:06
Speaker
um Because I thought it was also important to know understand public policies and to influence them. Yes. so And ah when I finished my yeah my so my yeah school, which by the way, i just came out top of the class with special honors and the dean of the the school.
00:08:29
Speaker
mother but It was great to get recognition. yeah um Especially since I was doing those two programs at the same time. Same thing actually when I did my business school. So I did the business school in half the time and got a Lions Award ah for for my yeah the ability to just ah do the work that I did there.
00:08:48
Speaker
while also actually working at night as a I was ah ah working in ah basically a guard, like security guard or for ah some type of institution.
00:09:02
Speaker
Wow. So you could study as well as you were probably guarding a little bit. but Yeah, so I was able to sustain myself. Crazy. Wow. ah Yeah. And so at the end of my yeah studies there on international trade, then um I did an internship for a company in France and that was actually the third largest in its field. um It was not really to enable energy, but it was a commercial refrigeration.
00:09:30
Speaker
But they were so impressed by the work that I did that um they hired me after three months of basically doing my internship. They hired me as a marketing manager for North America and they paid for all my stuff to be shipped to ah Canada, put my things in a shipping container. And just um um and very interestingly, that ah one of the first contracts that I worked on was for the the the fisheries of Baffin Island.
00:10:00
Speaker
So I make a joke that I came to Canada to sell ice machines to Eskimos.
00:10:06
Speaker
But actually, now we we can't say Eskimos anymore. have to say Inuit or whatever, Aboriginal people. um But yeah, the time that's ah that was know the the term used.
00:10:18
Speaker
yeah And yeah, just went from ah coast to coast. They're setting up dealers and all that. and um Wow, a little adventure. Yeah, it was interesting.
00:10:29
Speaker
And the the idea was that this was the base, actually Canada was the base to expand throughout North America. And after a couple of years, what happened actually, the company grew so fast that they choked out of cash flow.
00:10:41
Speaker
And so I saw that coming and ah I quit ah because I was not able to, at some point I realized I was not going to be able to now become successful there without the, they couldn't give me the what I
International Expansion and Renewable Integration
00:10:55
Speaker
needed. Like it was in terms of getting also the CSA, the Canadian Standard um Association rating, like the technical support there. So anyways, um so I then started,
00:11:12
Speaker
um i One day I was jogging and I just um i went by a um ah place called Land of Software and I've always been fascinated by um computer and and um IT tea and stuff like that.
00:11:27
Speaker
So, but actually when I was in business school, I had taken also some night courses in IT. um So i yeah I just went there in my jogging suit and asked them if no they they could need some help in them i in whatever capacity. And so they hired me initially. ah My first job that was ah just assembling computers in the bathroom.
00:11:51
Speaker
um They were doing computers. They were actually the largest Epson dealer in Canada. And Epson at the time was the largest printer company in the world. But they also were selling computers. Wow.
00:12:02
Speaker
And very quickly, after a few months, though i I started to get on the and the sales floor and um I became the top salesperson there for the company. um And then I started to provide the more and more consulting to high net worth individuals that would just ask me to come and set up their computer and teach them how to use the computer and all that. And also, that organization had training center
00:12:34
Speaker
um ah So I started to take courses and all kinds of things and counting and ah finance and productivity tools, desktop applications, whatever. And then I started to teach. now um and um So that was all in the IT revolution around, even before 2000, I imagine.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, that was ah basically 1989, 88, 89, yeah. ah nine ra eight nine yeah Oh, that was early for computers, right?
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah. Basically, I write 88 for two years that I worked there. and and then So ah then in in January 1990...
00:13:19
Speaker
I decided that um it was time for me actually to just ah start my own business. I was making like, you at the time, $80 an hour for doing providing computer consulting, which at the time was actually not bad.
00:13:33
Speaker
um And so I started the day actually that they published on the largest newspaper called the London Free Press. down The front page said, worst time to start a business.
00:13:46
Speaker
it was a economic crisis there. They were, they were introducing the tax there called GST, the equivalent of the, the VAT or TVI in France. Yeah. And, uh, so I, I figured, well, and lot a lot of business are going to need some help to computerize, to be able to deal with those taxes.
00:14:02
Speaker
So, uh, that's how I started. And the reason why actually I actually didn't go ah into renewable energy, like at that time also, uh, the, the price of oil was very low.
00:14:13
Speaker
Uh, and, um, you know, they after the um ah the energy crisis in the mid-70s, early 80s, whatever, the things changed had changed. And um so um I thought, well, for a while I'll work in IT.
00:14:30
Speaker
And so that's what I did. And i did that for 10 years about. um With your own company, I love that too. like when the economy gives you the indication that it's the worst time to start a business, you've made it a ah huge opportunity to... Yeah.
00:14:47
Speaker
Well, the thing is, every time there's a big challenge, that also means a big opportunity. Yes. And um I consider myself what some people call a maverick or a black sheep. um I kind of like to do no not what the majority of people do, not just to be able to do the opposite, but just that I find that... um It's typically like not the the best thing to do, to follow the masses.
00:15:13
Speaker
So um for my first three years in Canada, I was in in London, Ontario, which ah is about halfway between Toronto and Detroit.
00:15:24
Speaker
ah It's a ah ah city that is known for its business schools, got like of the highest ranked business schools in Canada. Yeah. and um i yeah I got married back then also. ah And um then I visited ah the the National Capital Region of Canada and fell in love. i know i was missing very much in um in In London, I was really missing very much the European type of atmosphere or the French. you know they they There were more Portuguese people there than ah than French people, French-speaking people, ah even Quebecois.
00:15:59
Speaker
um So, 1991, I moved to ah the Ottawa area, moved to to to Ottawa. Mm-hmm. and continue my business there um with a focus on doing government consulting. That was another strategy also. wanted to ah find my way to be able to influence public policies and then with government.
00:16:20
Speaker
So I started to do more and more government contracts and... And that was still related to to the software? Yeah, yeah. So ah initially, I was like focused more on retail software, like point of sale, anything like that.
00:16:37
Speaker
And when I moved to Ottawa, I was more like all kinds of different tools. um I started to teach ah like things like ah desktop productivity. At some point, I was teaching over 50 different types of productivity applications, like the mobile.
00:16:53
Speaker
Microsoft Suite, ah databases and um all the competing also um products from Corel and other type of vendors like WordPerfect and things like that. But then I started to do more and more like a programming database and then programming I became um Microsoft Certified Trainer, Microsoft Certified Solution Developer.
00:17:19
Speaker
which is the highest level of certification for Microsoft. i was i became the first call fusion professional in Canada. ah And um ah yeah I worked with um colleges and at some point I got, interestingly, I started to teach more and more for a college called Willis College, which is one of the oldest colleges in Canada.
00:17:44
Speaker
and it it's so It's a smaller college. but ah And um ah down the road, actually, I became the dean of their, the head of their clean energy department.
00:17:58
Speaker
well So, um yeah, that's in 2002.
00:18:03
Speaker
two ah um After I had started actually to do some consulting work for the Canadian Solar Industry Association, which now is called actually Canadian Association for Renewable Energy, they merged with the the other sector, the wind sector and all that.
00:18:20
Speaker
So I had done ah like some consulting and I started to to teach actually um for the industry, the Solar Industry Association. um i yeah I got a contract actually to do like case studies and and to do publications on different applications for solar energy in Canada. At the time was a solar thermal, like um and solar water heating, solar air heating, that thing. Solar photovoltaic was still quite expensive back then, um but it was no starting to ah to to be on the radar.
00:18:55
Speaker
ah And then ah I started to teach more and more project feasibility analysis for renewable energy. And so I got ah um to train actually... um on a software that was developed ah by the government of Canada, division called Natural Resources Canada, with the funding from the UNEP, the United Nations Developmental Program.
00:19:26
Speaker
the program is called Red Screen. and I became one of the top trainers in Red Screen. um And the first courses that I gave actually was I trained all the project officers at the time for the Canadian Federation municipalities, project officers that were in charge of evaluating the feasibility of ah implementing a different types of renewable energy technologies in municipalities.
00:19:49
Speaker
So that covered like wind and hydro, small hydro, ah as well as bioenergy in ah four different forms of solar energy. So, of course, ah solar thermal, so that's solar air heating, solar water heating, and um also passive solar energy, just for the design of buildings.
00:20:14
Speaker
and Was that then how you got also into the consulting as you were teaching it? Yeah, that's right. So i I was teaching and then they had some people, of course, across Canada.
00:20:28
Speaker
So they initially we had um mostly people coming to Ottawa where they had their head office of the Federation of Community Municipalities. And then some of their people were across, and initially I was just emailing the staff, and then we started to put an online platform.
00:20:46
Speaker
So we we started using some products, some commercial product, and then we move on to um basically ah some open source content management.
00:20:58
Speaker
that we still use and like ah some platform that I yeah since then also ah pretty much we've decided to embrace as much as possible the open source appropriate technology movement um which is more collaborative type of approach versus closed systems such as you know the Microsoft suite for example so using the Microsoft Word and Excel and that now we use the open office We use ah for servers you know all the yeah oh the Linux applications, Linux, MySQL, and so forth, Apache.
00:21:36
Speaker
Yes. And is that then also how you got more into the the development aspect as well? Yeah. So... um Or how did how does it then lead to to your current businesses?
00:21:51
Speaker
So, yeah. How that led to that is that... Initially, so I was doing a more and more training and then through the training had a lot of clients that just wanted to get some help also on their actual projects. So for example, ah initially I was contacted by, ah for example, a utility in in Ontario called Peterborough Utilities and they wanted to you know ah to get consulting on ah how to install it. Utilities for what?
00:22:16
Speaker
but what What does it mean? and ah electric Basically, electric companies like your EDF in France. Oh, yeah. Got it. Except that in North America, it is not it's more decentralized. so It's more like local type of energy companies.
00:22:29
Speaker
um And sometimes like municipal energy companies. Mm-hmm. ah So used to work more and more for electric utilities as well as um like big industries.
00:22:41
Speaker
I had for three years, had a contract also i where my company, GPEX, which I was started in 2002, GPEX Constructions.
00:22:52
Speaker
yeah So we had a contract with the world's largest manufacturer of solar air heating, Consolable Engineering based in Canada. and we're the exclusive rights for Africa. So I started to ah roam around Africa.
00:23:04
Speaker
um I had basically i worked extensively there um ah with the um the Canadian T Development Agency, which is an organization that had this time about 50 different factories that burn about, or they burn the equivalent of about 1 million liters of diesel per year for each of the factories. Either that or they were using huge amount of wood.
00:23:26
Speaker
So I worked, um I had an agent in Africa there in in Kenya and um that represented me for for the African continent. And that so we we did a lot of work there visiting the factories and doing feasibility studies and all that.
00:23:44
Speaker
For renewable energy. as Yeah, at the time it was a tool solar. Yeah, focus on solar, solar thermal, solar air heating. And also looking at how they can use different... I mean, they were at the time they were mostly looking at using hydro.
00:24:00
Speaker
But more and more they started to realize that hydro was quite intermittent. There was small hydro. So sometimes, you know, they either they had floods or droughts. ah So they needed need to have solutions that were, know, complementary to that.
00:24:16
Speaker
Some of them started to use a little wind. But again, like ah the hydro and the wind, it's very site-specific, whereas solar is pretty much everywhere. i Even like, you know, from... ah from the poles and you can, there's not that much variation.
00:24:33
Speaker
um So we also looked at using solar thermal, like for example, solar water heating, but basically for the tea drying. They have and they have those big fans that the um and they blow under the the troughs, the tea troughs and they're impressive.
00:24:51
Speaker
In what country was that in Africa? in In Kenya. Kenya. Yeah, Kenya. But I've done a fair amount of work there all over Africa, and specifically, for example, worked for um gold mining companies. I don't know if ah people are aware of that, but Canada actually has more head offices for mining companies than any other country in the world.
00:25:10
Speaker
um So um for example, there's a company called IM Gold, which has operations in Africa and Latin America. And we help them do feasibility study for ah looking at initially all the different type of energy they could use to reduce the amount of diesel oil that they use for their heavy machineries.
00:25:33
Speaker
So in the end, we kind of focused on after several rounds of feasibility there, we focused on looking at Solonji, which was the most promising and most viable technically and economically.
00:25:46
Speaker
And... um So I've done a know number of things like that. nice And worked with ah also some other organization that asked me to give some consulting, for example, the World Bank.
00:26:06
Speaker
a different development banks like ah regional development banks, Inter-America Development Bank, African Development Bank and so forth, Asian Development Bank and worked, did ah a number of workshops for a company based in Singapore, um Asia Edge, PowerEdge, Asia Edge. isza edge um So they basically, they with them, they gave some ah training and for um ah governments and utilities in in Asia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia.
00:26:44
Speaker
isn And then this was like JPEG started with really the energy aspect, consulting in the energy yeah a field, right? Yeah. And how how did the the real estate development part got included as well?
00:26:58
Speaker
So um what happened is that um in the last ah five years or so, um I decided to focus a bit more on um energy as it integrates into the buildings.
00:27:16
Speaker
So I can't remember exactly when that was, but i think it was maybe know less than seven years ago. i had a contract from the Governor of Canada to look at how we can integrate different renewable energy technologies to be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings.
00:27:34
Speaker
So I was commissioned to do that study and i hired a bunch of engineers and people worldwide. And um so we came up with basically some solutions ah in terms of know how we can build better ah And not only actually to reduce greenhouse gas, but the ah very interesting thing that happened as a result of that study is that we saw that we could also build more cost effectively by integrating technologies in a specific way.
00:28:07
Speaker
That's kind of ah what prompted you know the the turnaround there ah to refocus on buildings, which know initially when I studied in France and in france at the University of Perpignan, that was my my first diet university degree. and um So it was coming back you not to that area we yeah um and refocusing that on that. And then I started to do a a fair amount of consulting for developers.
00:28:31
Speaker
and um And a few years ago, I realized, well, you know developers in in and builders in North America are very conservative. And I find it's very, very difficult for them to... um ah to embrace change.
Innovative Building Technologies and Challenges
00:28:48
Speaker
So that prompted me to ah go and and and basically and um shift the focus on doing project development myself directly. So you can have the the impact or you can make the change that you you wanted to see. Exactly. So instead of being a... Yes, we talked about it in our earliest conversation. Oftentimes, it feels that consultants, also myself, were sometimes at the wrong side of the table.
00:29:16
Speaker
when we have to deal with the developers, it's it's okay, it's normal, they have their calculations and their systems, they always work in in such ways. But then it can become very difficult to apply new systems, even if they are proven to work very well and and like there's proof that it works, still it's it's difficult to take to change that. So I really admire that we then took the step to say, okay, I'm just going to start doing it myself.
00:29:44
Speaker
right did that Was that mostly focused on housing or also other building or other developments? Well... ah Or is it still today focused on housing? Yes, it's actually all of it. um Factories even as well?
00:30:00
Speaker
Yes. So ah and right now we have a concept that um we've been working on for quite a few years that we're ah right now about to deploy in 2025 and then to... twenty five um and to and then to ah use those projects as pilot project to deploy across Canada. And um so the the pilot that we have ah cover at the same time residential.
00:30:26
Speaker
ah But initially we have just some smaller buildings, but we also i have plans for a multi-unit residential. eight unit buildings, um as well as um mixed residential and commercial, industrial, as well as um agricultural buildings, just past solar greenhouses, aquaponics, they and even buildings that relate, for example, to transport infrastructure, such as the ah know the the train stations for the elevated rail that we're
00:31:04
Speaker
um developing there called the string rail transport, which is a fifth deliver generation rail type of technology. For high speed trains, right?
00:31:17
Speaker
High speed trains, yeah, in into a city that can go up to 500 kilometers an hour. What? um Is it like in in Japan that they have like the reverse magnet magnetism?
00:31:28
Speaker
So it actually floats? Or is that not... How can you get a train to go at 500 per hour? So, ah first of all, ah you just ah don't put it on the ground, but you elevate it, and then you don't use rail, okay? You use, in that case, they call it string rail, because they don't want to use the word cable, but it's like ah some type of ah cable structure.
00:31:55
Speaker
um And um oh so, yeah, if you're interested, you can look at our website, gpegs.com slash rail.
00:32:06
Speaker
EKS.com slash rail. I will show you what looks like and why it's not only so much more faster and to operate, faster to and the the speed, but it's not the speed of operation, it's also the speed of deployment, the cost, which is a fraction of the cost compared to any other form of rail ah and much more health. really I'm looking at it now. It's really floating in the air.
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah, it looks like it's floating, but it's it's actually sustained by a special type of cable. um So it's ah kind of hard to describe. ah So that's why I wouldn't encourage people to go the website. to I think I've seen that in Saudi Arabia when i was working there. Is that possible?
00:32:51
Speaker
So they have a project in UAE, the Sharjah, it's called, that is operational. And they've had... ah a demonstration project in the eastern europe there for over a decade now and they've reached the point where they've achieved all the certification for international transport so it's a now mature technology that's ready to ah be deployed and commercially yeah so we're working on development there and i have the ambition to connect ah the largest port um of of eastern canada to windsor going through up
00:33:30
Speaker
Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto and other cities along the way. Nice. How long is it usually by car?
00:33:38
Speaker
I don't know exactly, by far. Here looking, it's over a thousand kilometers. yeah So with the train system, it'd take two hours.
00:33:50
Speaker
And today it probably takes what? Well, the thing is, yeah. um yeah Right now, there's there's no connection, actually. Canada has a very, very poor rail system. um I mean, it has a train that goes from...
00:34:05
Speaker
you from ah the the the VIA rail is called trains um that uh go from uh at least montreal to uh to toronto but um going through ottawa but uh and And they have a train also that goes across Canada, but it's like one line that goes across Canada.
00:34:26
Speaker
It's such a vast distance. Canada is the second largest country in the world that's ready to build that infrastructure. In terms of intercity train, it's very, very poor. And actually, in North America, they only built one intercity line in 100 years. like people That's in Florida. And now it's operated by the Virgin people from Europe.
00:34:46
Speaker
So, um yeah, it's ah really behind. We have a ah rich country and continent with very poor infrastructure. yeah When you compare that to ah not only Europe, but you look at Asia you know or even many parts of Africa,
00:35:05
Speaker
much more Latin America, you know, it's just ah amazing. um So anyways, that's the thing that that we do, that we're working on. Those are very long um development type of projects. know Normally just at even a regular a train project that really has you know established, it takes 10 years to deploy, but here, because working on a new technology, it's a bit longer initially ah to get the then the initial permits, but then the speed of deployment actually is about three times faster.
00:35:39
Speaker
ah And the cost, for example, so instead of paying like in the old train in Ottawa, the supposedly light rail transport, ah which is not that light, ah cost the the first phase costs over 330 million per kilometer Canadian dollars.
00:35:59
Speaker
the yeah The technology from train rail there can be done for well less than 20 million per kilometer Canadian. At this point, it's estimated closer to 10 to 15 million dollars US at the very most.
00:36:13
Speaker
yeah case scenario That's a big difference, yeah. A huge difference, yes. And of course, now we have those those what I call white elephants of those type of you know legacy, type of romantic type of train that don't work in our climate.
00:36:28
Speaker
ah Canada with especially with a climate chaos it's not even climate change anymore it's climate chaos where and know you know you can have from one day to the next such big fluctuation temperatures that the traditional rail um they just don't cannot not handle that well no the expansion and contraction on those rail the amount of ice and snow that we can get like you can get a huge amount like north of Toronto there just before Christmas they had like ah no over something like a meter and a half in a few days. um And then it can know melt or turn into ice. And this is it absolutely insane how we experience in Canada.
00:37:08
Speaker
We've had those ice storms where the The power lines collapse from the weight of the ice, um flow floods and storms and you know big fires.
00:37:24
Speaker
We had huge fires in Northern Quebec a couple of years ago. This year in Alberta also, they just had to send recently a check for $100 million dollars just to be able to rebuild all those houses that are made of wood.
00:37:37
Speaker
that's basically residential construction is made of wood in North America and it rots it burns it shifts it's a living material right so ah foundations and are not stable often with that and sometimes even after like ah a few months you got like rotting and and and mold um the roofs of course also are built with asphalt like petroleum material that just don't last you got to change maybe 12 to ah to 17 years on average. And um the whole industry, construction industry, is based on waste and um a huge, you know, that means huge initial cost and operating cost.
00:38:23
Speaker
And then the government wonders, you know, why just ah there's not enough housing? Yeah. Canada brought, a couple years ago, they they brought, um within the last couple of years, one hundred one million one million immigrants.
00:38:38
Speaker
yeah when ah Before that, we had like never more than 500,000. And the industry can only ah know manufacture enough housing for, reasonably, for maybe 200,000 or 300,000 people. so there um it's it's all insane what's happening.
00:38:56
Speaker
It's not, um yeah. And then when when we um ah use wood in Canada um to make the ah those wood-frained houses, some people call that stick-frained houses, whatever.
00:39:09
Speaker
Sure. Each house requires the deforestation of about one acre, but a half, a bit less than half a hectare of mature woods. And so we're destroying our forest, build no houses, and then those forests, of course, are, um when they're gone, you have no regeneration there. ah the The best way to sequester the carbon is actually in the roots of the trees and vegetation.
00:39:36
Speaker
And it those trees, they're just they're not going to provide their regulation function in terms of um humidity and the LED to have more stable type of rain, um in terms of also filtration of the quality of the air.
Advocacy for Regenerative Building Practices
00:39:54
Speaker
you know, the oxygen they produce that we need. And, you know, the wood industry says, oh, well, it's, you know, it's renewable energy. It's it's a renewable resource. Yeah, well, you know, it's going to take... If we need one million houses.
00:40:08
Speaker
It's going to take another 50 years before those trees to be, you know, mature. And can we wait 50 years, you know, for basically... And even then, they this often they replant. Sometimes they don't replant, but they replant with, like... yeah monoculture and they killed by university million houses a year that is how much forest if we it's you said half a hectare right well i mean it's one million immigrants doesn't mean one million houses because what you need no houses let's say yeah let's say 250 000 new hey or 200 000 even that times times a half a hectare per house you said
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, roughly. Yeah, that's 100,000 hectares a year that you need to build those houses, yeah at least. Yeah. Between that and the forest fires and, you know, the ice storm that break the trees and and basically make them disease, become disease and all that.
00:41:06
Speaker
ah We're, you know, and then we're killing the ability of our oceans to produce the oxygen. We're killing the plankton by making the ocean ah so acidic that, you know, kills the plankton. We're, with our modern agriculture, all the and the chemicals are flushed away into the rivers, which end up in the oceans and the,
00:41:27
Speaker
The oceans are used like a ah you know massive garbage and sewage. um And all the plastics are just also there and then contributing to ah ah deteriorating, ah basically know killing life.
00:41:41
Speaker
So ah no we need to certainly, I think we've reached the stage where you know we need to be more than green. We need to be more than sustainable to upgrade from green.
00:41:52
Speaker
We need to become regenerative. And regenerative means that we've got to not just energy efficient buildings nu gut or or energy or or or better agriculture. We need to go to better than sustainable development. Sustainable development, that's passé.
00:42:09
Speaker
We need to go into regenerative development. We need to reverse the damage that's been done to the earth, this to the air. the The first stage of ecology was like the green movement.
00:42:21
Speaker
um And um with that, actually, we've realized that there has been a lot of greenwashing. Everybody wanted to be green, and green was gold and all that. ah But...
00:42:32
Speaker
ah Truly, you know when you scratch people behind the surface, it was just a little varnish of green. But inside, it was very brown and whatever color. um Then i know we've talked about the the UN promoted you know sustainable development, that which is which is ah an improvement actually from from green.
00:42:53
Speaker
um which is a longer term type of view. Nevertheless, you know, sustainable ah development is not enough because we've done so much damage to our ecological system that we need to ah reverse that damage. And whatever we do now, we need to actually it in a spirit of,
00:43:17
Speaker
regeneration in a spirit of basically reversing those damages. And that can be done at a level. That can be done a level of agriculture. a they could be done level of a building.
00:43:29
Speaker
And in in terms of agriculture, for example, there's a movement called regenerative farming where they they use non-till farming. And what they've realized, that there's a very interesting documentary about that called um Common Ground.
00:43:44
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass. Are you struggling with finding the right tools and tricks for your garden? Are you lacking the confidence to be a self-sufficient gardener?
00:43:56
Speaker
Do you sometimes get overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge and time you have to actually do gardening? Then the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass is for you. We had a few regenerative farmers on already.
00:44:10
Speaker
yeah we talked about ah There's ah another beautiful book called The Plowman's Folly. which is ah a book about a guy that already started writing in the 1800s, the bad effects of plowing and and the industrial system. So, yeah, that's definitely definitely super important. And we're also applying that to a certain degree on our own family farm.
00:44:34
Speaker
And, yeah, it works. So it's it's it's totally possible. And I like what you say about, okay, We shouldn't just do things a little bit less worse because that's what sustainability is like. Okay, we'll decrease greenhouse gases gases or decrease this by 50% decrease. It's like, okay, let's that's like saying, a okay, let's do things the same way, just a little bit less harmful.
00:44:59
Speaker
which is not a solution. We have to reverse it, like you say. yeah And I think the beauty is when you really do it, that there's so much benefits that you didn't even think of that all of a sudden you all get all these other benefits.
00:45:12
Speaker
So I'd love to talk more about this um in the in construction industry. We talked about the materials that you used already offline. can you can you or Can you sketch for our listeners, like what is the ideal, let's call it the ideal regenerative building?
00:45:29
Speaker
Okay. So in order to get there, let me just ah go from where we are and where we've been, okay? um In the past, in the last near few thousand years, we actually used natural materials.
00:45:42
Speaker
ah We used whatever was available, wood, stone, and all that. ah And then in the last century, in um a few decades, we basically relied a lot on ah concrete and steel,
00:45:56
Speaker
and very energy intense type of processes and and on in North America for low rise buildings, building less than let's say four story.
00:46:09
Speaker
um Mostly they're done from ah wood and pine. So which relies on that typically monoculture ah and know you clear cut and then just replant fast growing creed crops,
00:46:24
Speaker
ah which create many problems. no um So in terms of residential, mostly like low rise in, um you know, and Outside of big cities it's it's ah or just in the suburbs, it's wood frame construction.
00:46:41
Speaker
And in the big cities, um the downtowns, you know, those office towers and those industrial buildings, commercial buildings, commercial plaza and that, it's concrete and steel, right? ah The problem with, I'm going to start with the problem with, and then we'll go to the solution, okay? So I'll start with the residential problem.
00:47:04
Speaker
um the wood frame construction well first of all it can be very expensive we've seen during kobe that ah the price can really fluctuate ah incredibly like we had a price that could go like four times higher ah when there was supply chain disruptions and you know um And also sometimes they have, like they bring wood from fairly far. Like some of the green builders, you know, they bring wood in for buildings in um in Canada from Europe, ah from and know Germany, for some of the passive solar houses.
00:47:42
Speaker
And I find that so ridiculous. more you know um So, and as I say, like, so there's a problem initially, and just the fact that you deforest when you use that, you use monoculture.
00:47:56
Speaker
And then um in terms of, let's see, even if we start from the the perspective of the the people who live in those houses, those houses are ah not healthy.
00:48:09
Speaker
um The current model in in North America, we use um wood and and plastic and we encapsulate the wood and um you know material that can rot into ah those vapor and and water barriers.
00:48:25
Speaker
And um anytime that basically you got more than 80% humidity, then the those living materials will rot. And the 80% humidity, you know, happens, basically you cannot really prevent it.
00:48:40
Speaker
um Because... um there's always perforations in the plastic um and um human activity alone, you know, taking showers or cooking and that is going to create conditions where you have more than 80% humidity in your rooms.
00:48:58
Speaker
But know on top of that, in ah many parts of Canada, we're going to have a very humid climate um in the summer. over 80, 90% humidity. So, you know, that goes into ah into the walls because there's, again, those ah those leaks. those leaks So, ah you end up with houses that are basically toxic.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yes. Mold. Okay. ah And then, know People suffer from chronic disease, from depression, mental issues, and all kinds that, things like that. Now, of course, in in our cold climate, a lot of people spend a lot of time indoors.
00:49:34
Speaker
They spend even more during the COVID, of course, where they were confined, and you know. um house arrest type of confinement. um And um ah beside that also, you encapsulate um the a lot of the toxics that you have in your house.
00:49:56
Speaker
ah A typical house, of course, got those products that off gas, volatile organic compounds um from the paint, from the ah the life retardants from the furniture, um the you know the melanin and the formaldehyde from the glue of the know ah the the different furniture. so yeah, it's really clear that like the housing is is in a big problem, especially in Canada or globally with with the use of concrete or wood. So
00:50:34
Speaker
what what Where do you see all the big solutions to to change that? And also, what are the opportunities for that? Yeah. So ah if you if you don't mind, I'm just going to go before I go into the solution go into some of the major issues ah that we have and then in residential and so people really fully understand because I don't want to ah ah skip that because that's what I've talked about The first one is like the the health aspect is one thing.
00:51:04
Speaker
Then there's the comfort aspect. Yeah. which are basically those buildings can be... um We rely on mechanical systems, for example, for the the air conditioning, which is noisy.
00:51:18
Speaker
ah You don't have thermal mass, so... um When... and Basically, it gets hot because there's no snowmobile mass, then people have to use air conditioning because there's no, ah basically, control of the hydrometry, the humidity in the house.
00:51:38
Speaker
ah In the in the winter summer, it's too humid in Canada. In the winter, too dry. okay So that creates a feeling of comfort that you need to compensate with expensive mechanical equipment that tend to fail and not be maintained properly. So ah those you know passive houses, and know they're not passive because they rely on actual mechanical systems for ventilation.
00:52:06
Speaker
which people typically don't maintain properly. So they're all the mold and the toxins that are are distributed through the vents and we circulate all that um all those toxins.
00:52:22
Speaker
and it's noisy and it also creates like a thermal bridges those metallic you know events um so ah that's another problem ah then there's the other problem of the fact that ah those houses basically burn Okay. and We have a lot of forests in Canada and a lot people living outside of the cities with trees.
Earth Brick Technology and Pilot Projects
00:52:50
Speaker
And we've seen not not only in Alberta, but you know many parts of Canada, we've had like experience incredibly more and more fires because of the
00:52:59
Speaker
again like the climate chaos, climate change where you have no rain all of sudden, you know it's so the raink ofs one but you can be now many, many months without rain and it you can have the rain of one year fall in one day.
00:53:10
Speaker
um it yeah This can be really crazy. So we can have you know a much higher risk of a fire um and much higher your risk also of basically of the the building being Now the the grounds can shift no more because of of global warming and climate change.
00:53:27
Speaker
So um ah the foundations are are not also, the the way they do the foundation is not resilient. um The roofs are made of asphalt, etc. So this, i and then there's no consideration taken for the, basically the the the environment, for the sun.
00:53:47
Speaker
So there's no concept of basically passive solar housing typically. Like most builders don't worry don worry about that, especially people who do like multi-housing. If people do a self-built, they will take that into consideration, but no.
00:54:01
Speaker
So ah you have that on the, let's say, that problem. And then what that ends up doing also is that ends up costing a lot of money. So now we have buildings that are and not comfortable, not healthy, expensive, take a long time to build, and we don't have enough workers in Canada to be able to ah build enough houses. you know And a lot of the workers that the government brings actually are like you know ah technology workers, people with the
00:54:34
Speaker
no master's and PhD on that. We don't have enough construction workers. So and that's another of the issues, um which I'm going to explain how basically what we propose addresses all those issues.
00:54:46
Speaker
On the other side, okay, for commercial or industrial buildings, then we have and basically rely on concrete and steel. And then those are very CO2 intensive. Okay.
00:54:57
Speaker
the the The concrete, you know how much the concrete industry represents in terms of CO2 percentage? There's two in the world. I don't know. ah That's about as much as the whole transport sector. Wow.
00:55:08
Speaker
It's close to like 8%, 7-8%. Yeah, they have to heat it very hot to like thousand degrees, right? To make cement. Yeah. And then, basically,
00:55:22
Speaker
basically there's ah only a very few companies that control that industry, like Lafarge, you know, and companies like that that are pretty much like they have a quasi-monopoly.
00:55:33
Speaker
And what we've seen also is that the price of concrete has increased so much recently that ah some of the builders are discouraged and they're just quitting the whole industry and saying, well, some people are are retiring early, whatever, are leaving because it's just they cannot make a profit.
00:55:48
Speaker
the The current prices of of ah concrete. um And then when you what happens when you put concrete with steel? It rasts. Yeah, it corrodes, right?
00:56:01
Speaker
So that's why we have all those problems, Canada, with our infrastructure that is rotting away, that is corroding, like ah and the bridges in Montreal, famously, like, you know, ah public danger, and um or the tunnels, you know, the for the train, all that they've got to spend a huge amount of money every year to maintain those type of... Same in Brussels as well, yeah.
00:56:21
Speaker
So ah we've got you know all those costs. um And do you know what the the is the actual maximum strength?
00:56:32
Speaker
okay when you When you make concrete, when did it reach the maximum strength, in your opinion? When? Yeah. Let's say you were over a period of 50 years, when is it going to have the maximum strength?
00:56:47
Speaker
I have no idea. It's a good question. It's about one year after. no way. Only one year. From that point, basically, it deteriorates. Okay? And the material that we use are the exact opposite.
00:57:01
Speaker
As they age, they become stronger and stronger. And after no after a few months, they reach them. Basically, they cross over and become as strong as steel. And then, sorry, as concrete and steel.
00:57:13
Speaker
And then, yeah. So, This is another issue you know with concrete and steel. it's It's not also durable. People think, oh, it will last forever. No, it doesn't.
00:57:24
Speaker
okay's There's so many examples. that so So that's the situation that we have. So what is now okay the solution for that? Well, if you look in history...
00:57:37
Speaker
we've actually used natural materials, not just like stones, okay but what was, let's say, the Great Wall of China, what was it made of?
00:57:50
Speaker
i would say it's stones but uh is it wrong yeah so stormy outside but inside it was actually around earth compressed earth okay and it's been standing for how many thousands of years right i mean the the the inca um pyramids sent up a thing know they use compressed earth uh the Roman bridges that were you know used to carry the the water and you know those very tall type of buildings that you can still see throughout Europe, especially southern Europe. Aqueducts. Those aqueducts, they were made of basically compressed earth and lime, natural material.
00:58:31
Speaker
They've been standing for a long time. no in Yemen, you see some seven-story buildings completely made of earth material that are still standing.
00:58:42
Speaker
okay And that means basically, you know. um And of course, some of those material in the past ah exposed to the elements were not durable. So, you know, people thought, well, you know, concrete is much better than that.
00:58:54
Speaker
But nowadays, we've actually ah been able to find ways to stabilize. And so we've gone initially from, let's say, taking the earth and just plastering that onto ah ah with wood, you know the old ah structures in in in Europe,
00:59:15
Speaker
um that were not tend to be require a lot of maintenance then they started to put like make some bricks with ah putting that in a wood frame okay and just letting that dry in the sun ah but you know in the around 1900 a Frenchman ah close to actually where I was born goes to Lyon he made the first press earth press And so that was like ah no bringing prefab to Earth construction.
00:59:47
Speaker
and and since then there's been a number of evolutions so now ah you have like hundreds of manufacturers of presses in all over the developed developing world most of them in China but not so quite a few also in in other parts of Asia but and Latin America Africa and so forth and and So, you know, those yeah have some of those presses can be operated manually, ah and ah some of the presses are automated.
01:00:21
Speaker
The manual press typically will give you like 400 bricks per day, and um ah the automated ah press with machines, like they can create up to, let's say, 20,000 bricks per production line per day.
01:00:37
Speaker
And it it takes about, say, eight, with ah if you have a double wall on the outside, like for a climate, it takes about 8,000 to 9,000 bricks for a whole unit of maybe, let's 90 square meters. sorry okay um About 1,000 square foot.
01:00:56
Speaker
And then you could actually do that on the construction site, or is it better to have it decentralized production and then... Bring it to the site or how how does that look practically?
01:01:07
Speaker
So practically, um in the vast majority majority of the world, you have earth with enough clay to be able to make the the bricks.
01:01:19
Speaker
Just from the foundation, the excavation from the foundation, um now If you go with a lower rise building, like less than three story, you have more than enough on the land know where you are.
01:01:31
Speaker
In the very rare situation when you're going to have at least 10% clay in the soil, then you can get it from typically not very far. and they So you need 10% of clay content at best or at least?
01:01:43
Speaker
Well, yeah, I'm not exactly sure the the exact composition, but um yeah you need a certain amount of clay. And sometimes when you have too much clay, you need to add some aggregates. like You could add some sand ah or you know things like that. and Unlike the ah call Adobe buildings, which have also some straw or some organic material, here we're focused on that.
01:02:07
Speaker
Just the material that have ah just the yeah the the earth and the ah ah stabilizer, which when you have typically mostly a clay soil, use lime. If you had mostly, mostly like a sandy soil and you really had no way to get some some type of clay in there, then you could some cement that we know avoid. And even if you had to use some cement, that would be like 5% to 10%. Whereas the lime there, you can use like 2% to...
01:02:35
Speaker
8% maybe of life according to every time you got to do some analysis of the ah the earth that you have but it's not get it so ah then it's mostly done on site or how does it work yeah so you can actually ah what we do at e3habitat which is the organization that I co-created there with architects and engineers and then other people is we um either we supply the designs that people can manufacture the the machine or they can ah buy the machine if they don't have the ability to do some... the capability to just work with metal.
01:03:13
Speaker
um And ah no that's that can be done for less than $3,000 typically. um One way the other. ah The nice thing about making your own machine is that you can just make several machines and of course you have economies of scales, you make several. So if you have a larger development, so we want to do like two production lines, be able to produce like 800 bricks a day instead of 400, you could do that.
01:03:41
Speaker
So you're already deploying that system on on some of your own projects? So, yeah, we ah we bought a property in the National Capital Region where we're deploying their a number of those pilot houses for 2025. Right now we have three... Was that the project we talked about already before?
01:04:01
Speaker
Yes. Offline? Yeah. oh yeah or Maybe you can explain it a a bit more from... from the overall idea of what you want to do there sure so one of the site that to we are just uh secured is a um a site which is ah will allow us to do um at the same time some real touristic uh buildings uh we have a campground uh we're going to have a spa um we're going to have also ah
01:04:33
Speaker
ah a passive solar greenhouse we need to build for the staff. um the the The person who is selling us is solar, the property, also wants his house to be built, other material.
01:04:45
Speaker
need retrofit. We have 10 buildings on the side. We need to retrofit them. but Right now, they have just a wood frame and a metal roof. We retrofit them with ah those compressor bricks, insulate them.
01:04:56
Speaker
And... um Yeah, we have a number of projects also in the Ottawa area. There's ah one site where we're looking to do um three buildings of eight units.
01:05:08
Speaker
um There's a site, um different sites in the Gatineau Hills, just north of Ottawa, where we're looking to do 330 units in the next three years. Oh, 330 units?
01:05:21
Speaker
yeah And those projects will be a pilot for a deployment across Canada to and onto to the 292 off-grid Aboriginal native communities that are not connected to the grid.
01:05:39
Speaker
Where people pay also. So those all those projects that we do, by the way, not only that earth brakes, but also they are fully autonomous in terms of of energy for both the heating, cooling, electricity and local transport but through our electric vehicles.
01:05:58
Speaker
yeah There's enough excess electricity there to ah be able to and provide all the the needs for local transportation, the residents. And those are, by the way, the so those developments there, initially the the first development, we're basically selling the houses, but our um strategy is to focus on um co-op housing. Mm-hmm.
01:06:23
Speaker
and what we call intentional communities. So those are communities where are Basically, people will be able to ah live in a healthy house that is um more comfortable and also less expensive.
01:06:43
Speaker
Because we're able to build for at least half the cost compared to traditional construction with those bricks. That's crazy. At least half the time. the those those yeah the Half of the price of the of the wood ah construction.
01:06:56
Speaker
Yeah. Because the quality is so much better. Yeah. Well, yeah, in a traditional construction, you have the siding on the outside, then you have the water and vapor barriers, you have the um the wood frame, you have the insulation, you have the um the drywall, you have all the patching for the drywall, you have all the paint.
01:07:22
Speaker
Just the paint in a house now can cost like over $10,000 per unit, $10,000 to $15,000. With bricks, you don't have to paint for the climate.
01:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, with the earth bricks, basically, those are beautiful and they can be used ah for the exterior wall and for the interior wall. And in between, we use natural insulation from fibers.
01:07:47
Speaker
um So we've designed the building in such a way that the walls are protected so that we don't need to have like a he on the outside ah some type of Palermo in French, some type of siding.
01:08:04
Speaker
Siding. Siding, yeah. so so And also we use like yeah sliding shutters, ah wood shutters that also add insulation so they also protect the wall.
01:08:17
Speaker
um And the on the south side, we've got basically sunroom that are integrated ah so that the whole, basically, ah southern area is already the wall is protected.
01:08:29
Speaker
And we've got generous overhangs all around. ah So it's designed that we we need a ah minimum, absolute minimum amount of siding, sorry, siding. We may just add some for i know aesthetics a bit to to create a little bit of a contrast. but And inside also we can use the walls as is. So ah basically you just have and the the earth inside outside of the wall, the natural fiber insulation, um and then inside also just ah one layer of ah bricks.
01:09:02
Speaker
So it's very, very simple, very fast. You can build, ah for example, those units, Brie de Guignane, for example, the They build ah every 100 square meters we're roughly 1150 or 60 square foot.
01:09:17
Speaker
They can build that in the equivalent of eight days with six people. ah from the point that the foundation is done okay uh eight days the wall the roof the electricity the plumbing know all the finishes uh eight days eight days six people ah okay uh now they don't put insulation there it's going to cost us a bit more from the insulation and because of our regulations here in canada it's a little bit tricky so even if we had a couple more days you know um and you know that's uh
01:09:50
Speaker
Also, not necessarily using the most um ah efficient processes. We we intend to ah put in place some really processes to make things much better.
01:10:04
Speaker
But yeah, another thing is that, you know, ah those buildings, they can be built like Legos. So you don't need ah specialized labor.
01:10:15
Speaker
We can actually use, you know, the unemployed people or the know those homeless people, we can provide jobs for them ah very easy.
Educational Initiatives and Future Outlook
01:10:26
Speaker
you know, just um basically handling those about seven kilogram bricks, and thirty thirty c centtimeters by ten by ten roughly um you and they are interlocking, so they're like Legos. You just stack them on top of each other, just pour a little bit of ah poor bit of of liquid, um ah lined it as a basically in between it each layer, but ah just so that you don't even have one millimeter of gap.
01:10:51
Speaker
ah And no very very easy, very fast. and And we are planning to use the model of habitat for humanity so that the the future occupants can participate in the construction and reduce their not the the price of their... That's so cool. I would love to build my own house with that with that system.
01:11:12
Speaker
Yeah. So, I think we can talk more about ah the housing project, but we have to be a bit wary of our time. it's It's very nice to talk to you and and have all these discussions.
01:11:25
Speaker
But I'd still love to hear a bit more about your ah work in in your master program that you also started then ah creating a a master program in international development, right?
01:11:38
Speaker
how How did that idea become? Or how did that happen? Yeah. so after teaching for well over a decade, ah project development for large, which are projects, such as energy projects, which not often are like... ah millions tens of millions dollars ah then and I decided that and we can apply exactly like the same type of approach and teach project development for not just energy but energy and construction by doing ah basically a ah program on ah
01:12:14
Speaker
real estate land development or real estate development. and So we have that one-year program, which is an executive master's, ah which is targeting um the the developers worldwide. It's not specific to a particular region.
01:12:36
Speaker
ah And it... um basically teaches developers how they can build faster, cheaper, and higher quality, okay?
01:12:48
Speaker
Typically, like for every unit, you know, they can expect to save about $100,000. So... um that's great. well I mean, to do 10 units, you got a million dollars minimum saving, like a million to a million and a half, right?
01:13:04
Speaker
no And... um ah Yeah, we're going to... um teach the best practices in terms of you know how to, at every single level, be able to save costs and be more effective from the the point of you know the initial scaling process to the the the permitting process, all the financing and all the ah the steps of the development.
01:13:35
Speaker
And it has the edge of of also yeah the sustainability power. regenerative aspect as well, everything that and we talked about today. Yeah, because we're focusing that project on ah how to do communities, not just like ah one one house. It's like multi called multi-housing type of projects for the developers who want to do multi-housing and who are interested to do regenerative type of communities, not just, a again, sustainable, ah to do actually what we call positive energy communities. So, communities where you know the buildings produce more energy than they consume, including enough energy for all the building, all the um transport local transport need and also...
01:14:20
Speaker
i built in such a way that you also have the ability to produce the food for the community, not just actually ah for the the residents, but also know to be able to have integrating those passive solar greenhouses with aquaponics, to be able to provide not only the vegetables and the fruits you know from the urban forest, edible forest,
01:14:47
Speaker
ah but also to produce the the protein from the the chicken and the the fish, know, from the aquaponics, which operate in a close cycle where the waste from the animals produce the ah nutrients.
01:15:00
Speaker
And those communities also, that instead of ah treating the the waste from humans and kitchen waste on that as a problem, um we actually... um using a system that creates biogas and um heat.
01:15:21
Speaker
The whole community becomes self-sufficient and they they have access to energy and food. yeah that's That's a great system. i I'm really curious to see where that is going and and to see that happening.
01:15:35
Speaker
So we're going to start wrapping up the interview here. I still have a question for you about what what are you most looking forward to in in this coming year?
01:15:46
Speaker
the next year? well in the next year Well, i this year is really, um I'm very excited about 2025 because I see that this is ah the year where basically 30 years of research and teaching other people and know how to do things that I'm going to actually have control eventually and do it myself.
01:16:11
Speaker
Nice. And actually the one who is developing it. And so, ah so um also very excited i'm i'm ah part of a community called wealth genius also so a network of 1200 investors we're doing a lot of work there and i'm very excited also to work with those members in canada and in the us and and worldwide um and to work also with uh with first nations because um this year i'm looking forward to establishing some contacts with not only like ah first nation communities in the outer area like ah
01:16:45
Speaker
the Maniwaki community, just because of, I guess, no, but I'm taking a train ride across Canada and I intend to actually meet with some of the leaders there in the spring and and summer.
01:16:57
Speaker
um So um this is going be very exciting. And the next three years, basically, ah just start to deploy that on other communities and Not only in Canada also, but we have projects in Central America and um working projects in Europe and in France. And I've been looking ah for a few at some projects close to Valencia in Spain.
01:17:21
Speaker
this Also for the earth, with the earth bricks or similar? Yeah, everything with the, yeah, every time. So this is going to be your main focus in the next three years at least to really deploy the systems of... Well, at the same time, we've planted a number of seeds there for floating solar projects, specifically in Brazil, in Asia, Southeast Asia.
01:17:45
Speaker
Africa, Kenya, and other places. So um basically... It's very exciting. There's so many cool stuff happening, right? Yeah. And something for the for the train project where we've got basically right now, we've got plenty seats for project in four continents, you know.
01:18:00
Speaker
Canada, as mentioned here, but to connect Argentina to Brazil, to connect to Singapore to Bangkok, and um South Africa to Egypt. So, I mean, those and those are projects that, you know, that going to keep me busy for the next 30 years.
01:18:16
Speaker
But that's what I'm looking forward to. I just ah know keep working on those and and make the world a better place. Nice, I love that. Safer, are cheaper, more affordable, and create jobs, sustain the economy, and reverse the environmental degradation that we've done for the last couple hundred years.
01:18:38
Speaker
Yes, I told you this before, meed but I really appreciate that you have that drive to do something good for the environment. but also from a perspective of business and to create something and to do good, not but necessarily to stop. like There's a lot of climate action, but which is mostly about stopping things. like We have to slow down the economy or or put the brakes on certain things. and And maybe we should do that. I'm not saying...
01:19:05
Speaker
There's no truth in that, but I think it's better to focus on how can we build an economy that is regenerative, that is giving back to nature yeah because the benefits are are so manifold. I had several other people on the show.
01:19:20
Speaker
When you start to like focus on how can you do it better regeneratively, then all of a sudden you get all these other huge benefits of it. So it's really amazing to see that you're also working in in that direction.
01:19:34
Speaker
So thank you for doing that ah amazing work. It's an absolute pleasure and looking forward to work with you on the project that discussed. Yes, yes, yeah. we'll We'll talk about that offline more and I'm very excited about that as well.
01:19:47
Speaker
And then is there anything else that you want to tell our listeners, people that are are maybe thinking about doing something new in business and they also want to do good in in for our planet?
01:19:59
Speaker
but What would be your best piece of advice? Well, my piece of advice, and know I was very involved in politics. I was um involved with the Green Party. And what I've come to realize that if we want to change the world, it starts with every action and gesture that we do. And the best vote is for what we buy every day. And know ah what type of ah vehicle do you buy? What type of house ah you know ah do you want to be in?
01:20:28
Speaker
um That will go much further. ah than, you know, I think anything else. You know, live by example. You know, be... a ah Be the change you want to see is what comes in. The change you want see, you know, okay.
01:20:46
Speaker
i Think you know, what Jesus would do type of thing, right? So, um yeah, I think that's... um it's time that we leave the old paradigm behind and we start embracing not only change, but no change for a better world improvement.
01:21:04
Speaker
because there's many changes we can do, but let's just rethink and not continue business as usual. this i no It's fine. It's 2025. um no This is a new area that we're entering. And i think this this while there's reasons for concerns, there's also reasons for optimism. So I think we need both, know the concern and the optimism, ah because if you just think that everything is fine, no, it's not. But where are there are solutions.
01:21:34
Speaker
yeah I think the the challenges that we're facing here, ah at least from what I've come to understand by interviewing people like you and and the other people that that have come on the show, is that there's so much opportunities in the biggest challenges that we are facing, food production.
01:21:49
Speaker
huge challenge for the world, um but such big opportunity in farming, same transportation. but we talked quite a bit about ah development or or housing, also big problems there.
01:22:02
Speaker
yeah But all those problems are are huge opportunities. yeah Maybe I'm going to actually just um on that, know maybe you could close on that, but I'll say that the biggest opportunities are linked to the biggest challenges.
01:22:16
Speaker
And right now, If we look at the biggest so challenges not only in Canada, but in many parts of the world, okay we have a housing ah challenge. Not enough people are able to afford housing or to not allow to um to to have quality type of housing.
01:22:38
Speaker
We have um also a problem with um the health crisis. Our social system cannot handle you know the all the sick people.
01:22:50
Speaker
And so we have an opportunity actually to live in healthier buildings, to ah eat healthier food, but locally produced. okay And we have a global crisis, ecological crisis, right? Real house gas.
01:23:06
Speaker
And the the third and big opportunity, which is linked to ah one of the biggest challenges we have, is the challenge of global warming, what I call again, climate chaos.
01:23:19
Speaker
um And so we have an opportunity to reverse that, not only to slow it down, but to reverse it thanks to regenerative practices such as regenerative agriculture and regenerative buildings, because those buildings made of earth bricks actually absorb the CO2.
01:23:38
Speaker
um So, you know, we have ah and ah an opportunity to create jobs, local jobs using local resources. We need to just... ah um Think about you know going from ah that that world that's been so reliant on just transporting goods all across the world, just recentering and just being a bit more reliant on on local resources.
01:24:04
Speaker
That is ah such a great advice. I think it's it's so important for people to to change the paradigm. I fully agree with you. It's not easy to do it, but in a way, it's also very simple.
Conclusion and Positive Outlook
01:24:15
Speaker
And I'm also very hopeful for this coming year that we will see a lot of change happening in in the field. So thank you very much for coming on on the show and and explaining all your amazing knowledge that you have and all the experience that you have and that you're now bringing it all together in your own project. So thank you again for coming on.
01:24:34
Speaker
My pleasure. I met you.