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EP33: Stéphane Doise - From Soil to Structure - Housing in Harmony with Nature
93 Plays26 days ago
“If we remove the building… nature should be able to take over… instantly and thrive there.”
Housing is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions—responsible for around 40% worldwide—and one of the most wasteful industries, generating 30% of global waste annually. In Canada, outdated zoning, urban sprawl, and material inefficiencies push costs sky-high while making homes less resilient to climate change.
Stéphane Doise, founder of CORE (Climate Oriented Real Estate), is tackling these problems head-on. His approach: dismantlable, small-scale multi-unit buildings made from natural, low-toxicity materials; optimized for energy efficiency; and designed to relocate if land becomes unviable. By combining low-tech reliability with high performance, he reduces embodied carbon, operational costs, and waste—while improving community connection and climate resilience.
Stéphane Doise is an architect, former firefighter, and urban infrastructure expert who has worked in Munich and Canada. With decades of hands-on experience in both public works and sustainable design, he now leads CORE to rethink housing for a finite world.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/st%C3%A9phane-schneider/
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Discover more about Paulownia trees and their sustainable potential at https://www.paulownia-la.com/.
Dive into the Twelve Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.com/.
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Transcript
Introduction to Regenerative Design Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
If we remove the building, nature should be able to take over it instantly and thrive there. We have, for example, zero foundation going in the ground, so we can actually just remove just a little bit of the upper of soil of the lot, put that soil aside, not even removing it, protect it during construction, and then you can just reuse it on the same site. And that's going to give you the the healthiest soil that you can have.
00:00:21
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.
00:00:32
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?
00:00:45
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.
00:00:57
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.
Stéphane Douas: Background and Journey into Sustainable Architecture
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Regenerative Design Podcast with your host Mathieu. And today we have another great guest. His name is Stéphane Douas, I'm saying it correctly. And Stéphane, he has a pretty cool background. He's worked for many years in Munich in a city that I was living in well. We actually shared that.
00:01:31
Speaker
We were living in the same city for a while, we didn't know. and But he has a degree from the TUM, which is the Technical University of Munich. um He's worked in a lot of departments in Munich in the city ah city services.
00:01:47
Speaker
And more recently, he started his own business called Core. And Core isnt actually is and a development company that is focusing on future-proof, healthy and affordable buildings. So it's really based on using natural materials, making it affordable and also on low-tech solutions to make the housing, ah specifically in Canada, but probably also globally and better.
00:02:10
Speaker
So, Stefan, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Thank you very much, Mathieu, for having me here. It's a pleasure, um as as always, when we when we exchange. um Yeah, i'm doing I'm doing good, actually.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm doing good. Great. How about you? I'm great as well. Thanks for asking. That's funny. Nobody never asks me in a podcast how I'm doing. So thanks for asking.
00:02:34
Speaker
So I would say let's dive right in. like We already talked about some cool stuff. um offline about like being on a mission, being driven and like having to also enjoy the process. We'll talk more about that today. I have a feeling, but let's first start. Like, where did all of this start? How how did you get into this?
00:02:52
Speaker
I didn't mention that, but you worked as an architect as well. But how do you get into this passion that you're doing today? it and so ah You want the long or the short version? We have some time.
00:03:07
Speaker
We have some time. Okay, I'll i'll make it a halfway long ah halfway long, halfway short answer. Yeah, it's always good to hear your backstory, like as a child, even were you building stuff and where did what yeah i where did all of that originate from?
00:03:22
Speaker
That's a little bit where I'm going to start then. the... so the if it in Interestingly, you were talking about the ah purpose and the process and how to how to get there and having a bigger mission as well. um And as a kid, I ended up being passionate about fire services.
00:03:44
Speaker
So I did the role very early on and in France. There was something like junior fire services that starts at the age of 12, and then at the age of 16, you transition into the to active duty. ah So you have four years of training and then at 16 you can go out on calls.
00:03:59
Speaker
um And I started that with that idea to help others and to be a contribution for the better in France. So I did that while I was ah still in the would be high school, I guess.
00:04:15
Speaker
um And then they'll also throughout my studies and I stayed a volunteer fireman for almost years. and um and cool what I realized... You had childhood dream of being a firefighter and you actually realized that many kids have that dream but not so much, which is pretty cool.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, I got stuck
Public Transit and Housing Challenges
00:04:37
Speaker
with it. um and the and the And the thing is actually in France, I i was at ah this station that had quite a bit of social housing and we had around 70% of our of the if the area I was responsible with or other the station was responsible for it was social housing, so very weak economic or social background.
00:05:01
Speaker
um So we've had quite a lot of um small shit to deal with that is more from a social perspective, economical perspective, um whether it was on emergency medical calls or also when it came to um ah fires, like car fires, ah garbage fires, i think things like that at night. France was very famous for that in the 2000s. Maybe you might recall there there would be a count of how many cars were burned on New Year's Eve, for example.
00:05:31
Speaker
And then they realized whenever they would give a call ah a number of cars burned per city, that would actually increase the numbers for the next year because it turned into a competition between all the different cities.
00:05:43
Speaker
ah So actually, they they stopped doing that. Anyway, I'm i'm getting lost here. um the what What I realized was actually that the built environment, a lot of the people that we're living in, which was social housing, which was very poorly maintained, in very poor conditions, seemed to be an element that ah that that was being in the way of people having better lives, um which is when I transitioned also to thinking about architecture, because at that point I was thinking of doing a career as a fireman.
00:06:20
Speaker
um But I still needed a degree to be able to access the officer's ah lane ah for fire services. And so I looked into architecture studies, um knowing also a fireman that was also an architecture student, actually.
00:06:38
Speaker
And then I looked into that and hoped, just a little bit this idea that architects storie or architecture students have that by designing buildings, designing the world, you can improve the world for everyone.
00:06:53
Speaker
And that was also naive. So second realization then ah later on the job that, well, technically you're not necessarily the one making the decisions because you're not the one paying.
00:07:05
Speaker
um You're not for but public projects. You're not the political power um So I moved on trying to be on the client side of things which I did I did work then for infrastructure projects as you mentioned ah there was some um ah Overlap here because I did for quite a few years ah build new fire stations for the city of Munich um They had ah aging infrastructure um Because a lot was post-World War II, so 50 years later you just need to upgrade everything.
00:07:37
Speaker
um And the same situation again for the ah subway infrastructure. So after I was thinking, okay, if I'm doing public transportation, um that's actually something useful. And that's something that should be green by definition.
00:07:52
Speaker
um Until, again, being a little bit too naive, then I realized a little late that ah the decisions that are made um when it comes to public transit are not necessarily always based on the actual needs of a place, of a community, um but are also political gains.
00:08:14
Speaker
So if this base of voters get in that neighborhood get this, then this base of voters in that other neighborhood will get this. So there were like some some sort of trades like that. So you were you're committing then the city is actually committing everyone to build, for example, subway line extensions into places that don't necessarily require them because they already have a high level of of service.
Environmental Impact of Construction and Future-proof Solutions
00:08:40
Speaker
um And yeah, that's a lot of CO2 emissions. There's a lot of sand that needs to come from somewhere. There's a lot of steel. There's a lot of... So um you're you're you're thinking you're doing something right, but you're realizing that the system doesn't necessarily allow you to do the things right as it should be.
00:09:00
Speaker
So that was also... It's very similar to my story when I was in Munich. I just want to jump in because it's so similar. I was working also around the same time as a landscape architect with ah with a sort of bigger mission, but then it's so bureaucratic and so stuck in systems where you can hardly be creative.
00:09:20
Speaker
And I still enjoyed it because it was a great experience to work on the German level of engineering. ah Like I learned a lot. And yeah, but I understand that. And at the same time, I have to say that the subway station or subway system of Munich, I think is one of the best in the world as far as from my personal experience. I loved it because you could get everywhere.
00:09:42
Speaker
and And it was, yeah, very on time, you would say. Yeah. and that It takes no time indeed to to ride the subway and to get places. um I think it's a very performant system as well.
00:09:56
Speaker
The residents of Munich think it's crap. It's old and it's not sufficiently reliable. But yeah, it's exactly the reality check when you go other places and you're like, oh,
00:10:09
Speaker
Actually, it's pretty good here. um So but yeah you did that and then you kind of felt like ah there's more or you felt a deeper calling? i and Well, there there was so one realization that so slowly came in as well. And at the same time, for personal reasons, um we I have moved to Canada.
00:10:29
Speaker
ah My wife is Canadian. So she she wanted to to be back, or we also wanted to be back closer to family ah because neither of us had family in Munich.
00:10:42
Speaker
um So with our own family, a little bit of additional generation support is ah is always advantageous. ah So that was one element. and um And yeah, there was a call also for my wife too um ah to to be back, to to feel home again.
00:11:00
Speaker
And yeah, luckily she did take me with her. So um and no i'm ah now I'm in Canada. And then the question was, okay, what what do I do with my life? um and realizing, okay, well you're doing public trend transportation, it's not resolving the problems because you're also working on projects that have spans of 20 years or something like that. And you're working based on data that is old by definition ah to assess whether or not something is needed.
00:11:27
Speaker
ah You're making decisions that are um have very long reach in time, um but are not even thinking ahead. of what's coming towards us when it comes to climate change and then all the consequences that it will have on infrastructure and where people can live, e etc.
00:11:46
Speaker
um ah So you you're actually working towards obsolete infrastructure before it's even done. um it It might sound a bit harsh. I'm very sorry if if if anyone working in the field ah ah is hurt by that. I also am convinced that they everyone working in public service and in infrastructure is usually ah fully committed to making the world a better place.
00:12:15
Speaker
um I just felt... There's more to it. Yeah, just felt also that there was more and more discrepancies between what I was reading, hearing, um talking about on the topic of climate change, resources, energy, and um the actions are taken and the decisions are made.
00:12:35
Speaker
So being at Canada, I was okay, that's not necessarily going to be something I'm going to pursue. um So what can we do here? And there's two... or One big topic here is the topic of housing crisis that's always popping up with a very high cost of living.
00:12:51
Speaker
Which is probably the major problem, the the biggest problem in Canada is housing, I think, at the moment, right? Yeah, yeah know it's pretty pretty much up there. I mean, know I believe the last steps where people are mostly concerned about the economy. So that's always something that comes in the mind of everyone.
00:13:11
Speaker
um But housing is definitely high up there. um there's It is definitely a challenge. I mean, cost of housing are are horrendously high here. um So that was one ah one aspect that was like, well,
00:13:26
Speaker
I have a background in architecture and client representation, ah so maybe I'll transition to that. And the other thing is, okay, how do I make that work with ah the topic of ah being on a finite world?
00:13:40
Speaker
And how do I figure out a way to build that takes into consideration all the changes are already happening and the changes that are ahead? of us uh so this is where i decided and to go on with my own venture um not finding sre any organization that was already going in that direction and pushing in that direction um and yeah this is how core so which stands for climate oriented real estate uh was born and uh i'm working towards that i'm
00:14:15
Speaker
having first designs there that have been there about to be completed. So we're hoping to be able to build also the first ah small multi-unit residential building ah next year.
00:14:28
Speaker
um So that's ah ah where where we're going.
Core's Strategies for Sustainable Building
00:14:32
Speaker
Nice. So that's a little bit the half-long story. I like it because, yeah, you had all those experiences trying to be of service to the world and then you realize like, but I'm not doing well, I think it's still in a way you still did because the public services are important, but I also get like, if you work on something today as an engineer, you might only see it in 20 years. And if you then look at the bigger problems, housing, climate change, economical instabilities, these are things that need to be fixed faster.
00:15:08
Speaker
Like for climate change, we don't have 20 years. We need to, start changing it now and one of the big influencers ah of climate change is the housing industry. but I don't know if it's the biggest one, it might be agriculture, not to blame agriculture because the solution is also there, but housing ah has a huge impact on the environment and I think you you might be more familiar with it, but it has to do with the amount of energy that's needed for concrete, for glass, for steel.
00:15:37
Speaker
yeah Is that correct? Is that what what's like driving the but Is that also what's driving the cost since energy costs are increasing? And is that why why it's so expensive in Canada or is there other specific reasons?
00:15:54
Speaker
Exactly. So the a to start with, um and so yes, the built environment, ah generally speaking, worldwide is responsible for around 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. So it is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
00:16:10
Speaker
um And you can divide that into two subcategories. So one being the embodied carbon, when we're focusing just on the on the topic of ah greenhouse gas emissions.
00:16:21
Speaker
um But let's talk just about that for now. So you're gonna have embodied carbon, which are emitted when you're building something. So the manufacturing, the production of anything emits something because you have used energy, you have used resources, you have transformed resources.
00:16:38
Speaker
You have transformed material. um So that's creating, um depending of the places, I believe in Canada it's 24%, so that that would be then ah ah close to two-thirds of the of the ah emissions from the built environment that goes into that.
00:16:57
Speaker
And then you have another, ah the other part is about the operational emissions. which is going to be everything that is linked to heating, powering a building.
00:17:09
Speaker
um So that's that's the other thing. One is in construction and the other one is in the actual... Usage of the building, the operations of the building, exactly. So you have at least two elements. So whatever decisions you're also making now, um you're going to have and a consequence on the emissions and instantly, plus one that is a legacy ah or legacy emissions based on the decisions you're making right now.
00:17:33
Speaker
um Obviously these numbers change also slightly or largely in every single country depending on how clean your electrical grid is, for example, ah how much coal is used for electricity generation, ah how you build, how much local materials you use, how much concrete you use.
00:17:55
Speaker
some count Some countries are a lot more prone to using concrete for every single type of building. um North America is very much into lumber for everything. There's like three up to six stories, something like that.
00:18:07
Speaker
but um yeah So it changes a little bit regionally what the ah what the numbers will be. But generally speaking, 40% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide build environments.
00:18:18
Speaker
ah So we're the biggest one. And the other one is also we're one of the dirtiest and or most wasteful industry at the same time. um I but believe, if I remember correctly, 30% of the global waste every year comes actually from the built environment.
00:18:38
Speaker
So it's also renovations, demolish demolitions. Yeah. thank Actually, even building, like if you're if you go by a construction site and you look, they're they're going to have been somewhere where they just toss away stuff um that has not even been used, ah which has just been cut on site.
00:18:58
Speaker
at which so So there is a lot of manual labor, um especially in North America ah compared to Europe, um not not comparing to the rest of the world.
00:19:10
Speaker
um And that leads actually to also very high inefficiencies and a high waste ah of material in the process. And that must affect the price as well since it's not that efficient.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. the So this is also what I'm convinced about. and And that's also my experience, for example, in subway construction and and other all the type of construction. Actually, the the process is key.
00:19:37
Speaker
So everyone is always trying to find one... object one software one thing that's gonna solve it all and and all of a sudden where We have everything under the control ah But in the end, it's just about caring about the process and trying to find each step and trying to find the efficiencies in there um Because usually people know what to do like the engineers the consultants the the architects the trades Everyone involved know they're part of the job but getting everyone to do the right thing at the right time
00:20:10
Speaker
and making and leveraging the capacity of each of them at the right time in the value chain. um ah my my My experience, i also I'm finding here, and I'm curious to experiment further here, um is that this is where you can leverage most of it.
00:20:28
Speaker
So right now, for example, there's a big trend towards prefabrication and factories for building housing. The issue that is often not talked about um and that's seen as like the object and the way to solve all the problems, building a big factory and then cars, you can produce houses.
00:20:46
Speaker
The issue a load of the factory like that is going to be a ticket of 50 billion, something like that. and That's often also with investor money and that money wants to be paid for with 10-15% of interest.
00:21:00
Speaker
And then that means that your production line before you're producing any building is already owning money to someone else just to have the factory. and So you're creating the next inefficiency in the fact that you're creating another element in the value chain that requires also more money.
00:21:17
Speaker
um Some might argue that you can reallocate some of the costs because you're faster ah downstream in assembling, so you have less bearing costs in the project. um But i I think my approach is to do a combination of partly prefab but without the need for a factory and on-site and trying to combine the the ideal quantity of both and and slowly upgrade as well the the production ah side of things ah to gain efficiency bit by bit.
Land Use and Urban Planning Challenges
00:21:50
Speaker
Anyway, good going further away as well. No, it sounds very interesting. And I think i want to even dissect a little bit more the problem statement. So from what I've understood so far, the main driving force for high cost of living in Canada, I think, well, first of all, I think it's because there's a ah high demand, there's huge amount of immigration, which obviously drives um higher demand means higher prices. But on the building side, which you're influencing, it's mostly the inefficiency in materials, the wastefulness and in and resources, what other aspects um and the value chain that's not very well
00:22:32
Speaker
put together, it sounds like. And I love that because that's where your German efficiency from working in Munich comes in. Let's see how that turns out. You're adding way too much. It should some effect. You're pressurizing me to success now.
00:22:49
Speaker
um the Actually, the biggest that In my opinion, um the biggest issue here is not even the inefficiencies in the process, it's actually the inefficiency of of land allocation.
00:23:06
Speaker
um So you have this typical North American ah urban sprawls, suburban model, single-family houses, front yard, backyard, zoning regulations, ah zoning bylaws that mandate setbacks, maximum FSR, and so on and so forth.
00:23:25
Speaker
um Which lead to ah very low density of usage of land, which is also a very big issue with the built environment. So if we, for example, go back to the issues and the impact of real estate on um the environment,
00:23:44
Speaker
ah which we are a full part of, by the way. We're not a different entity as humans. um We are wasting a lot of land for our usage.
00:23:56
Speaker
um And ah this is also where we're creating land scarcity, for example, in Canada and British Columbia, just by poorly allocating it.
00:24:08
Speaker
It's the same all across North America, more or less. Which is crazy because there's so much land, but at the same time, it's the waste being used. And then it's so, the the infrastructure cost for for the government and the, which is the the taxpayers' money is crazy. Then you have to asphalt roads.
00:24:26
Speaker
yeah energy, power lines, yes sewage, all that stuff that's highly expensive. Yeah, but there there is plenty of research also on that. There is also a bunch of YouTube videos that document that very well. You also end up with um taking time bombs for for the cities because they have a very low amount of taxpayers per kilometer of a mile of of infrastructure.
00:24:51
Speaker
um So you end up having a very hard time and updating, ah keep pickgging maintaining ah maintaining the the infrastructure down the road. ah So that's another aspect of it. The other thing is, as you were mentioning, putting asphalt everywhere.
00:25:06
Speaker
ah So you're making the land fully ah waterproof everywhere and then you wonder because of flash floods and you wonder for other issues.
00:25:18
Speaker
um So you're you're just creating a big system that is everything but what it should be. And you you exclude people from housing, you ah ah have ah massive burdens. I did the calculation here. if you a standard townhouse, small townhouse, three bedroom would easily go for 1.5 million for you build somewhere in the suburbs.
00:25:41
Speaker
The issue is over... Canadian dollars, yes. um And the if ah the issue is actually if you consider the the cost of ownership slash also the implied cost of transportation, which then is going to be two cars over the course of 25 years,
00:25:59
Speaker
you're going to have to spend $2.7 million, or it's 25 years, um to actually end up with an asset $1.5 million. hoping Say that again. and I missed that. movie yeah You're going to to spend 2.7 million in total to actually have and an asset of 1.5 million.
00:26:18
Speaker
one What? That's all the infrastructure? No, the cost for the for the for the person buying the townhouse. So the person actually, when it's committing to a loan for 1.5 million, is actually committing it for 2.7 million.
00:26:32
Speaker
ah because first of the financing and interest. But the other thing is on top of that, you're going to be ending up with the maintenance of the building for 25 years. going to end up having also to think of how do you get around.
00:26:44
Speaker
And so if you're your standard family with two cars living in the suburbs, um then you're committing to paying for two cars for the total duration you're there, more or less. And these costs go up and you have to maintain them and you have the tires and you have all of that.
00:26:59
Speaker
um So if you add up all the costing to that, including utility costs, power, etc., um you end up having, you're you're actually signing up for a bill of 2.7 million without knowing it.
00:27:11
Speaker
ah You're going to have to pay that over 25 years. And then you hope that at the end of that, you're 1.5 million, I say worth 1.5 million. ah So the the model, even economically, doesn't make sense of of house ownership in the typical way of thinking.
00:27:28
Speaker
um So it's just not adding up. So even there, it's it's fairly wasteful. It just puts on many different bills ah so people don't necessarily realize it.
00:27:39
Speaker
and The issue with that assumption as well that your asset will keep value is thinking that cities can still ah be desirable in 25 years from now on. um that says that the city will still be able to feed all the population, for example.
00:27:54
Speaker
And I think I've already mentioned that to you. i i I believe there and is in Paris, there there was a study done that without diesel powered trucks, they can only feed 20% of their population.
00:28:06
Speaker
So if you remove that because you don't want to burn it or you just don't have it anymore and and France doesn't produce any petroleum products, ah you're going to end up with ah with a severe issue because your population just can't be fed.
00:28:21
Speaker
Like your supermarkets are not supplied in any other way than by diesel powered trucks. So you if if you think of that, plus you think of the fact that insurances are pulling out of certain places because they just consider they can no longer take the risk of insuring you in certain places.
00:28:40
Speaker
There's another aspect that might hit you hard when you own the land. um down the road where you're we' we've seen that in California there are examples of places that all of a sudden have had the soil just there sliding have lens slides and all of a sudden the place is no longer stable and people just bought two years ago a house for two billion and now they sit on a mortgage of the house they cannot even access anymore um And of course, no insurance company will cover you for anything like that. We're thinking of wildfires, floods, ah hail, e etc.
00:29:16
Speaker
In Al-Durda, there has been a hail storm last summer or two summers ago now, I'm not sure anymore.
Innovative Sustainable Housing Models
00:29:24
Speaker
But that hail storm did so much damage on the properties that now all the trades have three years of work order to repair the buildings.
00:29:34
Speaker
So the prices are obviously also going up and the insurance companies are not even compensating for the actual price of the damage because they're just compensating for the price of damage minus ah depreciation.
00:29:47
Speaker
ah So therefore, people have to pay for the gap and hope in the upcoming three years that they're not having another hailstorm. or another issue. I'm laughing not because it's funny by itself, but it's just, it's like a system that just doesn't work at all.
00:30:04
Speaker
and ah So you're you're ending up actually a bunch of- Climate resilience is a massive, that most housing are not climate change resilient. Yeah, and that that is actually the that that's the that the one thing that people start noticing. And and the and i I know, for example, also on another climate change resiliency topic,
00:30:28
Speaker
I know someone who who operates a has a company in Florida and um they're based where it's very prone to have um these ah tropical storms coming and hitting.
00:30:40
Speaker
And their employees are actually leaving. So he's losing knowledge. He's losing people that worked for him because people can no longer afford the houses that cost $200,000. But the insurance premium went to $40,000 year.
00:30:54
Speaker
ah but the insurance premium went to forty thousand dollars a year ah So the gamble was, okay, if the storm hits only every six years, then you can't live without insurance. The problem if it hits every three years, you end up at a situation where you can no longer afford and and make it work.
00:31:11
Speaker
So even if you like your house, even if you purchase that house, you're you're just out of insurance, you're out of financial options ah for that. ah So this is where the the madness of of land usage and the economical model that ah that is attached to it, to circle back to the the original point, is just running out of time.
00:31:32
Speaker
out out of time um So this is where a core, for example, comes in. So were we're looking also to have buildings that are very robust, starting from the seismic side of things, as well as ah the facades and being easy to replace, to maintain.
00:31:51
Speaker
but also being able to fully dismantle the building and rebuild it somewhere else. Because my my feeling is that land value is going to start to be a gamble.
00:32:01
Speaker
like So far, the idea was always that land value is an evergreen and it's something that is steady. ah So my idea that land value will shift to being a gamble and therefore your building needs to be the one thing that retains value.
00:32:19
Speaker
and that we can reuse. um So that's ah that's why we're also thinking of having these small multi-unit buildings that can be ah fully dismantled and rebuilt somewhere else, yeah ah which also helps them in terms of... That's pretty interesting.
00:32:35
Speaker
If you buy a property and you you want to you would want to relocate, or maybe there's threats of climate change or other impacts or other stuff, you could you could call you Let's say, please, can you dismantle my house and build it in another area in Canada where it's safer whatever? Then you guys could do it.
00:32:56
Speaker
It's pretty cool. the Yeah, the the focus that we ah the that we're having is um actually on on rental units ah to also not have any more that high capital intensity because I'm seeing also that many people are on paper well paid.
00:33:15
Speaker
So making $100 to $100 $250,000 Canadian dollars a year, ah they're actually in quite a few cases, they just cannot put the equity aside to buy a $2.5 million dollars house, which is now also something that is a pretty standard price um in in Vancouver, around Vancouver.
00:33:39
Speaker
um So therefore you have people that want a place for their family and they want a comfortable place, they want but they just can't have the equity aside. And I also think it it would be a terrible financial decision um to to buy a house right now with everything that I've just said before.
00:33:58
Speaker
ah Because it just doesn't add up and we cannot expect the future to be like the past. um So therefore we offering rental units and therefore we would be able also when we see that there is less demand in one place, we could actually relocate the building.
00:34:15
Speaker
Therefore also avoiding new upfront or embodied carbon emissions because we can re reuse the same building again. Eventually you have to change a few elements, but we use most of it.
00:34:27
Speaker
And this is where I think we can make the business side of things work with all the constraints that we have from ah ah from a finite planet. um So this is where we need to align both. And the i i know you're i think the purpose of your of your podcast is to show that you can ah do well addressing both.
00:34:50
Speaker
um I would even go a little further like to do well in business. down the road or from now on, you need to consider ah these elements. The fact that you have limited supply of energy, you have limited supply of resources, and you have just a certain amount of pollution, whatever it is, microplastics, greenhouse gases, every byproduct of any production that we have on the planet and that can be released ah whether in and the biosphere, whether it's in the air, whether it's in the water, in the soil.
00:35:23
Speaker
um so ah if you don't do that you're actually putting at risk the whole system and uh the other issue that you have when you have a high energy abundancy and you have a high resource uh usage that you're just allowing yourself and you're allowing your business to be very wasteful and how it operates because energy compensates If you need two loads of truck of lumber instead of one, well, you just refill the gas tank of the truck.
00:35:50
Speaker
And since energy is very, very cheap, and so i some people might argue it's not the case. But um there's a fun guy in France that did the calculation, that the guy that lives on in France, a a Frenchman living on minimum minimum wage, or actually even on social ah social help or social welfare.
00:36:12
Speaker
ah He has the equivalent of 600 to 700 machinery slaves for him. and So if if you would count the energy used by one human, turn into or accounted for the amount of humans that they would take to actually fulfill the same level of energy in the system. It's it's like one one one person living on welfare in France has the equivalent of 600, 700 humans doing work him.
00:36:40
Speaker
humans doing the work for him That's great. are you you you you You might know the video. that There was a video like 10 years ago, I think, of a pro cycling guy that there was pedaling to make toes.
00:36:54
Speaker
And he was he was really pushing the limit to be able to get toes.
00:37:00
Speaker
uh so that's the effort that is required by just putting two slices of bread into your toaster in the morning yeah that's crazy yeah if you think about it in that way all the benefits we have of living today This podcast is brought to you by the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass.
00:37:18
Speaker
Are you struggling with finding the right tools and tricks for your garden? Are you lacking the confidence to be a self-sufficient gardener? Do you sometimes get overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge and time you have to actually do gardening?
00:37:32
Speaker
Then the Garden of Your Dreams Masterclass is for you. But then, so I think I'm getting really much clearer in a deeper level what core, or what the core, and let's put it that way, what the core problems are in the Canadian or specifically, or yeah, we can say Canadian way of building, which is very unresourceful, high cost of building, it's not flexible, um a lot of infrastructure is needed, and and so...
00:38:03
Speaker
then your business core comes in as a developer to say like hey let's make it lower costs let's make it more energy efficient i'm assuming and and so what are all
Community and Environmental Benefits of Core's Designs
00:38:15
Speaker
the other benefits of of doing it your way oh um well yeah i mean it's a There is benefits for... It's ah it's a win-win-win situation.
00:38:27
Speaker
So win for um the person that housed because we are offering them, as you were saying, a highly energy efficient place. um So for both summer climate and ah winter climate, ah because we also have to consider ah heat domes and heat waves ah more and more.
00:38:49
Speaker
and Also considering a heated climate in 25 years from now on and 50 years from now on. um We have all net zero buildings, so therefore the electricity used by the building is produced on the building itself.
00:39:07
Speaker
ah So we can skip the the UTT bills, whatever they might end up doing ah down the road. That's amazing. Is that through solar energy or is there other...? Yes, at first we're looking at solar, but I'm also considering um small wind turbines.
00:39:23
Speaker
um That's also something that I think is under and they looked at in the and many urban areas. and And which is a good combination to have with solar because you have places that have quite a few months with not that much solar, with not that much sun. ah So therefore you could compensate, but it depends also of each lot.
00:39:49
Speaker
so you're going to have to see whether or not you're on the lot that will be exposed to wind. If you just ah block between two major buildings and large trees around you, then the wind turbine might make zero sense.
00:40:02
Speaker
and But just to circle back to the advantages, thats so ah these are um two of on the energy side of things, on the climate comfort side of things. We also have a system that uses um almost no glue no chemicals in it so we're trying to be as pure wood as possible so as much unprocessed raw material as possible in the building um which enable also for a healthier air um you're i don't know if you've ever yeah yeah where if you walk on the construction site that you look at all the packaging there's always all these danger symbols on the
00:40:40
Speaker
on all the materials you've got to find. And there is a reason for that. But we're actually just building homes with that and putting kids in there. um So it's like the builders are not allowed to touch it, but it's being used inside of the houses.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yeah. It's insane. and And you're mentioning it also for the people assembling the buildings. it's ah It's really not healthy how a construction site is operated.
00:41:06
Speaker
but I would argue even more in Europe than and and North America because you have a lot more ah lumber wood side of things in in North America. um ah So the healthy aspect also of air and um ah not being exposed to chemicals constantly when you're inside and you do spend a lot of time inside um just thinking about the time you spend sleeping.
00:41:29
Speaker
um So these are some of the benefits of that. ah We also reduce the the maintenance cost and we optimize actually for that. so we And that's the approach of low tech, high performance, and reducing everything that can break to the bare minimum.
00:41:47
Speaker
and and trying to communalize also these elements by having these small multi-unit buildings. um This is where land efficiency also has increased. We have more and more places around North America that allow for, ah depending on the places, it's called small-scale multi-unit housing or multiplexes.
00:42:07
Speaker
or you're going to be allowed to build between four and eight units, usually on ah what used to be a single-family house lot. Yeah, that's a good ah change. so So therefore, you dilute also the cost of land or user.
00:42:20
Speaker
um But you also create more interaction with people, especially if you balance out the outdoor spaces, the public spaces, the more private spaces. This is also where landscaping comes into play.
00:42:34
Speaker
um ah So ah giving also a sense of of attachment. I've heard actually from other people that live in their single family house and some of them have said, well, for 20 years, we have never talked to any neighbor around here.
00:42:46
Speaker
which is insane to me. but And um offering also a variety of housing unit types in what used to be single-family house neighborhoods ah from ah one bedroom to or five bedroom units so that you have also variety of people living in there, which also contributes to a more healthy social environment.
00:43:11
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I think of older people being able to help out younger parents or ah yeah yeah yeah younger ah people benefiting from the advice of older people in the same building or helping out on fixing a bike and things like that.
00:43:29
Speaker
ah You just create a different...
Optimizing Construction Efficiency through Collaboration
00:43:31
Speaker
the Because we're working on on two projects in other side of Canada, on more on the Toronto side, yeah for intergenerational living.
00:43:42
Speaker
Yeah, so that's exactly the same. Well, if say think of youre of your Italian village where you have everyone just sitting around, talking to each other, greeting each other, knowing each other, knowing who's where, being able to help out the one who has broken his leg by getting his groceries. And like so social isolation in cities is also a problem. that I've had that numerous times in France as a fireman.
00:44:09
Speaker
or in Germany as well, for that fact. um So with welfare checks on on people were one of the biggest number of calls we were having. So looking if someone is still alive in the building.
00:44:21
Speaker
And more often than you would think, people would be gone for or be unseen for weeks before anyone would care. um So that's ah that's another aspect also, that's the social aspect of of housing and the social aspect of the place.
00:44:38
Speaker
It's also wind for the people living there. um on the on On the wind side for the environment, i mean, we have the first design we have here, and we're still very rough. We already you have four times less embodied carbon than the a typical building here.
00:44:55
Speaker
um Four times? That's amazing. Four times less, and yet we have we we haven't even pushed really that deep and that far in detail. So I'm pretty convinced we can even look further. And there are tricks that we can do. We have, for example, zero foundation um going in the ground, so we can actually just remove just a little bit of the upper soil of the of the of the lot, put that soil aside, not even removing it from this from ah from the place. And the landscape architect was already telling, well, you just put the actually, yeah ah you just nurture the soil, ah protect it during construction, and then you can just reuse it on the same site.
00:45:33
Speaker
And that's gonna give you the the healthiest soil that you can have. And you're not even wasting time and money and and ah energy on truckloads going in and out. yeah and That's a big one. so so you but my With the developers, I'm working with this huge amount of trucks that are in.
00:45:51
Speaker
And then they remove the soil and they say it's bad soil because it's not good for building. They dump it somewhere, and then when the construction is over, they come in with new trucks of good soil, which is not even that good, whereas they they could have kept using the same soil.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah, and and you pay for the transportation of that. You pay for getting rid of it, and you pay for getting new ones. Three, f four, one, two, f three, four times. And and you're you're just doing that because you have cheap energy to fill up the diesel truck.
00:46:24
Speaker
Yeah. If you wouldn't have that, you wouldn't even have the idea of doing it. No. Because it would just i mean you it would take an army of of Roman or Egyptian slaves to be able to move that.
00:46:36
Speaker
That's cool. so the ah so So even considering these small details for the environment and the idea behind the project is if we remove the building, moment we remove the building, ah nature should be able to take over piece of land instantly and thrive there.
00:46:54
Speaker
ah So it's about having as little impact into the soil and into the greens and supporting also the greens around it. um by making it resilient, by being able to absorb a lot of rainwater, keeping rainwater, keeping the air as cool as possible, as long as possible by itself, which also benefits the people living there.
00:47:15
Speaker
ah Because if you reduce the the temperature just by the greens and by the ability of the soil to retain water, you're making it a better place for the people that live there.
00:47:26
Speaker
um So there's also less maintenance cost, there's also less um ah utility cost or and energy usage um down the road. So you can just combine many things and then obviously it's also about the material we're using, ah so mass timber, wood fiber insulation,
00:47:42
Speaker
um with cladding, ah we have to use some non-compensational material because of code, for example, here and there. ah But then we're going for material that we think will last at least 50 to 100 years ah so that we have a very long usage of that material.
00:47:58
Speaker
um So therefore reducing the abundant carbon emissions, so the emissions we're going to release immediately in the atmosphere, and also reducing the operational um emissions, both by reducing the amount of maintenance that is needed.
00:48:13
Speaker
And every time you use, for example, a coating like paint, ah something as stupid as paint, every litter of paint that you use is between somewhere 1.7 and 4.3 kilograms emissions.
00:48:26
Speaker
ah So applying paint in a building, and it is not accounted for yet in Canada in lifecycle assessment. So people paint, and it's not appearing on any paper. um is actually a terrible thing.
00:48:41
Speaker
And frequently also these paints are also bad for health. um So you you see again here that you have a win technically for the health of the people in there, you have a win for the environment, and you have ah a win from a business perspective because you don't have to wait for the painter, don't have to um ah pay the painter you don't have to repaint every five years because it looks it looks old um so you don't have these running costs anymore I love that I think it's very interesting once you get into like and that's the big realizations I had as well a couple years ago when you're like
00:49:15
Speaker
getting into regenerative design and and being resourceful and thinking things through rather than just doing it, then there's like, oh, you wanted to resolve one problem, and you're doing it, but at the same time, you're you're solving a series of other problems, which pretty cool.
00:49:31
Speaker
And that's focusing on the process side of things. Because if you know that applying paint once means that you're going to apply paint every time you have a render change, and that that that you you realize actually down the road that it's going to be a lot more impactful in a negative way, whether it's on your financials as well as on the environment, than if you would try to go around it in the first place.
00:49:56
Speaker
um So it's really about caring about each step, and this is also where I have a different approach because i I'm planning to keep all the buildings. um So therefore, I have ah ah skin in the game for the long term.
00:50:10
Speaker
was a standard developer, ah which is also the standard in all industries where everything is highly segmented, everyone focuses on one very particular thing. um it's It's not ideal to be able to work with the finite world.
00:50:26
Speaker
Because the moment you separate each each entity in the value chain and everyone has a very specific problem, no one has the big problem. no So yeah and and the the issue with ah with a high energy world, which is or high energy abundancy world, which is the world where you're currently exiting, ah but which has been the world of the last 100 years, that because you have more energy, you can have more specialization.
00:50:52
Speaker
You can... you can divide more and you can also provide more. ah So that was also something where the welfare states have been very ah well and have been doing well because they were having more and more energy coming in, so therefore more wealth being generated.
00:51:08
Speaker
And they were able to divert more people from ah picking up potatoes in the field to ah actually then doing research, ah being medical, being admin people in ministries, and then splitting up responsibilities into different ministries, for example, in different departments.
00:51:24
Speaker
The same in companies where you have more and more departments. which means that you dilute responsibility for the big picture and no one has the big picture anymore okay i'm getting very clear and i'm learning a lot about construction and how you're going to solve a lot of problems in in canada i love that up now or hopefully no you're doing it already but um in your business endeavors what what are some of the biggest challenges that you're facing today um
00:51:58
Speaker
It's interesting. i was I was asking myself the same not that long ago, working on the business plan and reviewing that again. And I was trying to figure out what are the hurdles.
00:52:12
Speaker
And I'm actually not... not proceeding a hurdle just yet. So I might be, again, fully naive for getting something big.
00:52:23
Speaker
ah The weird thing is actually by assembling, for example, the right team by ah taking the time also that was at the the beginning of our work with the architects, with the consultants, et cetera.
00:52:34
Speaker
We've selected also the all of them, ah for example, based on their approach and sensibility to the bigger problems. um the They all work together and they all start considering it's also about the process again of how you work and how you make all the consequences of each decision and the design process ah tangible to everyone and how you make every single person involved an actual stakeholder and and give them ownership of the project as well.
00:53:06
Speaker
um they actually all try to solve each other's problem. So it's interesting. Instead of creating problems for the other one, they try to solve the problems of others. Oh, that's interesting. Because they have skin in the game and then... Yeah, or they feel actually that they are empowered and they feel that they have a responsibility and they the try to create some sort of a team spirit as well.
00:53:30
Speaker
How do you do that practically? Is it just by assembling the right team or is that with subcontractors or... No, that came that came from um ah from my experience actually working on in management on subway construction.
00:53:48
Speaker
um I had i and good quite a few architects and engineers working in my unit, in my business unit.
00:53:59
Speaker
And um I was realizing that they were all struggling also in getting through with the projects and and understanding what the what the bigger picture is, what the responsibility was, where they had freedom to act, where they could also feel that they had a responsibility and an ownership in it.
00:54:18
Speaker
um And also satisfaction of getting things done and moving forward and creating ah sense of not being just one guy pushing everything and trying to make that and insane effort to get the project done, ah but to empower them to work as as teams.
00:54:36
Speaker
um So that was a whole process before, I think, but could be a whole other ah hour of discussion on how to organize teams and and ah federate that and federate the effort.
00:54:47
Speaker
But again, that's that was also one of the realizations that if you ah focus on the process and how to organize things, people know what to do, but how to organize them is actually key to get the best out of them.
00:54:59
Speaker
Because people generally want the best out to to get the best result for themselves personally. um They also want to have fun doing it. They also want to be empowered to do things and to have an impact.
00:55:12
Speaker
ah So it's about how to how to release that energy, release that that force and that these skills. It's never a problem of of skill shortage usually in the projects. They all know what to do.
00:55:24
Speaker
It's how you organize it. And so that's... I'm taking the same approach here and by involving people early and by trying to have them all very early um able to influence the project and state what the issues, the struggles, the limitations, the the regulations they have to work with, um including also taking stakeholders from the city, from ah others like ah financial institutions, insurance companies, et cetera. So you can actually take everyone on board early and have them align on the project and then you
00:55:59
Speaker
it goes fairly smoothly. I mean, obviously there's always something coming, but that's normal. That's ah dealing with problems is it the definition of business, and of of work. um yeah But but i I don't see any major hurdle actually ah coming.
00:56:18
Speaker
the so so it it's pretty... Again, maybe I'm very, very naive and I'm forgetting something big, but ah I just had the realization, well, it's actually doing pretty
Motivation and Vision for Sustainable Development
00:56:33
Speaker
OK. And we're just seeing potential.
00:56:35
Speaker
So you have a platter of people that are signing up to work with you then? ah Yeah, actually. shouldn' be they they They even want to move in before the building is even built. so um So that gives you, and and I think that's actually a very good sign ah when you see that people that you're working with and the employees of the people that you're working with, um you're seeing that you're actually addressing an issue and topics that that they care about.
00:57:03
Speaker
um And ah you see that they have the sense that they they want to be part of it. They they would want to live in it. And they see everything that is happening. I've had one one one of the trades because I take actually the trades on already in the design phase very early on to make sure that actually the how to build it in detail is already accounted for in the very early design.
00:57:29
Speaker
um To avoid also stupid iterations of design feedback and then realizing that builder cannot do it. And the person that actually assembles the screws can do it.
00:57:40
Speaker
And so that guy actually, the the one of the first meetings we've had here, it was explaining that he's been waiting for that project for 25 years. and so um As a builder, that was a builder.
00:57:54
Speaker
Yeah, he he is i mean he's a ah mass timber and that's a supplier. He is the mass timber supplier for us. I have a feeling that it's also becoming then kind of like an IKEA way of building.
00:58:08
Speaker
I don't know, not as like a homeowner could build his own house, but at least for the construction companies, it's like super clear. This is step one, step two, do this, put that screw there.
00:58:20
Speaker
Because I feel that many constructions get hung up on like, OK, we have a plan, but it's not actually as detailed as we want it. And there's a ton of mistakes. So we have to improvise or fix it on site or come up with some plastic to seal stuff quickly because yeah we don't have time.
00:58:39
Speaker
And we don't want to bother the client with saying that it's not buildable. So they just make quick fixes. And those are then things that in 5, 10, 20 years become also problems.
00:58:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah that's the thing in the whole, if if you consider the whole value chain and you try to get the right information to the right person at the right time and involve them at the right moment, um yeah yeah you you realize that not everyone can know everything and not everyone can think of everything.
00:59:08
Speaker
um So it's crucial to have them ah to have them there. And ah indeed that enables then the person, for example, the architect and also, for example, the the associates of the architect who are potentially fairly young recently out of school, which was totally fine, everyone was there.
00:59:27
Speaker
um They have skills they bring in, but they cannot exactly know what the 25-year-old tradesman knows from experience. And he he knows the issue he's going to have to put the screw exactly in that corner, which the architect is it's like, well, he just put screws, you know.
00:59:43
Speaker
But he knows, well, I need the space for my machine, and I need then the space for the screw to get in, and I need the... um So by ah having that, then you can push they the thing further by having some sort of prefabrication and by having some sort of modularity and going into that idea, as you were saying, um using an IKEA type of approach of you see easy to assemble.
01:00:07
Speaker
ah Thinking also of disassembling it, that's the next thing. So how can you get it together, but how can you get it disassembled again? And maybe better than IKEA because usually with IKEA. Exactly. Disassembling IKEA is not possible.
01:00:23
Speaker
It's hard. and then you're you you reassemble it and it just like wiggles. You can do it once and then after that it's over. um And ideally we're able to do it more than than once, not that I want to move the buildings constantly.
01:00:36
Speaker
But if we think that we need to have whatever emissions we have right now, we need to have them for as long as possible or make use of what has caused these emissions for as long as possible. Even for recycling, and sometime in the future, hopefully it's around 100 longer.
01:00:53
Speaker
the the the buildings are going to be outdated. So then getting them separated, that's yeah so much waste in construction is unrecyclable.
01:01:06
Speaker
We're not using any glues um ah mostly. I mean, we have to use a little bit of tape here and there, for example, for windows and things like that. um But the most of the elements are actually put together in a way that they can be taken apart again.
01:01:24
Speaker
So that was also another experience I had on the subway. um as the As a representative owner-operator of the subway for construction, we would spend every year millions of our budget um to get rid of the dirty stuff from 50 years ago.
01:01:45
Speaker
and the dirty stuff being, for example, asbestos and things like that, which used to be included in everything. um So you're spending a lot of money down the road if you own the asset, and that's something that is also often overlooked ah by people owning their own house.
01:02:02
Speaker
The liability of owning something dirty is big. ah Because the you you might also end up with heavier regulations when it comes to ah how to dispose of things.
01:02:14
Speaker
And the moment on, you cannot clearly separate ah products from each other because they've been glued, they've been painted, et cetera. ah The cost of that can be going through the through the roof and for something that you don't want to use anymore.
01:02:27
Speaker
So you're paying for something that that you want to get rid of. Yeah. And that's actually stealing money from future generations because... they will have to deal with that. um Oftentimes renovations can be more expensive than and building a home from scratch, which with your way of building, it's not gonna be the case. That's very cool.
01:02:48
Speaker
and that's That's the same thing ah when when you're thinking in the and sense of stealing money from the next generation. Yes, that's the thing. The other issue is as long as we're not taking care of of the, pardon me, but the shit that we've been doing in the past,
01:03:03
Speaker
we're also making them pay with the ability you to live
01:03:10
Speaker
So not only financially, but actually with the ability just to live, to have air, to have water, to not have microplastic everywhere, to not have soils that cannot do anything anymore, ah to ah to to live in temperatures that are a match to ah the the the temperatures that a human can live in.
Closing Remarks and Contact Information
01:03:31
Speaker
um So yeah it's ah it's it's a double ah ah ah the double effect. like the The financial thing, which I mean, like The economical side of things is a purely man-made arbitrary um system.
01:03:47
Speaker
who um The environmental reality, the the physical chemical reality of life is the other thing. Yeah, that's very interesting.
01:03:58
Speaker
I think i'm I'm really excited about, well, I'm not thinking, I'm very sure I'm very excited about your work and it's so cool to hear that people across all kinds of industries, just like the building industry are stepping it up and changing the way we used to think that things are being done and not even questioning them and then you have like a fresh mind like you, who has experience from living in Germany, working in in projects there, and having a new, fresh look on things. And hey, guys, what why are we doing that? Like, oh, it's we've been doing it forever like that.
01:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, but let's get to like the reality. and And there's better ways to do it. ah So there's a lot of things that done in the past. People want to change. People want to change, but they usually don't feel empowered to change.
01:04:45
Speaker
That's my feeling. That's very good point. Very good point. And then just before we start wrapping it up, on on we didn't talk much about it, but on a personal level, like how as as as an entrepreneur, a regenerative entrepreneur, how do you keep yourself going? Because there's probably obstacles that you have overcome, but what what like keeps you driving to keep pushing forward?
01:05:09
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's very simple. you You can't give up. I mean, if you give up, then that's it, you know?
01:05:21
Speaker
yeah that I mean, the the issue we're facing, ah that that we're facing, or the issues we're facing are bigger than us. um And I believe that I am in a privileged situation. i don't have to,
01:05:39
Speaker
run 10K or make ah my kid run 10K to get drinkable water or fresh water every day. um I don't have to deal with struggle on a daily basis. So I think the only reasonable thing then to do with your time and is to try to fix the biggest problems that we have.
01:06:00
Speaker
And one being housing, as you said, and housing issues iss is a big it's a lot of dynamite for a democratic system, I believe, because ah the issue of people feeling outcasted and the going on a democracy has people feeling outcasted, then it doesn't necessarily go in the right direction.
01:06:21
Speaker
um And the other thing is being being able to have a planet that is still ah compatible with with life on it. ah Because i mean life is pretty much amazing. Just ah the the idea that life exists, it's pretty crazy.
01:06:39
Speaker
If you think about it, that if you've been through the process, for example, of a pregnancy, and not that I have been pregnant, but my wife has been, and you just see that but being developing, and you're like,
01:06:50
Speaker
that's That's insane. like That's insane what like that all of that happens automatically. um And looking at any other aspect of nature as well, obviously humans, how baby humans are what is the closest to us.
01:07:06
Speaker
um ah But protecting that gift and being able then therefore to share that gift with future generation or generations is, I think, ah ah something worth pursuing and investing time in it.
01:07:21
Speaker
um So that's the that's the engine. um that's the That's the fuel to the engine. And yeah, you just if you have kids, you're just like, well, how do you...
01:07:32
Speaker
and and usually people think of how do you provide financially for your kids, but I think we need to think of how do you keep a livable planet for the kids? And the next question is also what kids do you leave to the planet after that?
01:07:47
Speaker
I love that. Very interesting. And and i this is a very important driver, I think, for people that are in the regenerative business. It's like, okay, but definitely we want to make money because if you don't make the money, then you can't sustain...
01:08:00
Speaker
the business, but it's way bigger than than ourselves. It's like, it's for our kids, for the next generations. So it's I love what you said, we just do it, we don't question it. So um yeah, we're gonna start wrapping it up. Stefan, I wanna already thank you very much for coming on the show.
01:08:17
Speaker
So when people feel called to either work together with you, I don't know if you're hiring people at the moment, but if some of the people are listening, maybe architects, ah builders, developers, ah people that wanna help out,
01:08:33
Speaker
um or people that are interested to build a sort of house that you're doing, how can people best contact you? I think the easiest would be on LinkedIn, ah for example. i'm I'm happy, I guess there's the option to leave somewhere ah and in with a podcast a link to that.
01:08:54
Speaker
And otherwise, my but my name and combined with with Canada or Vancouver, it's there are not that many. So um it's easy to find me there. I love that. And we'll add the website, ah like your website.
01:09:08
Speaker
as well. Corebeetcare.com. Yes. Exactly. All right. Stefan, any final words before we completely finish it for today? Well, thank you very much, Matthieu, for um ah putting the podcast together. And I've been listening to a few of of the podcasts that you've made in the past. And it's always interesting to ah hear about all the paths of individuals.
01:09:35
Speaker
um all going kind of in the same direction and all with their own touch. And um I think that's very important also to do that job. So thank you very much ah to you.
01:09:47
Speaker
It's my pleasure. And it's ah it's just so much fun to meet like-minded people that are changing the world. So it's not even a ah job for me. All right, Ivan, thank you very much. Have a lovely day. Take care.
01:09:59
Speaker
Thank you, Major. Take care. Bye.