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Ep. 15 Jeremy McLeod – Sustainable Architecture
91 Plays6 months ago
“What do you want to leave behind? What legacy do you want to leave people with?”
What if the homes and buildings we live in could help fight climate change? In a world rapidly shifting due to environmental changes, how can architecture not just adapt but actively contribute to a regenerative future? What if we could redesign our cities to combat climate change, improve urban living, and provide long-term financial benefits—all at once? Could the solution be as simple as rethinking our buildings and parking spaces?
As our world rapidly evolves, cities are at the heart of that change. Urban planning is no longer just about providing homes and infrastructure—it's about shaping environments that tackle climate change, promote sustainability, and create thriving communities. But how do we bring innovative ideas to life in a world resistant to change?
Jeremy McLeod is the founder and director of Breathe Architecture in Australia, a company dedicated to creating high-quality, sustainable design solutions. He's also the co-founder of Nightingale Housing, a not-for-profit organization committed to providing affordable, sustainable housing in Melbourne. Jeremy is at the forefront of using architecture as a tool to protect both people and the planet.
Doing good for the planet and doing good in business don’t have to be mutually exclusive. By aligning your mission with sustainable practices, not only can you build a successful brand, but you can also create lasting impact for future generations.
Website: https://www.breathe.com.au/
Email: jeremy@breathe.com.au
Instagram: @breathearchitecture
Explore these valuable resources to further your journey in regenerative design:
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/.
Fulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.com/.
Ready to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute training session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams.
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Transcript
Introduction: Architecture for Good
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm a human first, that I'm an advocate for the planet that I live on, for the people in the city in which I live, and that I use architecture as a tool or design as a tool or as a weapon for good. Spending time in nature, it recharges me, but it also reminds me why I do what I do. If you're working in the architecture of the built environment and you care about the planet, remind yourself what it is that you're fighting for.
The Regenerative Design Podcast Overview
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Regenerative Design Podcast. I'm your host, Mathieu Mahes, and in this show I interview the leading authorities in the world of regenerative practices. 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?
00:00:50
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. You're here listening to the podcast that is all about making our planet a better place and making your business more successful.
Guest Introduction: Jeremy McLeid
00:01:11
Speaker
Enjoy the show.
00:01:17
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of the regenerative design podcast. Today we have another epic guest. He's all the way from Australia and his name is Jeremy McLeid. And Jeremy is the founder and director of BREED. It's a dedicated group of architects that deliver high quality design as well as sustainable architecture. for So for Jeremy, it's really important just like for myself to combine these two aspects in design. So the company is also dedicated to creating affordable, sustainable housing in Melbourne. He's also the co-founder of nighting Nightingale Housing, which is an organization that's all about building homes for people and not for profit. So Jeremy, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Yeah, good. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's amazing. I wanted to say thanks, mate, for coming out to the show. I really love Australia and it's ah I've been blessed to go there to travel there for some time. So and welcome to the show. Let's start with asking ah a kind of unconventional question. So when you're at a dinner party and you're meeting new people and you're sitting at a whole table and all of a sudden the room goes silent,
00:02:37
Speaker
And they all look to you and somebody asks, hey, Jeremy, so what do you do as a
Sustainable Housing in Melbourne
00:02:43
Speaker
living? How do you actually answer that question? ah It's a good question. I think um when I first ah graduated yeah and became an architect, I think that the answer was pretty simple, right? you know The answer to that question is you know I'm an architect. And I was very proud of that. It took me a long time to become an architect, a lot of study.
00:03:05
Speaker
um you know, a lot of work to become a registered architect, you know, and professional development to be good architects. But I think, um what would I say now? I would say that I'm a human first, that I'm an advocate for the planet that I live on and for the people in the city in which I live, and that I use architecture as a tool or design as a tool or as a weapon for good to be able to kind of deliver on, you know, those things that are important to me. Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. And I see your while we're doing this interview, you're taking a hike in your garden being inspired by nature.
Urbanization and Nature Preservation
00:03:50
Speaker
So tell me how important is that natural aspect in in what you do?
00:03:56
Speaker
ah I mean, I interestingly, I work a lot in urban Melbourne. I'm a big fan of urbanization and sustainable urbanization. I work a lot in the apartment space and the affordable housing space. um But, you know, all of that is fundamentally to keep people out of nature. So I think the funny thing is that in Australia, a lot of our cities like Los Angeles have ah have spread ah incredibly like like Melbourne, you know um you know it's kind of edge to edge. you know is you know It takes like three and a half hours to drive from edge to edge you know in in good traffic. yeah it's It's spreading and it's swallowing swallowing up towns and cities all around it. um It's very, very low density. We're built over
00:04:51
Speaker
forest land, cut down forests, our biodiversity. And then as we turn that into farming in the, you know, I guess at the turn of the 20th century, we're now building over our farming land with housing. So for me, um spending time in nature is incredibly important. It recharges me, but it also reminds me of why I do what I do.
00:05:19
Speaker
And I think it's i think it's a pretty important, right? if you're If you're working in the architecture of the built environment and you care about the planet, you know remind yourself what it is that you're fighting for. So yeah, I spend time in the forest to connect myself with nature to remind me why I do what I do. No, I love that. And I agree. I think it's really important to find the right balance right between, OK, how can we preserve existing pristine landscapes, how can we build more sustainably so people don't go out and and expand certain areas. Actually, when I was in Australia myself, I saw or I met an organization that was trying to reclaim ancient forests that were being cut down back in the 80s or 60s already.
Climate Change and Internal Migration
00:06:08
Speaker
potentially to start developing it so they told like oh there's a lot of space we'll just start cutting everything down so eventually we can develop it but as it turned out the whole there was no analysis or no assessment and actually as it turned out the whole area was not good for building at all it's just like kind of and too wet and too humid and so it never got built even so I think the work you're doing is very important in Australia in that sense to keep as many people away from these pristine landscapes and yeah urbanize more I think there's a huge well I think Australia is gaining a lot of attention for a while now and there's big waves of immigration coming
00:06:53
Speaker
your way so you have to be set up and prepared for that, other I think. Well, I mean, it's very interesting, right? Australia is a big continent like, you know, ah yeah like parts of Asia or, you know, parts of Europe or parts of the Americas, you know. um And we're very, very big east to west and also very, very big north to south. And I think that um we're already starting to see kind of um internal migration.
00:07:23
Speaker
uh north to south here so people moving away from the quader and closer to the south you know here because we're in the southern hemisphere here so people moving closer to tasmania um moving further south away from uh what in the northern hemisphere you might call hurricanes and here we call cyclones you know so moving away from cyclonic wind conditions moving away from kind of tropical heat and humidity um and incredible kind of torrential rainfalls and downpours and flooding events, the likes of which we'd never seen. So we're starting to see some internal migration in Australia. And obviously we're starting to see some um there some ah interesting migration into our most southern state Tasmania and also into our neighboring country, New Zealand, which is very far south as well.
Adapting Urban Design to Climate Change
00:08:16
Speaker
So um tech billionaires from California
00:08:20
Speaker
buying their climate refuges in those places that they think will have um survivable temperatures and good rainfall into the future. and That's been interesting to watch.
00:08:34
Speaker
yeah I think it's quiet and I mean kind of the the science was there already 20, 30, 40 years ago that it was gonna happen but now it's actually happening and I see a lot of like climate migration both on on for high income people but also for low income people and like we discussed it just before this this podcast is that yeah lots of people are moving away from the equator so it's going to be or it's already becoming a big shift like ah in Africa people are moving to the north to Europe ah people are moving south in Africa even so yeah I think big shifts are coming because of climate change so both your work is important to to be ready for that and I think doing practices that are
00:09:25
Speaker
mitigating this climate change which is like regenerative farming, reforestation, all this work is is equally important to to yeah to stabilize the the climate prices that we're facing. I think it's quite astonishing if you go really deep into it. We can actually solve this quite fast and the biggest way of doing that is is with farmland.
00:09:47
Speaker
um in my opinion so but yeah I think it's it's beautiful to see that everybody in in his or her own industry for your architecture is contributing to uh to making this puzzle fit so yeah I'm really excited about that yeah I think I think it's um the interesting thing for me is that you know when I first uh read about climate change and kind of this this idea of a greenhouse effect and global warming. um you know my My understanding of it was that it would be 30 years from now, like I thought it would be 2050 that we would start to see the impacts of that. It's been quite shocking to see the impacts happening you know across Europe, across the United States and across Australia and Asia.
00:10:38
Speaker
um so so much sooner than I thought, you know, like 30 years sooner than I thought. So yeah, I think that it's not just about mitigation now, it's about adaptation. So I think that, you know, as as we design buildings, we don't just design them to try to ah sequester carbon or, um you know, ensure that we can build a building that's carbon neutral in operations. But we also are now thinking about, you know, how do we set the floor level? You know, do we make sure that we, you know,
00:11:08
Speaker
to whatever the current flood level is, do we need to double that? we need and and you know and And we're designing in you know uninterrupted power supply or battery storage so that the building can operate for at least 24 hours in the event of ah power outage because as our energy grid starts to struggle in summers with heat waves. you know How do we deal with increased wind intensities? you know How do we make sure that all of the water that falls in our building, how do we deal with our roof drainage to make sure that all of that water goes outside of our building now? luckily you know We can't design internal drainage or downpipes or box gutters in most of the east coast of Australia now because we
00:11:55
Speaker
all of our data to design rainwater catchment is historic. And so none of that actually makes any sense anymore because we've never seen rainfall like this before. so we so So it's difficult to design when you only have historic data to work from when you know that the future is different from the past. So anyway, so for us, it's yes, it's a mitigation, but it's also adaptation now.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think I agree and it's an important thing to talk about that, okay, we can focus on making buildings greener and I think it's a good good thing, but we also have to make it feasible in in terms of price and investments that are needed to do that.
00:12:41
Speaker
and I don't know, I maybe wanna open a discussion here to see like, is there ways that we can actually move away the focus from necessarily building greener buildings, but just making buildings that are highly efficient and then using the other capital to restore the natural landscape, to build gardens in the suburbs, to build even public parks. I think there might be more effect in doing that while of of course also using more sustainable sources of of energy to feed those houses. would you Would you agree on that? Or what's your take on that?
Natural vs. Technological Urban Design
00:13:20
Speaker
Well, I mean, there's there's a technological way to do things. There's an engineering way to do things. And then there's a kind of ah a natural systems way to do things. I think the you know if you go to Hong Kong,
00:13:33
Speaker
or Singapore, let's use Hong Kong as an example. The way the way to deal with heat and humidity in Hong Kong is to build everything out of concrete ah and then connect your power g grid to a nuclear power plant and then provide air conditioning to every building, every apartment, ah every every hotel lobby, every space. And so um try to do it using technology.
00:14:02
Speaker
Interestingly, walking around the streets of Mong Kok, all of the air conditioners bolted to the sides of all of those towers just push hot air out into the streets. And the streets are made with concrete and asphalt. And ah and streets that are already humid in summer there become unbearable. So it becomes almost impossible to kind of move around above above ground.
00:14:30
Speaker
um at those times. And so you're sweating, your body's trying to cool itself down, it can't and then you walk into a hotel lobby and the thermostat is said ah set in 16 degrees and um or a shopping centre set to 16 degrees and it's freezing. And you're sweating and then you're incredibly uncomfortable. so you're You're comfortable outside and you're uncomfortable inside. Whereas I think if you think about um You know, historically, like a city like Sofia in Bulgaria, you know, again, kind of concrete buildings kind of built through, ah you know, the the Soviet era. But in between each of those buildings, ah trees are planted, forests are planted. And the forest of the trees shade the side of the concrete buildings. So the concrete, you don't get that kind of urban heat island effect.
00:15:28
Speaker
You don't get the heat gain on there. The trees are trans-evaporating, giving moisture off the back of their leaves as the breezes move through. So it's kind of, you know, somewhere between four and ten degrees cooler under the canopy of the trees there than where it's not. And then the residents in the apartments can then open up their windows and get the cool breezes from under the canopies of the trees moving through their apartments and cooling their apartments in summer without turning an air conditioner on which then just pushes hot air back out into the space so you know two very different ways and and both kind of you know ah you know maybe buildings built through the 50s in Hong Kong and and Sophia but both two very different ways of dealing with it and you know the streets of Sophia in Bulgaria like walking through a forest that feels
00:16:20
Speaker
you know, beautiful, right? Like walking between, you know, these kind of brutalist concrete buildings, but in a forest. um Whereas walking in Hong Kong, I mean, it's kind of Hong Kong could be magical, but also incredibly tough, physically challenging urban environment. And you can see straight away that one has the opportunity for biodiversity, insects, bird life, you know, kids to play, you know, place for people and plants.
00:16:48
Speaker
um And you can see straight away, and it's an easier system that that becomes like any ecological system itself maintaining, as opposed to a technological system, you know, that that constantly requires energy and input to maintain in Hong Kong. So yeah, I think that, so for me as an architect, I have to think when I'm doing urban design,
00:17:13
Speaker
Do I design, ah how do I design for density? So where should that density be? You know, close to train station, schools, place of employment. um And how should that density be? Should it be based around a motor car? So it's all, ah you know, like like Houston in Texas, so it's all just, ah asphalt and concrete and car park and no trees or should it be like Saphia and can I build density so that it's like homes in the forest or like ah you know Sweden so you know two or three storey townhouses with birch trees in the middle of it like how how do I build my density and how do I think about the urban environment um you know or could it be like Seville in Spain where
00:18:04
Speaker
you know We plant ah agriculture in the city, so fruit trees, so you know rows and rows of orange trees. that you know Your city actually works as an orchard as well as a place to cool the urban environment. So as an architect, as a city maker, I get to think about all of those things. um And ideally, it would be good if I could convince my clients that it makes good financial sense to build beautiful regenerative
Financial Benefits of Regenerative Design
00:18:34
Speaker
cities because arguably they can sell a home in a forest, but more than they could sell a home in a concrete jungle. and that's you know so ah So I try to talk to our clients about you know seeing the value in using regenerative systems, in kind of particularly in housing.
00:18:57
Speaker
I love that perspective because what you just pinpointed at is that we kind of have to make a decision to think about, okay, is it like a short term fix? And it's all about, I see that in farming and agriculture and in gardening and all the aspects, it's like, okay, you're going to go for the quick fix.
00:19:19
Speaker
But then you're actually making the problem worse on the medium to long term. And I think that's the example you first gave with all the air conditions. On top of that, it's showing that air conditions just like refrigerators, ah when they are discarded after the the life use, they often end up in a dumping site and they have a very toxic and gas that then if it's not recycled well it goes into the atmosphere makes climate change even worse and even if we're using nuclear power I think a big aspect of the nuclear thing that's not talked about is that we're setting off not just there's no let's say carbon dioxide offset but we're setting off energy into the atmosphere and this makes all the the hurricanes and all the
00:20:09
Speaker
all this craziness in the climate even worse and that's at least my perspective so I fully agree with you like the choice is is quite obvious for you and me that we have to choose for nature-based solutions because the science is even there. Can I just say though that my position on air conditioning has drastically softened in the last 10 years so I would agree that 10 years ago air conditioners were twice as expensive. Their greenhouse warming potential of the refrigerants was 11,000 times worse than like, you know, for each molecule of carbon dioxide that was being released into the atmosphere. So there were the refrigerants were bad, their efficiency wasn't that good. um And there were just like other better things available. But I have to admit that in recent times, I've really
00:21:06
Speaker
ah really actually become incredibly um incredibly focused on carbon um because I just need my profession and I need ah developers and I need everyone actually just to solve their own carbon budget and um particularly on operational carbon and I think that in Australia particularly where ah where we still use a lot of fossil fuels so people are still using ah natural gas here despite the the abundance of solar and sunlight in this country. And so for me, um my my key to success on operational carbon is one, electrify everything, no gas to any into any building.
00:21:48
Speaker
two to connect to renewable energy sources. So in Australia, you can put your own solar on your roof, but you can also buy through our um national energy grid, 100% renewable. So you can choose that just by ticking ticking a box from a retailer. And then that then forces the market to move away from coal and gas and to invest more into hydro, wind and solar.
00:22:18
Speaker
And part of the solution for that is that it remains the same in Australia for a lot of our climate zones here that we need active heating and cooling even for a very very energy efficient building. And so the most efficient way to do that is actually through high efficiency air conditioning.
00:22:35
Speaker
And we've now got air conditioning that we can use that uses carbon dioxide. So CO2 air conditioners, basically. So the refrigerants are much, much better, essentially. So I agree. I think you're a good mix of of finding yeah efficient air conditionings with the nature based solution is probably the way to go, because even if we do everything that we have to do to make a green environment, the climate is still going to get crazier and crazier. Absolutely. A hybrid system, I would i would say.
00:23:06
Speaker
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00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah, and historically, we used to design we used to design buildings in Melbourne. In Melbourne, historically, it's it's south in Australia. It's like one of the most southern states. um So it's quite cool. It's a heating climate here. And so we used to design our buildings just with hydraulic heating, um you know hot hot water heating in the in the apartments. And um now what we've found over the last kind of five, 10 years is that it doesn't matter how efficient we make the buildings,
00:23:56
Speaker
we still can't deal with heatwave events happening in summer. so um So we've had to start designing in air conditioning into our apartment buildings that we've never had to think about air conditioning in, you know, just just even just 10 years ago. So yeah, I think we have that's part of the adaptation, right, that we have to deal with. ah Unfortunately, this, you know, changing climate that we're in,
00:24:24
Speaker
Oh yeah, I fully agree. Just one thing that I would want to stress as a message, it it shouldn't like... that even that there's a need to do that we shouldn't say oh that's why we don't even need to do nature-based solutions because oh yeah yeah for sure that might be used as an argument as well but yeah I think it's amazing and what use what what you stressed out is also for the investors for the whole financial industry to show like these properties that have access to greenery are just evaluated so much more because
00:24:56
Speaker
we as humans, we intrinsically want to be connected to nature. So even though I've i read an article where they had two neighborhoods, exactly the same location, access to all the same infrastructure, but one neighborhood had like doubled down on planting a lot of trees and making it really like a beautiful biodiverse green environment. The other was more like just asphalt concrete and maybe some lawn and a couple of trees. Value of the properties were double in the green high by diverse environment because people drive by like I want to live there and not ah next door where not much is happening and it's super hot and so I think it's it's really important to stress that to the financial market because the evidence is there to invest in nature because it has
00:25:44
Speaker
Well, nature has most of the solution and I think if we as humans can direct it and help nature and then we're going to see a lot of beautiful things happening. So I'm very excited about that. Now, what in that whole idea you and me were very aware of it What are your biggest challenges when designing those cities, when doing a new urban plan to actually bring this forward? Because from my experience, I've worked in and urban development as well.
Barriers to Eco-Friendly Urban Development
00:26:14
Speaker
There's brilliant ideas at the beginning. And then as the project progresses, oftentimes ah when construction starts or even when landscaping starts, it's just a very light version of the initial idea. Is that something you're faced with as well?
00:26:31
Speaker
yeah Absolutely. um All right. So I think there's one overarching barrier, I think, and then there's kind of two specific barriers that sit under that. So the overarching barrier is the inertia of the status quo. So what what do we currently do? And if you want to do anything different from that, it is um yeah you need it you need incredible kind of force to break out of that inertia of that status quo. and So I think that's that's that's their overarching challenge. And so where do we see that playing out? So in in two specific areas. So one is in our clients, the developers that want to develop
00:27:20
Speaker
ah you know some urban you know some urban density or a new urban city plan. So for them, you know if they want to do a $100M project, um they need to make sure that it works financially.
00:27:35
Speaker
yeah And so but for them to know that it works financially, they start building financial models. And all of their financial models ah require inputs based on historical data, historical sales data, historical valuation data. And so, for example, if you want to do um some houses in the forests instead of houses in a car park, and you want to build a car parking precinct,
00:28:05
Speaker
and then a housing precinct where people walk through a forest, the challenges here are for the developer is that they ask their valuers to value what the housing is worth. And the valuers say, well, we don't have any examples of housing without cars in it. So, and we're like, well, the cars are here. They're 200 meters away. And they're like, yeah, but we don't have a we don't have a comparison. b there we't We don't know what to do. so So we'll just write the value of a normal house with the car in it, and then we'll deduct what we think is the value of a car. Let's say $50,000. Yep. And so you can see that when you you might be doing 200 houses you know at $50,000, what is that? $10 million. dollars you know So suddenly the developer's saying, hang on a minute. I'm going to lose $10 million. dollars
00:29:02
Speaker
by not putting cars in the houses. So i say no, because they don't they don't say, can I sell this housing actually for $50,000 more? Because now I'm not looking onto a ah concrete driveway and a road. Instead, I'm looking out onto a into a row of trees and a forest. What's what's what what's that worth?
00:29:28
Speaker
They don't know because wonderful it's hard to qua no one's ever done that in the Melbourne context before so they're like we don't know how to measure it before we can't value it. So the valuers who are worried about being sued for getting the numbers wrong choose the conservative numbers. yeah um so so So there's the financial piece about trying to do something different um and so no developer wants to lose you know $10 million dollars or $50 million dollars or $100 million dollars so they're nervous to do anything that's different and they also don't know is there a market for doing something different? So we all think the idea of living in a forest sounds beautiful and we all think that of course we could sell housing in the forest instead of housing on a car park but because the developers don't have any sales history of that they're like why should I take the risk?
00:30:27
Speaker
when I know that I can sell housing on a car park. So that, you know, risk to developers of losing money is is is a big problem. So I think that just the importance of kind of um nonprofit kind of developers or state actors, you know, ah like the government delivering innovation is really important to kind of prove these models. The other the other barrier is planning.
00:30:57
Speaker
yeah um And so planning regulation, you know, has been zoning and planning, you know, it's been designed over time to try and stop the worst, the worst from happening. But what I find that it does is that it it often stops the worst from happening, but it also stops the best from happening. Oh, yeah. um Because it does it because it doesn't contemplate innovation. And so, interestingly, in the stormwater drainage is a beautiful example of, that I think,
00:31:27
Speaker
Oh, 100%. But that theing for the big thing for us is car parking, right? So in the 60s, in the 60s, I mean, you know right through from the kind of 20s and 30s, the automotive industry in the United States lobbied the United States government to build um parking into planning legislation.
00:31:52
Speaker
So by the time we get to 1960s in Texas to build housing in the United States or in Texas, you need to have a certain number of car parking. And so Australia looks to the United States and says, ah, United States is very sophisticated in the 1960s. We should take on their they're very sophisticated from their planning. So we'll take their car parking numbers and we'll bring it to Melbourne, Australia.
00:32:19
Speaker
And we'll adopt that because we want to be sophisticated, we want to be worldly in this country, you know, at the bottom end of the world. And so in the 1960s, our city adopts very similar car parking numbers to Texas.
00:32:34
Speaker
um And since that time, it's never really changed. Post peak oil, post the but yeah understanding of climate change. So we have linked intrinsically, because of lobbying by private motor vehicle companies in the United States, we have now inadvertently linked housing, which is a basic human right, to car parking,
00:32:58
Speaker
legally. So when you want to build housing, you now have to build car parking. And in the city, a city like Melbourne, where there's a basalt, you know, under our city, for every basement car park we provide, it's now costing about $70,000 on top of the house. So you want to build a house, that's great. um But you've got to charge someone an extra $70,000 to build that house. So um it's a very interesting problem to have.
00:33:27
Speaker
that we're we're experiencing a housing crisis in Australia, not a car parking crisis. um but yeah and And we're experiencing you know um a climate crisis with the biggest emitters of carbon you know in the OECD outside of the oil producing nations like Qatar, um you know the Arab Emirates. But apart from that, we we produce more ah carbon per capita than the United States or Canada.
00:33:54
Speaker
um And yet our planning scheme that talks a lot about sustainability still requires us to dig a hole in the ground and fill it with concrete so that we can park cars underground. ah you know you know Right next to a train station, it's fascinating to me.
00:34:09
Speaker
I think it's ah you're bringing up a very, very important topic here that I want to stress out because what I keep thinking as you're saying that is like the car industry is changing so rapidly. In fact, they now have the complete technology to have complete self-driving cars.
Future of Urban Design: Car-Sharing Impact
00:34:28
Speaker
It's just a matter of legislation allowing it and they're working on it.
00:34:32
Speaker
So this means once this will happen, cars in the city will become obsolete because you'll have a car that you can share with different people and you'll have like a meeting that's scheduled to go somewhere and this car will just drive to your home and it will bring you to wherever you need to go and then it will kind of park rather outside of the city or even in in in big car park houses.
00:34:57
Speaker
um no no absolutely Absolutely. Every city making conference I've been to in the last five years has basically predicted that by 2035, let's say 11 years from today, that 95% of Australians will be members of a car share subscription service. So you might be with Volkswagen, I might be with Volvo or Tesla or whatever.
00:35:18
Speaker
I won't own a Volvo, but I'll be part of that that mobility service. yeah And that that's right, that these self-driving cars will come and collect me and drop me off. And and you're absolutely right. It means that currently,
00:35:31
Speaker
Our cars in Australia spend 91% of their life in storage, in car parks. Isn't that crazy? Because we've all got cars, but we never drive them. you know Whereas under that model, ah those cars that will be shared will be utilized more like 80% of the time. you know It just makes so much more sense. And then we don't we won't need all this space to park them, because they won't be in car parks. There'll be less cars.
00:36:00
Speaker
years more used more often by more people. yeah But our planning system still looks back to the 60s rather than looking forward to the 21st century. yeah I think that's a key change that has to happen to to look at least to what's happening today, rather look into what the future will look like for transportation and use that to build the new cities or plan the new cities. I think it's a very important topic you brought up. Now, how how do you then as the challenge is like, okay, we need to find the right investors, the right people that do
00:36:45
Speaker
belief in these type of
Sustainable Investment Strategies
00:36:47
Speaker
projects. How do you come about and and handle that challenge to find the right people that believe in the future of planning and designing cities? Just ask a lot of people. ah So to fund the first Nightingale building,
00:37:06
Speaker
um ah you know i was ah I spoke to everyone I knew in the city. I spoke to every architect that I knew and I asked them to invest in the housing model that was um sustainable, that was affordable, that built community. And I tried to democratise the capital so rather than taking one lot of money from a but wealthy individual, I took $100,000 investment from 27 shareholders.
00:37:42
Speaker
And that's how I raised $2.7 million. dollars And then when I went to build the building, so that kind of ran the design and the planning and the initial stages of the project to buy the land. But then when I needed to build it, to borrow the money, I spoke to 34 different banks, mutuals, credit societies, individuals with money,
00:38:08
Speaker
So I just kept on asking until I found someone that had a similar value set to me and wanted to make it happen. And eventually I found a woman called Hannah Ebling who worked at an impact investment company called Social Enterprise Finance Australia. And their entire mission was to invest in kind of new innovative projects that had social impact.
00:38:37
Speaker
Oh, sustainable impact. yeah So I just had to find the right person. And then, um you know, she's been such an incredible kind of mentor and um ally since that time that she's helped me build relationships with one of Australia's biggest banks to fund you know our project. So our first project was worth about, you know, $7 million. dollars And one of our most recent projects is $150 million. dollars you know um So there are people who have access to capital who care about what they do with that money and what that money does. you know So I think you just got to...
00:39:26
Speaker
He's going to find them. Yeah, I agree. I think it's an amazing, and I think it's an increasing trend that, okay, you want to look at your return on investment. That's definitely something to consider, but it's also like, what do you want to leave behind? What legacy do you want to leave? Like people, very wealthy people have everything already. So I think there's a market to to show them like, hey, you can use your money to make some something amazing and and be part of this movement.
00:39:55
Speaker
It's interesting, right? The altruistic investment group, you know, coming out of United States, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, you know, who would ever have thought that, you know, Bill Gates would be one of the biggest philanthropic investors, you know, in the world, you know. So I think it's interesting that, um yeah, people who've made a lot of money at this point in time in their lives have decided that they're going to actually invest it in something good.
00:40:25
Speaker
And also, you're in Belgium. like you know It seems to me that Europe is so much more sophisticated than the US or than Australia in this field, right? like It seems to us that when we buy um ethical investment capital in in Australia, it costs us about 15%. But from what I understand it, in the Netherlands it's 7%.
00:40:51
Speaker
Because people people value the impact, they see the impact that they're having is much more important to them than an interest rate return.
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I see that there's a big trend in in that movement. I even have a friend who's in credit rating and they see that if the projects take more of the sustainable ah social aspects, they will get more funding. It's just it's ah it's a trend that had been decreasing a bit over COVID because there was another craze happening, but now it's picking up again.
00:41:27
Speaker
Anyone out there listening who's got capital that they want to deploy at 7% on some sustainable housing, affordable housing, let me know. Oh, it's amazing. Good good shout out. Get that rolling. I love it. Yeah. yeah Well, Jeremy, I feel like ah we could keep keep talking for hours here. i'm I'm very amazed as well as we're talking that you're walking under this beautiful forest.
00:41:54
Speaker
I keep seeing the fern trees. It's one of my favorite plants that you're walking under. So that's that's really cool to see that. So just to finalize, how can people reach out
Building a Mission-Driven Business
00:42:08
Speaker
to you? How can they best connect with you if they're in Australia or even further? Yeah, sure. So that look the easiest way to find me is at Braid Architecture. So I'm still the design director at Braid Architecture.
00:42:23
Speaker
You can find me at jeremy.brade.com dot.au. Perfect. And then all those I presume all the social media will be fine there. And we can put all of that and in the show notes as well. Before I forget, I do want to give a shout out to Owen, who who is ah a mutual connection, who has actually brought us together. So that's a big thanks to Owen here. Thanks, Owen.
00:42:49
Speaker
Yeah, he'll appreciate that, I think. So just to finalise, do you have any final words for the listeners? It's really about inspiring people to do the right thing that is good for our planet and doing good in business. I think you're a great example. So if you can finalise with some inspiring words, that would be awesome. Yeah, sure. You know, um when I started Breathe, I did what I did because I cared about the planet.
00:43:18
Speaker
I cared about people and so I get to I'm lucky I get to go to work Every day and do what I love and have impact and feel like I've achieved something most days um But what's interesting is that in doing that we've built a brand and a reputation ah Which ah which has helped you know me lead a successful business, a bit like Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia, except nowhere near as successful as Patagonia, um but kind of a mission driven practice. But also for my clients, it's helped them leverage our brand. So there's this mutual relationship where clients who want to make money come to us to leverage our brand. And we say, no problems, you can leverage our brand to build sustainable apartments. but
00:44:10
Speaker
we've got to be truly sustainable. and And they say, yes, okay. And so the net result is that my clients build apartments, for example, that are carbon neutral in operations that have 40% reduction in body carbon, that have plants and biodiversity growing all over them. um But as a result of that, they're able to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace,
00:44:34
Speaker
They're able to sell their apartments well and they're able to make more money. So I've got no problems with them making money if they do it while doing good. So I feel like that for anyone out there that's wondering can you do what's important to you and can you still make a living, I think the answer is yes. know just be Just be true to yourself.
00:44:58
Speaker
I love that. On that note, I think we can end. Jeremy, thank you very much for coming on to the show. I really appreciate it. I think you and your company, you are the Patagonia of of architecture. So you've put it out yourself. So keep chasing that. I think you're well on the way to achieving that. So nice of luck with that. Thank you very much.