Hello, welcome, and thanks for listening to Carbon Climates, an energy podcast dedicated
to discussing all things energy, carbon and sustainability. We also like to point out
what's getting hot, besides from our planet. I'm your host, Enya, and today I'm joined
by my Carbon Climate co-host, Fabity, who I will be introducing shortly before we get
into today's topic, Fabity. Can you tell me, how's your week been? And can you tell us
a bit about yourself?
Hey, Enya. So work-wise, the week has been pretty good. I have been introduced to a few
new projects as well. So going all grand, all solid. And personally, like on the weekends,
it was pretty chill. I kept it low key and, you know, just stayed in, watched a few movies,
catch up with a few of my friends. And of course, somebody's birthday was there on this
weekend. And I had fun. I hear I had fun as well. Oh, I think a lot of people had fun.
Definitely. I was paying for it the next... Nice birthday bash. Yeah, birthday bash. I
was planning for it. I didn't open the next day. So we went out on the Saturday and then
the Sunday, just absolutely chilled. And the Sunday was my birthday. Of course. But the
location was beautiful. And it was a good track. Yes, yes. It was worth it. If anyone
is looking for a new place, go for a bit of food or some drinks on a nice Saturday or
Sunday. It is a very sophisticated, lovely place. And we kind of walked in with...
I can vouch for it. Plus one. Yes. That's good. Oh, brilliant. Well, could you tell
us your job title? So right now I'm working as a sustainability engineer at Fully Performance
Prediction. And it's kind of my third month now in this role. I've been learning so much
so far. And it's been a great experience. That's amazing. Three months. I remember when
you first started, it's flown in. I know. And it didn't even... Does it even feel like
the three months have passed by? It was so quick. And still learning something new every
day. Here. I've been in this job for about... It's my sixth year. And I'm still learning
something new every day. Wow. Wow. That much consistency is what I look for. Well, how
long have you been in the sustainability sector for Biddy? So like in the sustainability sector,
I think I would say it would be closer to one year, counting my last experiences in
my placement. But in the building sector, I would say it's two, two and a half years
almost. Counting my years of architecture and the job I used to do back at home in India.
So yeah. Okay. Very good. So you did an architecture degree. Yeah. Right. That's amazing. Oh my
goodness. Yeah. Like how long was it? I know here they've got like, it's like five years.
Yeah, it is five years. Back at home, it's five years. And like after that, you get your
license and like practicing license. So I do have that, but I think it's only for India
and some of like the same license can be used in some of the mid Eastern countries as well.
But yeah, like it's been fun. And I've been working with buildings like kind of quite
a few years now. So yeah, kind of used to it. That's, that's class. That's, that's what
we love to hear. This is the whole point I wanted for the podcast I wanted to get on.
Yeah. Experts and. Of course, everyone knows like construction is kind of the most like
the biggest causes of like climate change and a lot of waste. And of course, it's time
of the like need of the hour to, you know, sort it out and like work towards it. Exactly.
Well said. Fabidi well said. And see, yeah, skills. So here before you go to university,
you've got secondary schools, kind of the same in India. Yeah, like I'm not too sure.
But I think you have a year longer than us. But like we do have a senior secondary schools
like and you know, when you get to choose your own subjects, like you get kind of more
streamlined towards your, you know, fields and what you want to do in future. Right.
Okay. And see when you're like at that level, did you ever envisage yourself in this sustainable
or in this particular sector? Honestly, no, not really. I actually I thought at that time
I knew that I want to go into architecture or some civil engineering kind of subject
like that includes buildings. But I never thought like I would go into sustainability
that actually evolved later on when I actually started studying architecture. Amazing. Like
class. Yeah, no, here I'm the same. See, when I was in secondary school, I was applying
for zoology courses like see, I've been working with animals and I realized you have to be
good at biology, which I wasn't. Yeah, nobody is good at that. I don't like biology either.
So my fallback was engineering, of course. Yeah, not bad. So far, so good. Well, that's
good. Do you find there was any encouragement to enter? Like, like, was there much encouragement
from the likes of your teachers to like pursue the sector you wanted or? Yeah. So like, I
had one of my dissertation professors. So he kind of knew like, you know, I was, I got
kind of interested in environmental management and sustainability kind of in my fourth year
of architecture. And at that time, he kind of pushed me or like kind of encouraged me
to go for master's as well. And then I thought might as well because I kind of wanted to
go for a master's degree. But I was not sure which subject I would be pursuing. Maybe I
actually thought maybe landscape architecture, but I really wanted to go into sustainability
and green buildings. So that's how I chose like my master's in sustainable development.
Okay, nice. Nice. Yeah. Brilliant. Okay. Well, thanks for telling us about yourself.
We're a bit more familiar with you. Okay, well, I want to dive into your job a bit now.
Oh, yeah. Can you give us a brief summary of what a sustainability assessor slash engineer
does? Like, what's your day to day like? So usually, like in like this job involves a
huge learning curve for me, considering I'm kind of fresh to a lot of things. But conducting
pream assessments involves a lot of, you know, going through a lot of drawings, interacting
with building engineers, chasing them for a lot of, you know, roofs and materials to
be included in our assessments. And I'm kind of new to that. But I find it really informative.
And you know, interacting with these people is teaching me so much. Even going on sites,
which I haven't been on many like, I haven't been to many sites yet. But just the one that
was really good. And I learned so much. The on site from site engineers. Yeah. Right.
Okay. And yes, you recently got your CSR card or construction skills register. I did. I
did. As Alison said, it's kind of official. It's funny. We think I got mine first in 2017,
2018. Yeah. And then that was fine. But then there's some sort of change in regulations
where you weren't a health and safety worker anymore. You got changed to labour. And then
those regulations changed again. And then, okay. Or you can be they can be used in the
UK. It was something like that. And so now I think it's, it's again, going back to health
and safety. I'm not too sure. I just remember there was that change because. Okay, yeah,
I was actually not aware about it, but I just got my CSR Labour card only recently. So yeah,
it's it's yeah, you know, you have to you have to do your hair. I stopped at the photo.
Yeah, you do. That's brilliant. So you talk to a lot of engineers. And when you're in
the office, doing your job, which you're going to dive more into, like, would you find yourself
dealing with lots of different types of software? Yeah, I do. Actually, quite recently, I started
working on carbon calculations. And I got to know about one click LCA. Like, obviously,
it's kind of a famous software. And a lot of people are using it. A lot of engineers,
BIM designers and like, everybody's using that right now. But I kind of used it only
for materials, not for building. So I'm kind of getting ahead with that. It's it's a very
friendly and like very handy software. And other than that, I did get to know about this
software called BCIS. It's building cost information service software, which actually tells us
about cost and the carbon of the material. But just to let everyone know, the EPD database
of that software is kind of limited. It's not as, you know, as in depth as a one click
LCA, but it is kind of handy. And you said EPD there, can you explain to us what that
means? So EPD is like environmental product declarations. And it's kind of, you know,
the products that we use and the materials that we use in construction, they kind of
like, it's kind of like an environmental declaration of the types of materials. Yes, yes, it is.
And you know, it is about the sourcing of the materials as well. And the manufacturers
kind of have that thing, which I recently learned about that they get some certifications
for the responsible sourcing of materials, which actually gets you the green building
certifications as well, if you submit that certificate for the assessments. I think it's
okay. Well, very informative, Fibidi. So today's episode is going to be focusing on some aspects
of Priam. Fibidi, you mainly deal with Priam assessments and collecting information from
those assessments. We previously had Mark Clements on the podcast, giving an introduction
to Priam and all his knowledge. Mark's a Priam assessor and also Priam AP. AP standing for
applied professional. But yeah, we're going to be talking a bit more about that. So you
kind of knew before you came into this role, you kind of did know a bit about Priam. Yeah,
so like, I just knew the full form and like, you know, that it's kind of a green building
assessment that people do to get a score on their buildings and like to conduct an analysis
for green buildings and how, you know, carbon neutral is that. But in depth, I got to know
about in my current role, obviously, like working with Mark, I'm sure his podcast would
be so informative. He has been working with Priam for a longer time. And I know even I
am learning so much working with him. Not, I'm not an AP yet, but I do help with assessments,
the Priam assessments. That's class. That's class. Okay, well, Fibidi, thanks for explaining
a bit more about Priam. So Priam is an environmental rating that can be applied to a construction
or community project. It is pretty much an environmental assessment that you can score
on. And what you score determines the rating off your project. So if you get over 85%,
the project is outstanding. If you get over 70%, it's excellent. Over 55%, it's very good.
Over 45%, good. When pass is 30%. And if you don't get 30%, then it's unclassified.
Yeah, you won't get the certification.
But yeah, Mark was, like in his podcast, went into detail about the different sections.
Yeah.
So I've got a wee question for you. Could you tell me how many sections there are in
the Priam assessment? I think there are nine, ten categories. Yeah, yes, that is correct.
So I'm just going to run down through them now. There is management, health and wellbeing,
energy, transport, water, materials, waste, land use and ecology, pollution. And then
there's another one that you can add on, dependent on what your score is or what credits you
target called innovation. So 10 possible sections can be assessed in total.
I actually forgot innovation, to be honest, because innovation is kind of a tricky one.
Because, you know, when you are trying to achieve some of the credits, you have to,
so innovation credit you get when you target for the exemplary credits. So you score those
exemplary credits when you provide some more evidences and some extra commitment and research
about, you know, the other nine credits that you already mentioned. So, yeah.
OK, excellent. Excellent. Well, I kind of want to say 12. I said 12. And I kind of wanted
to delve a bit more into Priam itself. One of the sections being that of materials. I
think like I kind of know about, but I think you know about because you recently passed
your low carbon. You recently passed your low your LCA analysis.
Yeah, I did. I did. I actually attended the OneClick LCA bootcamp just to get an idea
about how to use the software. And so basically, OneClick LCA is used for the material section
of Priam. And we use that to get an idea about the embodied carbon of a specific material.
And yeah, it was an interesting session and I did get a certification. I gave an exam
and I got that certification. Congratulations. Thank you. When are we going for pints to
celebrate? Definitely. I don't drink, but I will. With a pint of glass or a pint of
coke. Listen, you can watch me drink. Okay. But no, that's really great to hear because
as you said previously, buildings and construction, they make up around 40% of the world's carbon
emissions. And further into that majority of it is the types of materials that the building
uses. So LCAs, I've seen a prominent rise in them in the last number of years. Remember
back in 2018, 2019, they weren't really around the field. And then I think as soon as maybe
end of 2019, 2020 hit, everyone had to do an LCA because of new regulations and be re-advised,
et cetera. Yeah. And personally, I feel that this kind of a necessary step towards reducing
the embodied carbon and the words like carbon neutrality in terms of the construction sector.
And I think it's a good initiative that everyone, I think a lot of companies are taking, a lot
of construction forms and infrastructure people are doing nowadays. Excellent. Pretty much
just to summarize what an LCA tool or assessment is. It's a summary of the materials used in
the building and it pretty much shows you how much carbon is emitted. And yeah, I think
that's it. That sounds pretty well. Okay. Okay. Excellent. Excellent. Just one more
detail about this and then I'll move on and stop pestering about it. Okay. Yeah, sure.
Do you find that there was any useful guides to read up on? Because folks in my head, and
I'm always, I'm always thinking about the future. Okay. In my head, LCAs are really
big in London or the likes of England now where they're needed. Doesn't probably not
going to take long for them to come over to Northern Ireland where there would be a requirement
for them. I say not take long. It's probably going to take five years. That's my estimation.
But it means that people in maybe in universities at school learn what they are now. They can
go into the workforce, have a skill set, maybe decide if they want to travel down that route.
In my head, there's going to be a lot of work for them. Yeah, I think you are right. But
I am sure like there are so many online platforms right now that students or even working professionals
can refer to at this point. And the OneClickLCA website itself has so many courses, like free
courses and like so much, you know, study material for everyone. Moreover, I can actually
recommend some courses on LinkedIn. If there are a few readings as well, but personally,
I'm not a fan of like many, you know, reports and not a reader myself, but there are kind
of some references which I can share with you. Okay, yes. I'm like, yeah, here, when
this episode that goes out, you'll get tagged. And definitely I can share some references
and like that can be, you know, you can post it or share it with folks. Excellent. I'll
put it in the episode thing. To be honest, I've been doing this. This will be my, I haven't
decided if it's my ninth or 10th episode. We'll see. But I've been posting the links
and the likes of I've been showing up on Spotify, Apple podcasts, but I don't know if anyone's
looking at that. I'm sure some people would. I'm trying to think of the psychology of like
listening to a podcast, like, you know, yeah, I read the bio. Or do I just feel like that
looks like a fun title? Let's go. That is true. That is true. But like for stratos,
I would say if somebody is looking to become an LCA expert, they can actually go to the
OneClick LCA website. And there are some really good online courses. Okay. The one for beginners,
like, you know, just because ultimately you'll get the knowledge by conducting those assessments
when you use the software. So eventually you will get more efficient on that. But, you
know, just just to start off, just to, you know, give it a push. Okay. Well, thank you
for the date for discussing the likes of LCA and Breyam. Now we're going to move on to
the Breyam, Breyam, Breyam. Yeah. Now we are going to move on to the Breakin' Breyam round.
Oh, wow. Sounds exciting. You'd be, you'd be half correct. Okay, we'll see. Hopefully.
I am scared about it because I am kind of new to this, but every time, like there's,
there's a first time. There's always a first time. So I'm going to yabber off some facts
here and just want your opinion on them. Okay. So every one in 14 people globally work in
the construction or building industry. Really? Yeah. I was not too sure actually about that.
I thought it would be more like one to six ratio or one to 10 ratio. Okay. Well, like,
listen, I got these facts and figures from sustainable construction, facts and figures
changes.org. Okay. It's a reliable website. I'm sure I'm 100% sure about that. No, that
like, that's the thing. Okay. I'll check that. No, what, but when I next have you on, I'll
check that data and get back to you. So my next fact is, apparently we need to build
13,000 buildings each day to accommodate the expected increase in population by 2050. Really?
That is insane. That is so insane. Like, do we even have that much land? Exactly. I don't
think we have that much land or even the resources or even like, you know, as you said, planet
is getting hotter, warmer every day. Yeah. Like how are we going to include all those
things? Like how from there, we're going to get the NRG. It's funny because you find when
I talk to maybe clients or contractors on the phone and they're just like, you know,
you go for the general flight, like, you know, at niceties at the start and they're like,
ah, how's the weather over where you are? Because usually they're over over, they're
usually over on England or mainlander Scotland. They're like, ah, it's really, it's actually
quite sunny over here. It's like, you know, it's quite nice temperature. What about you?
It's like, yeah, we've got a quite nice temperature. It's around like, you know, seven, eight
degrees. Like, yeah, what's wrong with you? That is so true. Got another interesting fact
for you. The Parch Khalifa. It required the equivalent of a small US city population to
reconstruct. Really? Oh my goodness. That is, I do not know that. You can tell this is
an American fact because it's a small US population. Did you know that this is kind of going back
to one of the Briam topics we talked about. Yeah. Not the Briam topics, the Briam assessments
we talked about. Yeah. The likes of pollution. Yeah. Pollution. So did you know yearly UK's
environmental agency has to respond to around 350 serious pollution related incidents caused
by construction? Oh my God. That is too many. That is, yeah, that is a lot. And it's like,
you know, serious pollution related incidents. So the likes of having Briam on a project,
on a construction project where the pollution is being assessed or monitored. It's really
important. It is actually because if everyone would incorporate that, it would significantly
reduce the complaints and like the incidents that happen and like, you know, that cause
pollution so much. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to move on to ask you some hard questions now.
All right. These are really hard. Don't make me nervous. These are really hard for Briam.
You should have really studied for them. Okay. Oh my God. I did not. But yeah, I'm ready
for it. Okay. Who owns Briam? So the BRE Trust owns the Briam. BRE would be building research
establishment. If somebody doesn't know about that, that's it. I know that. That's actually
very good. Okay. The BRE, do you know when they were founded? I think it was early 2000s.
But I'm not too sure about the year. Okay. You're a bit off. You're a bit off. Okay.
It was 1921. Okay. Oh my goodness. Really? I'm just a bit off. But the BRE is a really
big body. I've got some notes on them here. I'm just going to pull them up. Yeah. But
I know what you're talking about. Briam offices, which is kind of the first kind of Briam assessment.
Oh, Briam four offices. It was launched as an environmental assessment in around 1990
or 1991. Oh, so like the 90s. Okay. Yeah. That's when the first kind of Briam assessment
with the likes of BRE, they've been around since 1921. And it was originally started
as part of the British Civil Service to improve quality of housing in the United Kingdom.
Oh, wow. So I was a little off. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little. Listen, you can take that far.
Take a bit. Okay. Definitely. I will remember it now. Yeah. Speaking of buildings. Okay.
In my head, I'm trying to think of like, I've got a pun. I'm just trying to think of the
acceptable delivery for it. But a lot of buildings, like one of the places I want to go is Egypt.
And did you hear about the pyramids? Yeah, I have. I built out of chocolate and nuts.
It's called. When did that happen? It's called Farah Rosh air. That is a good one. It is
a good one. The mechanical engineer who told me this. Okay, shout out to Ryan. Okay. But
you know, thanks for giving that to me before. Definitely. I wanted to squeeze that in because
like, listen, I love puns. I absolutely love puns. We love it. And I love seeing other
people's reactions to puns. Oh, yeah. It's it's whether I know like, okay, I can't tell
that one or I can't. No, that was a good one. It was definitely a good one. Thank you for
your validation. I do appreciate it. I'm sure everyone is going to enjoy that. And okay,
I'm going to ask you another hard question. Okay, bring it on. Get ready to the nearest
hundred thousand. Do you know how many buildings have been Braem certified? I would say maybe
around like, 400,000. And just a random guess. You know what? You're really close. You're
really close. Really? It's 55. 5500. 550,000. Also, not that bad. Bad. We need one more
150,000. In my defense, I can say that I read that fact a few months ago. So it could be
an old one. You know what? That's I like that you're covering all bases. Okay. Like, you
know, that's it. Okay. I'm gonna ask you another question. And then that's all tied up. Okay,
we'll wrap up. Okay. All right. Do you know how many buildings or how many assessments
have been registered with Braem? I cannot even make a random guess of that, to be honest,
because I'm sure it's going to be too many. Okay. Well, I actually I got this from the
BRE website. So apparently over 2 million are registered for certification in more than
50 countries. Oh my god. See, I couldn't have guessed that. I couldn't have. Listen, it's
it's like, but that's a good thing. I would say like, it's it's we are working towards
we're working our way towards net zero. Exactly. And just like to point out, like, you know,
if it's BRE registered doesn't necessarily mean it's like a new building. There's also
different types of BRE. Can you name them for me? It could be a new building. It could
be a retrofitted building. And it could be a refurb. So the retrofitting and refurb would
be the same project, I think. Yeah. And there would be a demolish demol building that is
demolished or is about to be demolished. Yeah, there's a BREAM in use assessment and
also BREAM communities assessment. So yeah, the more you know, we've talked a lot about
BREAM today. A lot about LCA. A lot about LCA and BREAM stuff, I'm sure. And it was
really, really informative for myself and all your interesting facts and funny puns.
Thank you very much. You can come back. I am up for the next episode. Stay tuned guys.
Excellent. Well, just before we wrap up, can you tell me what you enjoy most about your
work? So like, I'm obviously really enjoying working with my like brilliant colleagues and
learning so much from everyone. And so much about green building certifications and BREAM.
But yeah, I'm looking forward to you know, making change with all the knowledge I have.
And I'm sure like every baby step counts. So yeah, I'm just trying to get you know,
do my bit towards environment and the climate that I can.
We should get you. You should be a poster child for like, you know, BPP. Like, you know,
it's like you just give speeches on like, oh, the great change.
That is that is a very, very scary for me because I'm kind of scared about like speeches
and being around too many people. But I'll definitely give it a go.
Here, don't even I was at a conference on Friday. And I thought there's there's about
400 people there. Oh, my God. And they're going for questions. And I thought, I'll ask
a question. That'll be fine. And I was kind of like, interested, like, or like, I really
wanted to ask like one of the panel members a question. Because he said something which
I'll come back to you after. But he like, as soon as the microphone came to me, and
I'm like, OK, you can you can ask a question. So I stood up. And I thought, yeah, this is
going to be fine. Like, I do this, like, you know, on the side, like, you know, I'm used
to speaking. See you soon. As everyone turned around and looked at me, my voice was the
shakiest it had ever been. I know I've been there. I've been there. It's like, you were
obviously around 400 people. I was in a class of 40 students and still my voice is so smooth.
So I can I've been there. Been there, done that. But another thing I just wanted to say
why body carbon is important. Like, you know, looking at materials is important. And one
of the panel members, they had like mentioned that their company was like, oh, yeah, we're
going green. Like, it's really green, because maybe it wasn't using it was using an alternative
fuel. So instead of petrol, it was using I won't say it, but like it wasn't using as
much petrol as its competitors. OK. And one. And so I'm like, OK, that's grand. You're
reducing carbon that way. However, the alternative to not using petrol in my mind was more using
more materials and in their process, kind of like a vicious cycle, I must say, because
even though like we do have a few really good materials, like good fuels coming up that
are kind of kind of sustainable and have low, low carbon impact. But I'm sure you must have
heard about HBO, HBO, hydro vegetable oil that that has been used on sites by a lot
of companies. I think that's that's kind of an alternative for diesel and petrol for
the equipment on site. OK. I got to know about this kind of recently. I wasn't aware about
it before, but that is also not 100 percent sustainable. But it's still, you know, better
than the other alternatives. OK. OK. But yeah, that was my point. And if you're using
like more materials than like in the likes of embodied carbon, are you really saving
something? Are you really reducing carbon? That is actually like, you know, sad. And
that's how we end the podcast. Thank you so much, everyone for listening. Yes. Well,
Fibiddy, thank you for coming on. You've been absolutely great. And I'll be sure to have
you back on any time. I would love to be back. Yeah, because nobody can see me here and I
can speak. OK. Well, thanks for listening. Carbon climates. If you make sure you follow
us on our Instagram at carbon underscore climates to keep up to date with all our latest news
and episode releases. Yeah. No, thanks for listening, guys. Bye.