Listen in to this fascinating and insightful episode to explore:
And much more...
______________________________________________________________________________________
About Daniel Denis:
Joining RunBrook in 2021, Daniel J. Denis uses his 20-plus years of uniquely diverse design and construction experience to help clients reach their sustainability goals effectively and efficiently. With an education in construction management and professional stops on the design consultant, contracting, and third party inspection sides of the building design & construction process, Daniel’s complimentary educational and professional experiences allow him to most effectively collaborate and communicate with all members of the design and construction team.
Daniel began working on green building projects as early as 2012 while working as an energy modeler for one of Miami’s leading mechanical engineering firms. He soon found a passion for sustainability in the built environment and earned the LEED Accredited Professional (AP) designation. By 2013 he was the firm’s Green Building Project Manager - leading a team of designers through the LEED submission process while also honing his own skills as an energy modeler on a wide range of projects.
In 2015, Daniel joined a firm focused solely on green building consulting. Serving there as Energy Engineer & Consultant, Daniel was an integral part in certifying a wide array of projects across various green building rating systems including Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED), Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC), National Green Building Standard (NGBS), and ENERGY STAR.
Daniel holds various professional credentials including: LEED AP with Building Design & Construction Specialty (BD+C), LEED Green Rater, FGBC Certifying Agent, NGBS Verifier, RESNET HERS Rater, and ENERGY STAR Verifier.
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Would you like to be a guest on our growing podcast?
If you have an intriguing, thought provoking topic you'd like to discuss on our podcast, please contact our host Jim Frazer
View all the episodes here: https://thesustainabilitypodcast.buzzsprout.com
Listen in to this fascinating and insightful episode to explore:
And much more...
______________________________________________________________________________________
About Daniel Denis:
Joining RunBrook in 2021, Daniel J. Denis uses his 20-plus years of uniquely diverse design and construction experience to help clients reach their sustainability goals effectively and efficiently. With an education in construction management and professional stops on the design consultant, contracting, and third party inspection sides of the building design & construction process, Daniel’s complimentary educational and professional experiences allow him to most effectively collaborate and communicate with all members of the design and construction team.
Daniel began working on green building projects as early as 2012 while working as an energy modeler for one of Miami’s leading mechanical engineering firms. He soon found a passion for sustainability in the built environment and earned the LEED Accredited Professional (AP) designation. By 2013 he was the firm’s Green Building Project Manager - leading a team of designers through the LEED submission process while also honing his own skills as an energy modeler on a wide range of projects.
In 2015, Daniel joined a firm focused solely on green building consulting. Serving there as Energy Engineer & Consultant, Daniel was an integral part in certifying a wide array of projects across various green building rating systems including Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED), Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC), National Green Building Standard (NGBS), and ENERGY STAR.
Daniel holds various professional credentials including: LEED AP with Building Design & Construction Specialty (BD+C), LEED Green Rater, FGBC Certifying Agent, NGBS Verifier, RESNET HERS Rater, and ENERGY STAR Verifier.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would you like to be a guest on our growing podcast?
If you have an intriguing, thought provoking topic you'd like to discuss on our podcast, please contact our host Jim Frazer
View all the episodes here: https://thesustainabilitypodcast.buzzsprout.com
Jim Frazer
welcome again to another episode of the smart city Podcast. Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Daniel Dennis of run Brook here in Florida West Palm Beach, actually, Daniel, welcome. And thank you. Thank you for joining us today.
Daniel Denis
Thank you for having me.
Jim Frazer
Since our theme here at the aarC forum is sustainability, where we'll ask you to come here to talk about that. Can you give us a little bit of background about yourself and how you came to this industry?
Daniel Denis
Absolutely. So I started working for designing construction. And when I was 16 years old, sort of a very typical story that you hear where you start in the office rolling up plans making coffee sort of your the office Gopher, right? That was me for a while. And then I started college and I studied construction management and got a good base a sort of what does a construction project look like from the contractor side, while concurrently working on the design side? Right. And I think that sort of gives me a nice unique mix of educational and professional experience that helps me sort of speak the language of all the different players on the team. Right. And so about, I was about 2008 2010, we started seeing the green building movement really emerging, right? LEED was at the forefront of people's minds, a lot of people were getting their credentials. And, and so the firm that I was working with, at the time a mechanical engineering firm was taking on these projects and and didn't really know what they were getting into. Right. It was sort of a new thing. And in some ways, they out kicked their coverage, right. And so I was the youngest guy in the office, and they said, Hey, Danny, good luck, figure it out. Right? And so, you know, I hit the ground running and somewhere along the line, I fell in love with it, right? And today, you know, what, what I feel is so rewarding about what we do is that we're able to do well and do good, right? And that's something that I that that motto, do well and do good is something that I try to instill in our team. Do well for yourself, obviously, right? But do good for your community, the environment those around you, right? And if you can do those two things, you'll in your, in your workplace, you'll live a fulfilling life, in my opinion, right. And so we that's something that we try to champion over at runbook. And so yeah, so you know, shortly after, sort of falling in love with green building at the mechanical engineering firm, I sort of switched over to do sustainability full time. And I did that for about eight years as a consultant. And about 18 months ago, I was recruited to join runbook as their president. And so I'm very blessed to be here today and talk to you about talk your ear off about
Jim Frazer
that. That's, that's great. So, um, can you scope out and describe, you know, what, so what is sustainability? Engineering? What's, what's the breadth of it? Yeah, what kind of things are important today?
Daniel Denis
Great question. So the way that I describe what we do is we help project teams of owners, developers, architects, engineers, and various other stakeholders in the pursuit of some form of green building certification. How do we walk them through the design and construction process to make their buildings more energy water efficient, using better products that provide better indoor air quality for occupants, and things like that? Right. And so we're on board on a project, basically, from start to finish, right? A lot of times, our clients will ask, well, when when do you want to be engaged, I say as early as you'll have me, because if we can start on passive measures that don't necessarily require any additional funding, that will set us up for success, right. And so we try to be part of the process from early on. Um, so it's a lot of, it's a lot of hand holding, right? In some, in some ways. I like to think of myself as a kindergarten teacher, where I've got sometimes I've got a it's great, explain these concepts and sort of very basic terms and walk people through it because, you know, sustainability is not only at the forefront of everybody's minds, right, especially when in the design and construction industry. Everything is I need it yesterday. Right and a lot Sometimes people fall back into sort of old habits and what they always do. I can't, I can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard. But Danny, I've been doing it this way for 40 years.
Jim Frazer
Indeed, so so. So Danny, you mentioned stakeholders so that when I think of stakeholders, I'm a I'm a systems engineer. And I think that this is a much more structured proxy process than being that kindergarten teacher. Where does it start? And who are the stakeholders? How do you find them? What's the stakeholder? What's a stakeholder community?
Daniel Denis
Yeah. So, you know, most of our clients are architects, or developers, but we always we try to be mindful of the occupants, the end user, even the management company. And that's what we mean by stakeholders, who is who has their hand in this project in one way or another? How can we address their wants and needs? Right. And so most of our clients, like I said, are architects and Android developers, I, I sometimes joke that 90% of our clients don't want to be our clients, that they, they are because they have to be right. And so whether it's some form of municipal requirement to be in South Florida specifically, we have various municipalities that require some form of green building certification, if your project is greater than x amount of square feet sort of depends on the principality, or there's a funding arm, or maybe you're getting some government funding and the government saying, Hey, you got to make this thing sustainable. And so that's where we come in. Don't get me wrong, there are some clients out there that they make sustainability a part of their mission statement. And it's very refreshing to work with those people. But most of the time, it's, it's, Hey, I don't know what this is, walk me through it. And that's where the kindergarten teacher analogy comes from. So it's
Jim Frazer
helped me with this. Sustainability. I mean, someone was the fool just to energy efficiency, right? And energy conservation. Right. But I know you've mentioned in the past water, and other aspects, what other type of things does sustainability engineering touch?
Daniel Denis
That's a great question. So one of the things that's often overlooked in what we do, I think, is indoor environmental quality. Selecting materials that don't off gas, and don't give nasty chemicals and VOCs. To the occupants over time, ventilation, having air changes in your home or building is something that's often overlooked. And people don't really think about it, and it's not. So there are some conspicuous green features, like you go into a hotel that has waterless urinals, and you can see that there's no plumbing to them. So it's conspicuous, right? You see solar panels on the side of a building, okay? But the ventilation, the indoor air quality, the attention to source control, making sure that those materials that you've selected are, are environmentally friendly, and don't off gas, that stuff is not really obvious. But it's so important. And it makes up a huge part of what we do. True,
Jim Frazer
it perhaps you can even comment on something as simple as if you have a very tightly sealed building, air quality may degrade from co2 and different,
Daniel Denis
right. And for years, we've been building our buildings tighter and tighter. And in fact, most of the building codes encourage tight construction. And that's in direct conflict with indoor air quality, right? Because we used to, we used to bank on infiltration to be our air change to be our ventilation. Now we're building tighter and tighter and so there is very little air change. And so you get stagnant air and you get sick building syndrome, right. And so the solution there is to provide some form of mechanical ventilation, some sort of outside air, some people like to use the term fresh air. I don't necessarily like using that, because it depends who's next door. It might not be so Exactly.
Jim Frazer
And of course, that's, that's not a trivial engineering endeavor, because we do have the heat exchange issues, right, as well.
Daniel Denis
Absolutely. And, and, and sort of that's where you start to see that some of the things that we do in green building, sometimes they conflict with some of the other missions that we have, right ventilation is a good example, where in our climate in South Florida, the hot, humid climate, introduction of more outside air is in direct conflict with our pursuit of energy savings. Right? Your AC has got to work harder to remove that humidity and cool that air. Right. Absolutely. But but there's a trade off there. And we believe and I think the industry is pretty much there's consensus that indoor air quality is important. I think, sometimes we lose sight of the forest for the trees and we're we're talking only about energy efficiency, and we forget that our mission first and foremost should be not to hurt our occupants. Right, make sure that their indoor air quality their building works for them. And so you know,
Jim Frazer
absolutely. In fact, I think you and I will probably go even further that we want to enhance the productivity of the worker in the building. so that they're so that their desktop is adequately lit, not overlap. So that the oxygen content of the air is, is of a point where where someone can be effective at their job.
Daniel Denis
Yeah, you make a great point. So there's case studies out there that show that people with access to quality views have less absenteeism and greater productivity in the in the workplace. People that are able to bike to work and see foliage on their way to work, or through their window are more productive. And that's, that's not just good for the occupant that's good for business.
Jim Frazer
No, exactly. And very often, we just do not really take those somewhat softer factors into account, right? There's one anecdotal story that there is a bit of scientific research about this, that really concerns me that when you bought an airliner and the air conditioners not running, there's a buildup of co2. And do So did you ever wonder why you get sleepy when you're bored in air? Aircraft? It's because of poor air quality in the aircraft before they start a startup the ventilation? What Daniel, what are the I mean, not the the world isn't all rosy and not everyone is just embracing sustainability engineering? Sure. So what obstacles do we have? Where and what obstacles? Let's
Daniel Denis
start with that? Yeah. So, you know, a lot of times we're, we're brought on board in a project and and at times, we can be seen as sort of a contentious figure. Right, going back to going back to that, that phrase that I've heard quite a bit of, but Danny, I've been doing this for 40 years. Right? And well, that doesn't necessarily mean you've been doing it right. And so sometimes we have to have those difficult conversations where, hey, you know, I know that you've been doing it this way. And you're, you're sort of set in your ways. But but let's try to reinvent the wheel a little bit here. Let's try to think a little bit differently. Think outside the box. How can we, ultimately you've got to do this thing. Right. So how do we get there? Right? I think the biggest obstacle we face is just resistance within the project team. Right? Not, not everyone is bought in not everyone necessarily wants to do it. And so sometimes, we've got to herd cats and, and get people on board. You know, and also sort of more specific to our climate, it's just, it's a hot, humid climate and to show energy savings is really tough. It can be very difficult for us to show a significant amount of energy savings and so forth.
Jim Frazer
What about what about the stakeholder engagement and actual consensus of the stakeholders, not only does humidity conflict with energy savings in our environment, but with all your different stakeholders, they might have competing interests, too.
Daniel Denis
Yeah, that's a good point. But you know, I tend to find that once people are in the building, and come to understand why we implemented these systems or selected these materials, they tend to come around, right, the resistance is always in the immediate, it's like a knee jerk reaction of whoa, whoa, you know, I don't do it this way. I, I've never bought that product. But then you go, and you revisit them maybe a year at post occupancy. And you speak to the management company. And they say, You know what, this, this actually worked out? Great. I'll give you an example. One of the services that are required when you're pursuing a LEED building is building commissioning. And commissioning is essentially a third party review of the energy consuming systems in the building to make sure that they're operating the way that the designer intended and meeting the owners project requirements, right. Commissioning can add tremendous value, and it can reduce callbacks and maintenance issues and things like that. And so in the beginning, the owner might say, wow, you know, this is an expensive service. And I've never done this before. But then you visit them five years later, and they said, Hey, I've got another building that we built exactly the same down the street. And I've gotten maintenance issues every single week. But the one that you guys commissioned, you caught all the sort of little problem areas early, and my machines are running smoothly and, and I've reduced my maintenance costs, right. And so that that's something that that if you if you don't have the foresight to really think about what that might how that might add value. You may not gain that added value.
Jim Frazer
No, you're absolutely right. I mean, conditioning is it's a complex system. It requires commissioning culture and the granularity of all those little pieces, right? Is is extreme, even balancing the VAV controllers in each room of a larger building right is a is a big deal,
Daniel Denis
right? Sometimes even the even the smallest thing like labeling You have your condenser water piping or your chilled water piping it if the maintenance guy comes in and he doesn't know which one supply and which ones return, how's he going to Bri repair the system? Right. And so Exactly. Sometimes it's as primitive as that sometimes it's very technical. But, you know, it's, I mean, I could talk about this all day.
Jim Frazer
So tell me what's so what do we see for the future of sustainability engineering?
Daniel Denis
I think I think we're gonna see, we're gonna move away from energy savings as our big metric for energy performance to carbon reduction of decarbonisation. I think that's going to be the next wave. We're not going to look at, okay, you're saving X amount of dollars anymore. We're talking about, okay, how much carbon or or what's your carbon reduction? Can you? Can you have embodied removal of carbon in your materials? That kind of stuff that sort of way out there kind of thinking? And I think indoor air quality and and occupant comfort will continue to be at the forefront of what we do. Yeah, I think it's going to be sort of emerging technologies, like solar, even, I just recently learned about a product called hydro panels, which essentially remove moisture from the the air and provide potable water for occupants. And so it's, it's that kind of sort of, yeah, you know, what, what, what, maybe 10 years ago, you thought it was yet right. Well, maybe that you thought was pie in the sky is now going going to be very prevalent. I think. That's great.
Jim Frazer
Well, well, Danny, we're just about out of time you have any last minute comments for our audience?
Daniel Denis
Yeah, just want to take this opportunity to plug runbook please visit our website at run brook.com If you need anything from me, and you want someone to talk your ear off about sustainability, you can reach me at D as in Daniel. And then my last name Dennis de NIS at run brook.com. And yeah, I really appreciate you having me here today. Thanks, Danny,
Jim Frazer
have you beat me to my last question, which is usually please share your contact information. Well, there it is. Thank you very much. Thank you for that. And thank you to our audience again, and we look forward to seeing you on another edition of the smart city podcast.
ARC Advisory Introduction
Broadcasting from Boston, Massachusetts. The Smart Cities podcast is the only podcast dedicated to all things smart cities. The podcast is the creation of aarC advisory group Smart City practice. aarC advises leading companies, municipalities and governments on technology trends and market dynamics that affect their business and quality of life in their cities. To engage further please like and share our podcasts or reach out directly on Twitter at Smart City viewpoints or on our website at WWW dot aarC web.com backslash industries backslash smart dash cities