The Green Building Matters Podcast with Charlie Cichetti Titelbild

The Green Building Matters Podcast with Charlie Cichetti

The Green Building Matters Podcast with Charlie Cichetti

Von: Charlie Cichetti
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Do green buildings matter to you? This podcast fuels your fire with inspiring interviews from industry and nonprofit leaders across the built environment. Not sure if green building matters? Listen to the personal stories of our guests and let Charlie's passion help convince you why green buildings are essential to our shared future. Each episode illustrates a unique journey through sustainability and towards resilience. Charlie explores the challenges and celebrations of the movers and shakers in the green building industry. Hear behind the scene stories from the inner world of green and healthy building design, construction, and management.© 2020 GBES Erfolg im Beruf Kunst Ökonomie
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  • Turning Ceiling Tiles Into Thermal Batteries: Mick Dunn on the Future of Buildings

    Turning Ceiling Tiles Into Thermal Batteries: Mick Dunn on the Future of Buildings
    Oct 21 2026
    The Green Impact Report Quick take: We've spent two decades pulling concrete out of buildings to cut carbon, and quietly lost the thermal mass that kept rooms comfortable. Mick Dunn's fix rides in on something every project already installs: the ceiling tile. 🎓 Meet Your Fellow Sustainability Champion Mick Dunn is the Product Manager for Energy Saving Ceilings at Armstrong World Industries, where he brings phase change materials into everyday buildings. A Melbourne native, he studied construction management at RMIT, came to the US on an exchange at the University of Florida, and stayed. He spent his early career in commercial construction in Maine, then ran his own companies for 15+ years, first in commercial solar thermal and then developing phase change materials. One of those products started in his garage and is now scaled by Armstrong. His 20+ years sit right where advanced thermal storage meets real-world job sites. 🌱 Breaking Ground on Better Building In this episode, Mick Dunn rethinks the most overlooked surface in the building: the one over your head. Key Insight #1: The ceiling becomes a thermal battery. The Challenge: Ceilings are bought for looks and acoustics. When it comes to energy, they're dead space.The Solution: Armstrong's Templok puts a quarter-inch gelled-salt phase change layer on the back of standard ceiling tiles. Mick calls it "ice packs in your ceiling." As the room warms, the material melts at room temperature, absorbs the heat, and lets it go later.ROI: Peak room temperatures drop 2–3°F with no change to how the ceiling looks. Install is the same crew, ladders, and trucks, so the storage gets "a free ride." Key Insight #2: Put back the mass we stripped out. The Challenge: Lightweight, prefab, low-concrete construction cuts embodied carbon. It also strips out the thermal mass that used to steady indoor temperatures.The Solution: Phase change material adds thermal mass without the weight. Because drop ceilings are easy to reach, it also retrofits into existing buildings with known comfort problems.ROI: Owners get "a new dial they can turn" on problem buildings. It eases peak HVAC loads, helps with peak shaving, and makes occupants more comfortable without replacing equipment. Key Insight #3: Your ceiling can qualify for a federal tax credit. The Challenge: Upgrades like this lose at the budget table because they look like a pure added cost.The Solution: Thermal storage is eligible for the federal investment tax credit, just like battery storage and ground-source heat pumps.ROI: Planned well, Mick says, the ceiling can end up costing less than a standard one. That's alongside Armstrong's Declare labels, EPDs, HPDs, ceiling take-back program, and its new lowest-embodied-carbon tile. 💬 Sustainable Soundbite "The chief goal of a building should be for it to be sustainable to live in, heal in, and work in." – Mick Dunn 💚 Your Green Building Action Plan Transform your next project with these steps: This Week: List the buildings in your portfolio with the most comfort complaints, especially ones already due for a ceiling refresh. Those are your pilot candidates.This Quarter: Ask your tax advisor or incentives consultant whether ceiling-integrated thermal storage qualifies for the federal ITC on an upcoming project. Run the numbers before the ceiling spec is locked.This Year: Make thermal storage, acoustics, and thermal comfort part of your master spec and decarbonization roadmap. Then join your local USGBC chapter, as Mick did, to find the people already solving these problems. 🔗 Connect & Learn More 🌿 Access full episode resources: https://www.gbes.com/podcast 🗒️ Read the transcript: here 👩🏻‍💻 Connect with Mick Dunn: Website: Armstrong World Industries, Inc. (AWI)LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mick-dunn-62a19218/ 💚 Join the Green Building Movement: https://www.greenbuilding.news/subscribe 💡 Want More Green Building Insights? Get sustainability tips 2x a week. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter here: https://www.greenbuilding.news/subscribe 🤝 Today's Episode Sponsored By: Building Plaques Building Plaques creates custom LEED recognition plaques that tell the story of your project's sustainability achievement, made from architectural-grade anodized aluminum so they last as long as the building itself. Their online plaque designer lets you build a fully customized plaque in under 10 minutes. Just enter your LEED project number and you're off. 🔍 Learn more: https://buildingplaques.com Green Building Matters, Inc © 2026 | Good Green Fun.
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    34 Min.
  • How Nanotech Materials Can Support Net Zero Buildings with Nathan Kegel

    How Nanotech Materials Can Support Net Zero Buildings with Nathan Kegel
    Oct 14 2026
    The Green Impact Report Quick take: What if a coating 1 millimeter thick could insulate like a thick layer of conventional material, and you could prove it without waiting a year on a pilot? Nathan Kegel spent 20-plus years in energy modelling. Now he's at a materials science startup, building the simulation engine that tests its products before they ever reach a roof. Meet Your Fellow Sustainability Champion Nathan Kegel leads energy services at Nanotech Materials. He grew up outside Green Bay, Wisconsin, working on a neighbor's sweet corn farm (and he's still a Packers fan). He studied at the University of Minnesota and started out designing HVAC and plumbing systems. He soon moved into energy simulation, the part of the job he found more interesting. Over about 20 years he worked on some of the early net zero and LEED Platinum lab projects in California and built building performance teams at architecture and engineering firms. He also spent roughly a decade, on and off, at IES, helping bring advanced building simulation software to North America. He's based in the Twin Cities and reads philosophy and the classics for fun. 🌱 Breaking Ground on Better Building In this episode, Nathan Kegel rethinks how we insulate buildings and how we prove that new materials work: Key Insight #1: Insulation doesn't have to mean thickness The Challenge: The industry rates insulation by R-value, and thickness is part of that calculation. More resistance has meant more material, more depth and more weight. Nathan half-jokes that R-value is "the bane of my existence."The Solution: Nanotech Materials puts a silica-based particle into coatings like acrylics and epoxies. Nathan says the particle has a K-value (thermal conductivity) on par with aerogel, without aerogel's brittleness. Applied about 1 millimeter thick on a roof, the coating can essentially stop heat conduction through it.ROI: According to Nathan, the roof product is rated for Florida's 200 mph impact standard. A related spray-on coating, developed with the state of California, protects timber from wildfire and resists heat up to 1,800°C with very low smoke. You get thermal performance and resilience from one thin layer. Key Insight #2: Stop running endless pilots The Challenge: A startup can't coat a roof and wait a year to see if it worked. As Nathan puts it, "you might not be in business a year." Slow field pilots stall innovation across the industry.The Solution: One of Nanotech's co-founders built a new physics engine from scratch rather than relying on older simulation code. It has been validated under ASHRAE Standard 140. Nathan is bringing it to market, starting with services and eventually opening the full platform to project teams.ROI: Validated simulation means faster, more confident decisions about new materials. Teams can predict performance instead of waiting for it. Key Insight #3: Coat the pipe instead of jacketing it The Challenge: Traditional pipe insulation needs aluminum-jacketed systems that take a lot of labor to install. Moisture can also get trapped between the insulation and the pipe, which causes corrosion under insulation (CUI).The Solution: A coating a couple of millimeters thick, adhered directly to the metal, stops heat transfer without the jacket.ROI: Nathan says this greatly reduces labor costs and nearly prevents corrosion under insulation, so the system costs less upfront and lasts longer. 💬 Sustainable Soundbite Options "If you really want to make the world a better place, define what that better place looks like and then work toward it, and you will be rewarded. Yes, there's going to be setbacks, but just be relentless in that pursuit of learning more and more." – Nathan Kegel 💚 Your Green Building Action Plan Transform your next project with these steps: This Week: Do the jargon check Nathan recommends. Before your next presentation to an owner or your boss, figure out who the audience is, list your technical jargon, and rewrite your pitch at their level.This Quarter: Find one place where thickness drives your current spec, such as roof insulation, pipe jacketing or a retrofit with tight clearances. Ask what thin-film or high-performance coating alternatives would do to cost, labor and durability.This Year: Start with the end in mind. Don't ask "What will building design look like in 2030?" Define what you want your projects, team or firm to look like, then work backward and use energy modeling to test the path before you commit. 🔗 Connect & Learn More 🌿 Access full episode resources: https://www.gbes.com/podcast 🗒️ Read the transcript: here 🧩 Connect with Nathan Kegel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathankegel/Learn more about Nanotech Materials: https://nanotechmaterials.com/ 💚 Join the Green Building Movement: https://www.greenbuilding.news/subscribe 💡 Want More Green Building Insights? Get sustainability tips 2x a week. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter here: https://...
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    32 Min.
  • From One Building to the Whole Company: Scaling Sustainability to the Boardroom with Marianna Palmour

    From One Building to the Whole Company: Scaling Sustainability to the Boardroom with Marianna Palmour
    Oct 7 2026
    The Green Impact Report Quick take: LEED used to be the strategy. Now it's one of maybe 20 tools. Marianna Palmour went from reviewing LEED projects to building a corporate ESG program from scratch at a 5,000-person firm, and she explains why your biggest clients' Scope 3 targets are about to become your problem. 🎓 Meet Your Fellow Sustainability Champion Marianna Palmour leads corporate sustainability at Salas O'Brien, an engineering and technical services firm with more than 5,000 people. She grew up on Lookout Mountain in northwest Georgia, studied architecture at Georgia Tech, and got into green building early. She took the LEED exam straight out of school and served as vice president and past president of USGBC's Emerging Green Builders. From there she worked at Sustainable Options and then Epstein Group, where she was a LEED third-party reviewer and built out a portfolio and ESG service line. She went back to Georgia Tech for an MBA in entrepreneurship, which made her a "double Jacket." While there she was a fellow with the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainability, focused on inclusive design. When Salas O'Brien acquired Epstein Group, she was asked to build the ESG program from the ground up. 🌱 Breaking Ground on Better Building In this episode, Marianna Palmour shows how sustainability moves from the building to the boardroom: 💡 Key Insight #1: Double materiality beats copying the competition The Challenge: Companies often set sustainability goals by looking at what peers are doing, or by asking only the people at the top.The Solution: Run a materiality assessment that asks every stakeholder: communities, investors, the board, clients and suppliers. Then look at it in both directions ("double materiality"): how sustainability issues affect the business, and how the business affects the environment.ROI: The strategy fits your own values, your regulatory exposure (Local Law 97 in New York, California's ESG disclosure rules) and the people you actually answer to. You don't spend money chasing someone else's priorities. 💡 Key Insight #2: Your clients' Scope 3 is now your compliance problem The Challenge: Smaller firms and service providers assume EU rules and emissions reporting only apply to big multinationals.The Solution: Get ready now. Big global clients have to report Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, so they're pushing supplier codes of conduct and emissions reporting down the supply chain. That includes consultants. Marianna's simple test: Scope 1 is fuel you burn yourself, Scope 2 is energy someone else produces for you, and Scope 3 is everything upstream and downstream.ROI: A $20K job might not get noticed. Millions in work puts you in a client's Scope 3 footprint. Firms that can sign off on supplier standards and report their emissions keep those relationships and stay eligible for the work. 💡 Key Insight #3: Make the business case in two languages The Challenge: Green policies usually get written one building or one office at a time, and leadership sees them as a nice-to-have.The Solution: Early in her career, Marianna took the Georgia-Pacific tower in downtown Atlanta (over a million square feet) through one of the first big LEED EBOM v2009 certifications. It was the first time she had to convince a C-suite that operational changes were right on values and on economics. She now brings that approach to whole portfolios, turning energy, water and indoor air quality strategies into standards that work across cities, countries and regulations.ROI: Policies adopted across the whole organization save money and resources everywhere at once, not just in one showcase building. 💬 Sustainable Soundbite "It's amazing what you can do if you are not afraid and you lean on your community." – Marianna Palmour ⬇️ Your Green Building Action Plan Transform your next project with these steps: This Week: Pull the supplier codes of conduct from your top three clients and compare them with your own policies. If you can't attest to them today, find out why.This Quarter: Run a light materiality assessment. Survey employees, key clients, suppliers and leadership about which sustainability issues matter most to them, and look at both sides of double materiality.This Year: Take one strategy that worked on a single building (an energy, water or IEQ policy) and write it up as a standard for your whole portfolio or company. Then start tracking the Scope 3 data your biggest clients will eventually ask for. 🔗 Connect & Learn More 🌿 Access full episode resources: https://www.gbes.com/podcast 🗒️ Read the transcript: here 🌎 Connect with Marianna Palmour: Website: https://salasobrien.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marianna-palmour/ 💚 Join the Green Building Movement: https://www.greenbuilding.news/subscribe 🔋 Want More Green Building Insights? Get sustainability tips 2x a week. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter here: https://www.greenbuilding.news/subscribe 🧰...
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    57 Min.
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