Breaking Buildings’ Addiction to Fossil Fuels

If we’re going to deal with climate change, we’ve got to talk about buildings. Thirty percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions can be traced back to our homes, offices and other buildings – how we heat and cool them, how we insulate them (or don’t) and the electricity we use. But greening buildings is really hard. Donnel Baird is on a mission to change that. He founded the startup BlocPower to prove that we can green America’s buildings while creating good jobs in low-income neighborhoods – and he wants to build a billion-dollar business while he’s at it.

Calls to Action:

• Interested in whether your building could benefit from going green? Fill out BlocPower’s survey (or give it to your building manager!) to find out if your building is right for a retrofit.
• You can also learn more about home energy audits, find professional energy auditors in your area or learn how to do one yourself, at the Department of Energy’s resource page.
• Is policy your love language, too? Local towns and cities have a ton of control over building efficiency and one option is to implement Building Performance Standards that require building owners to cut emissions over time. You can learn more about these policies here.
• We promised to include links to organizations that are helping folks in need during the pandemic. Check out Feeding America and World Central Kitchen. The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund distributes support to organizations working throughout New York City.

If you take an action we recommend in one of our episodes, do us a favor and tell us about it! We’d love to hear how it went and what it felt like. Record a short voice memo on your phone and send it to us via our Listener Mail Form. We might use it in an upcoming episode.

Check out our Calls to Action archive here for all of the actions we've recommended on the show. Sign up for our newsletter here. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

Special thanks to our guest: Donnel Baird

This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Rachel Waldholz. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Anna Ladd and Felix Poon. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Our senior producer is Lauren Silverman. Sound design and mixing by Peter Leonard with original music by Emma Munger.

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