Hi, we have a special guest today. Jarrett Smith is the Sustainability Officer for the University of Colorado at Denver. And he's done a lot of the sort of changes that we imagine you're going to be doing in your career. And it's going to be great to have Jarrett tell some of his stories about how he got things done. How he maybe didn't get some things done. And what it takes to be a change agent in a big organization. So thanks for being here, Jarrett. >> My pleasure, John. >> First question. If you were just joining an organization for the very first time, what sort of changes would you look for? How would you do kind of a survey and identify things that would be viable changes for a young person in their career to make? >> I think approaching an organization I would want to know exactly what has been done, what's going on within the culture of that organization. My focus as the sustainability officer is a lot on our facilities environmental impacts and what not. So I would want to know going in, what opportunities are there? What opportunities have already been taken? Are there things that you can do going in that you can immediately prove some successes towards? Because I think those are important to establish your position, your responsibilities, and your importance to the organization is to be able to go in from the beginning and say, we can achieve this. From my perspective looking at energy efficiency and conservation projects in our buildings on campus that was the first thing that I looked at. There was plenty of opportunity for that at the time. And we've worked over the course of eight years to kind of touch on all the kind of the low-hanging fruit, the things that would give us the biggest bang for our buck, the biggest kind of payback, best payback analysis. So knowing going into an organization that there's a way to succeed and have some of those early successes. That really opens you up kind of down the road to be able to maybe ask for money for bigger projects. Or to dig a little deeper into the culture of your organization, saying, we've succeeded here. It's time to move to this next phase in order to see if we can succeed here. >> Great great. So if you propose something and you do the financial analysis and it doesn't make sense financially. And our university is somewhat budget constrained, I mean people watch dollars here. How do you go about, sort of, pushing that through? You and I both know that there's some things that we need to do and the money may not show that it should be done right now. >> Right. >> What can you do to add on to the financial analysis and kind of get over the hump? >> I think, unfortunately, the first thing you have to get used to is hearing the word no. And hopefully with that, you are communicating, say, there's a specific project you want in a new building that you're constructing. And I can think of a number of buildings that we've done, where I've been told no. We can't do that, we can't afford it, it's not in the budget. And say, our facilities group is uncomfortable because it's a new technology. I think what you want to do in a situation like that is turn that into, that no into a maybe not right now. And set yourself up for winning that argument the next time of how you can succeed with a specific project. A lot of times you wont be able to show that this affects our bottom line in the best way. And so you won't be able to move forward with certain projects but you can sometimes insert things into the next project that comes along. Say, we looked at this last time and it wasn't feasible. But either the technology is evolved or our organization has evolved to a point that we're ready for this and it does make financial sense moving forward to do this. >> So this is a war of many small battles? >> It is and you have to be prepared to hear the word, no. But also, don't let it deter you. Keep moving forward because it will eventually make financial sense. Sustainability, at its very least, is going to affect your bottom line positively moving forward. It's hard to have that mindset sometimes when projects are happening so quickly and underneath such a constrained budget. But if you can keep the conversation going from one project to the next, I think you're going to succeed at some point. >> So the people you deal with, I know a lot of them are former academics. They're smart people. They understand how the world works up to a point. Are they receptive to the sustainability arguments? >> Yes, on the academic side I would say people are definitely receptive to the sustainability. Not arguments, but more of the tenets of, how does this make sense for our organization? How are we affecting people's environmental footprint, our campus' environmental footprint? How are we affecting social equity amongst the populus, amongst our community? And are the economics making sense for us? And I think that they all get that to some extent. There's different viewpoints on how those things are achieved. But to a certain extent I think that they get it. Where I think we have a little more problem is, with more, and I'm not throwing anybody under the bus here, because people have a job to do. But the people that have the money are always wanting to make sure that it's used for the best and most benefit of the university purpose at the time. And so, say we have a new construction project or a major renovation project. We're trying to make the best space for people to work in, for people to study in, for people to learn, and take what they've learned and then go out in the community and make the world a better place. But, we're also doing that on a fixed budget, within about a two year time limit. And so, planning for sustainability in that amount of time is difficult. And like I said before, you kind of need to be ready to go each time something new comes along, to be able to say, well, we've got this. Can we incorporate this into this project or into this idea that we're moving forward on? And it also needs to start from the beginning. People need to hear it from the beginning. Once the planning department and then the projects department has already developed the project, you're too late. You gotta be there for those initial conversations. >> In an earlier class, you talked about the design phase. And how during the design phase maybe 5 or 10% of a budget is spent, but 80 or 90% of the lifetime costs of say a building are determined. Is that what you've found? >> Around that, yeah, absolutely. With the design phase you are determining the next 100 years. That's what we're shooting for is 100 year building. Probably should be shooting for longer than that a lot of the time. But that's what we can determine at this point. You are looking at the life cycle cost of the building, but it does happen in that design phase. How is it going to run? You're planning for what people are going to do in those buildings, and accomplish in those buildings, how they're going to succeed in those buildings. It's all done in that planning and design process. And you're looking at how much energy you're going to use, how much water you're going to use, all that is done in those very initial stages, so you gotta be there for that. >> So there's a growing interest in sort of the psychology of buildings. And it's a social side of people being able to communicate easily, to help innovation, healthier buildings, and so on. Does that come up in the discussion during the design phase? >> Absolutely. Right now we're doing a major renovation in the North Classroom, which is a building that was built in the 70s, one of the original buildings on the Auraria Campus. Nobody will dance around this and say that it's a great building, it's a bad building. Not only is it old, but it wasn't built to what's now a modern standard, that is creating the best atmosphere for people to thrive in. And anytime we are developing a new building, and I think our Student Commons building is a good example of that. The new Health and Wellness Center that we're about to build. It is all about how people are effected in those buildings. And how best to create an environment that people, and I keep going back to people succeed, but that's one of the tenets of our university is to help people succeed. And that's how we want to build buildings, is to create that. They walk in on the first day, I was talking to somebody about this recently, the first time you get into a new car and it smells bad. Or not smells bad it smells good because it smells like a new car and you're really proud of it. But those are volatile organic compounds and that's not a great thing to be taking in. And used to when you walked into buildings that's how it was then. Now you walk into one of our buildings and we've used no volatile organic compounds, there's not laminated wood everywhere. They're healthy buildings. People walk in the first day, they breathe the air and it's healthy. And we like to think that that's just starting them on the right foot for what they're going to accomplish in that building. They've got better light. They've got better ways to communicate because technology is so much better. And because of that we know that studies have shown. I was just reading a study from the US Green Building Council the other day talking about a couple of buildings that they studied in California. And how productivity was up 70% in comparable buildings that are not just LEED certified, but just really healthy buildings in general as opposed to just a standard constructed building. >> It's amazing to me that as a facilities person, it's not just about engineering, and energy, and materials. It's about psychology, and sociology, and community. >> Absolutely, because from the facilities perspective, the facilities project perspective, if people aren't happy in that building, who do they call? >> [LAUGH] >> So you're going to get it back every single time. You're going to get the calls of this wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. Come fix it. And you don't want to spend all of your time fixing something that you've just built. You want to move on to the next project and the next phase. >> Is there anything else you'd share with somebody else who's starting out in their career, they want to do something related to sustainability? I mean, what sort of guidance would you give to them? And it could be courses they should take, skills they should acquire, how they should look for mentors, or advocates, or allies, things like that. >> I think things you just said. Courses, if you're going to be directly involved in sustainability, know the business aspect, know the economic aspect. The environmental, I feel like, most people know that aspect. They know the benefits of having a healthy environmental impact, they know that. But understanding, kind of, the business aspect of sustainability, the economic aspect of sustainability, that's how you talk to the people who have the money and that's very, very important. You can be philosophical and you should be philosophical about sustainability. And you should be able to express that to people but you should also be able to talk about payback analysis, cost benefit ratios, and what not. That's very important. And it goes much deeper than that. And I would also say that one of the biggest is just be willing to pivot, that's so important. If you're in the business world or you're looking to succeed, you're starting a business you always have to be willing to kind of pivot when the need arises. And it’s like that with most careers but especially looking at sustainability when you run up against a brick wall don't keep trying to climb it, pivot to something else where you can succeed. It’s good for your own psyche. It’s going to be good for your organization in the long run as well. >> It's hard on your head to keep beating it into that wall. >> Absolutely. >> In terms of big dreams. If you could do one big project for the university that has sustainability implications and addresses a huge issue what would it be? >> Well this is a little bit of a pet project because I've been working on it since we started. We haven't been very successful renewable energy. Since I have come in we have worked really hard to do as much energy conservation as possible, energy efficiency as possible. We've spent a lot of money on this things and we've reaped many, many benefits from that, saved a lot of money because of those things. But we've never been able to institute a real, even small renewable energy project. One of the things that we've been talking about for years is for higher education along the front range to band together, and to build a large renewable energy development. Notably, a wind power farm, east of Denver. Southeast of Denver. And all of the campuses would benefit from that power. And we know that it would produce enough power that we would be selling some back to the utility as well. That's the big dream that I've got because that would solve so many of our issues. Especially our commitment to reducing our carbon over time although we've had a lot of success. We say that we want to have an 80% reduction from 2005 levels by the year 2050. That's the only way we can possibly do something like that. So when I'm thinking about planning, I'm thinking about long-term projects. I'm always looking at that commitment and that goal. If we're going to keep that goal, we have to move to develop something large. I wouldn't say that's out of the box, but it's definitely been out of the realm of possibility for a long time. And that is something that if enough people and the right people are involved in that conversation, we could definitely make happen. >> How great. Jarrett, thanks so much. And I hope that we get to go and take a video of the Jarrett Smith wind farm. >> [LAUGH] >> Southeast of Denver. >> I would love that. I don't think it will have my name. >> [LAUGH] >> Maybe there'll be a little footnote that I was involved. >> Great. >> I am very proud of that. >> Well, thanks very much. >> Thank you, John. >> Great, thank you.
