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Based on the studies, we’re about 3 years away from gas powered cars leveling off and no longer having growth though they will still be selling. By 2025, a third of all cars will be electric, and by 203, 50% or more will be electric. 

David Eagle, founder and CEO of CURRENT EV, is an Emmy Award Winning TV Producer/Director, a Green Technology Entrepreneur and an electric vehicle, solar power/charger expert. David was an early adopter of both EVs and solar power, has owned numerous EVs including one of the first Nissan Leafs sold in the U.S. His home is powered entirely by solar, which charges his electric vehicles with a charger installed in his garage. Through the extensive contacts he has established with Los Angeles automobile dealerships, and via his relationships with various organizations like Plug-In America and the Electric Vehicle Association, David has become an expert on negotiating the best deals for EVs, chargers and solar power. During the 1st year that CURRENT EV’s car-shopping website has been active, he has transacted an impressive number of EV leases and purchases for CURRENT EV customers.

How did an Emmy Award Winning TV producer/director turn into an electric vehicle expert?What’s happening on the market?Configuration of his soiar powered lifestye?What are the Incentives for consumers to go green with our choice of low to no emission vehicles? What are landlord required to do when tenants want to install a charger?What is your forecast for the trend in general?

"If you're not taking climate risk into your investment strategy, you're really missing out."

Ben Stapleton is an LA native who brings a creative mind and consultative approach to a wide range of projects with a focus on building teams and designing programs to deliver impactful results. As Executive Director for the U.S. Green Building Council - Los Angeles,  his current work is based on coordinating an ecosystem leveraging the built environment as the entry point and connective fabric to help create a more sustainable society for all.

 

I noticed you have a real estate license and have worked with real estate investors.  Assuming it was commercial real estate, but can you briefly tell me about that experience: i.e., what were your roles?Do you have any ideas or suggestions to mitigate some hurdles so that more developers would use green materials because those flippers and developers are the ones that creating a lot of homes in our city, and if we can incentivize them to build green, we will have a great impact. On the personal note, I understand you just moved into a new home.  What are the measures you’re implementing in your home to make it more green?

If you live in Southern California, most likely you're eligible for rebate.

Kim O'Cain is the President of O’Cain Consulting, a small, woman-owned consulting firm in Santa Monica, CA providing water conservation planning, public policy and outreach services to public agencies and businesses. Kim has more than 18 years of experience developing and implementing water conservation and efficiency programs and policies, including managing the City of Santa Monica’s water conservation unit. Kim implemented the first landscape rebate program, water neutrality ordinance and sustainable landscape ordinance in California. She taught the Sustainable Landscape Program continuing education courses at Santa Monica College, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at SMC teaching water sustainability courses. Here are the topics we explored:

While you were really spearheading the water conservation issues at the institutional level, it comes down to us residents.  You implemented the landscape rebate program.  Tell us how you got it going, what you had to do to bring awareness of homeowners, and where you think it stands throughout California?Since I met you, we’ve had a few devastating fires in our area.  One of our clients in Malibu did lose their home completely in Woosley Fire.  While it is a loaded topic, but what do you think we learned from those fires? You work with municipalities to come up with programs around water conservation. Do you have any programs that’s worth mentioning for our audience?  Find your local information:  www.socalwatersmart.comI share the interest and joy of camping, cooking and traveling with you.  At personal level, what are some of the things you do to ensure you are living a greener life?

It's a value proposition both on the cost savings and potential time savings for the overall budget.

PlantPrefab is the nation's first prefabricated design and manufacturing company dedicated to sustainable construction, materials, processes, and operations. It was spun out of LivingHomes, a sustainable design development company responsible for dozens of award-winning prefabricated homes, including the nation's first LEED Platinum-certified home under Amy's direction. Amy Sims is a founding member of LivingHomes and currently the Director of Design for PlantPrefab.  Over 10 years of experience in commercial office, sound studios and retail/restaurant design, allowed Amy to develop a core set of skills to apply to the start up of a studio dedicated to prefabricated structures. We explored following topics:

Prefab homes are becoming increasingly popular these days.  Can you briefly define what “prefab homes” are, and perhaps explain the difference from what’s known as “manufactured homes”?Are most or all “prefab homes” considered “sustainably designed”?Are your customers mostly home owners building new homes for themselves or do you have a sizable business from developers? What are the benefits of building prefab as opposed to the conventional way of building?How does the process look like for PlantPrefab?  Do your customers have to know they want to do prefab before they purchase the lot, or can it be an after thought?What is your sense of the future of prefab homes and sustainably designed homes in coming years?

“For a resale value, new buyers are very interested as all those things pay benefit back to the owners.”

Todd M. Lynch, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, is a Principal Project Planner for UCLA Capital Programs, with specialty in sustainable design and construction of new buildings and major remodels, from initial studies through construction and into post-occupancy. Todd has helped many campus projects achieve certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System.  He teaches Architecture and Sustainability at UCLA, and a Board member for the USGBC-LA.   While Todd is actively involved in sustainable design and building at institutional levels in several professional capacities, he is also a principal architect for a private practice of Sharif Lynch Architecture.  

Can you briefly explain what LEED AP means for architectural professionals?If a home owner or property owner wants to design a new home, what would be the benefit of hiring LEED AP architects?How would a LEED AP architect design a home differently than architects who don’t have this accreditation?You are quite involved in the sustainable design and building at much larger scales than a single family homes through UCLA, what is your sense for the current trend for green home designs?  Do you think it is getting to be more in demand?  If so, what is the factors that are making green homes more in demand?  If not, why is it?Here’s a question I ask everybody.  Do you think designing and building a green home, even if it’s a renovation of an existing house, is necessarily more expensive – not considering the savings through the energy efficiency and reduced medical cost? 

Reach Todd Lynch at:  [email protected]

Beate Kirmse is a fellow Green Realtor in Palos Verdes, orinally from Germany.  After working with architects and contractors as an energy and green building consultant for a few years, she became a Realtor® and got her Green Realtor designation.  In addition, she is also a LEED AP Homes, WELL AP, and Certified Passive House Consultant.

Originally, Beate thought about green homes to be how the building should be anyway, saving resources like water and energy, wondering why we had to make it into a label or niche product.  In her mind, green building is just knowing how to build a good building.  When she and her husband decided to renovate their 1948 ranch style house in Palos Verdes Peninsula, they wanted to use hempcrete, the non-toxic and organic building material made of hemp, and soon learned these good products are still not as understood.  Benefits of using hempcrete other than being non-toxic and organic are that it makes great insulation, which keeps the house healthy and comfortable.  So for people who are highly sensitive, this is a huge benefit.   

Beate is also a certified Passive House Consultant.  “Passive” in passive house really means using as little mechanical systems as possible to keep the interior comfortable by focusing on the envelope of the house: i.e., roof, walls, and floors.  By following passive house system, you’ll only need a tiny air conditioning or heater to keep the temperature in your home always comfortable and constant.  It really cuts down the mechanical and creates a very energy efficient house.  If you wrap your house around right, then you have a very comfortable and healthy home.  Beate also installed the Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV) system, which circulates fresh air all day in the house contributing to being healthy home.

Find Beate at KirmseHomes.com.

Rojelio comes with a wide range of qualifications:  licensed real estate agent, California Mortgage Loan Originator, City of Los Angeles Power Generation Steam and Turbine Engineer, Certified Refrigeration EPA 608 Universal, Registered home improvement salesperson, AND designated ADU specialist. 

Rojelio dissects the little known FHA mortgage, EEM.  EEM stands for Energy Efficient Mortgage.  

EEM was developed by HUD in the 1980s as a part of FHA loans.  It has some unique components that makes it attractive such as it allows 5% over the appraised value and 6% additional allowance for DTI (Debt to Income) ratio, which gives consumers more power to purchase and do the energy efficiency upgrade.  Application process is the same as any other home loans except the property needs to be inspected by HERS rater (home energy rating system) before and after.  As it is a FHA loan, the down payment required is 3%, besides the FICO score required to get best rate is only 660.  The interest rate may be a quarter point higher, however, considering the savings on energy bills, the homeowners will benefit much more in a long run because homeowners in a “leaky homes” are spending a lot of money on the wasted energy.

Unfortunately, EEM is very little known in the industry; however, Rojelio believes that the demand for EEM will certainly keep increasing.  In fact, he’s on the crusade to educate the homeowners and home buyers so that they can take advantage and make their homes more energy efficient.

“I truly believe in the power of Energy Efficient Mortgage.  We all live in this world and have a shared responsibility to make sure that we start to turn the tide of climate change.” 

You can reach Rojelio at 562-263-9950, or Instagram @vvelcome

Rochelle "Sheli" Nilsson currently oversees the risk management department for one of the largest remodeling companies in the nation, Treeium Inc.  She has been part of the Green Movement since she was a young girl. Being an avid lover of nature and the ocean she is constantly on the lookout for innovative techniques to help reduce the carbon footprint of the company, the operations and individually. Treeium, was one of the pioneers in eco-friendly remodeling by minimizing the affects of building industry, which is notorious to be a major contributor to our pollution.  First they digitized their contracts.  Second, they partnered with Tree People to plant a tree for every remodel project they do.  They set examples to minimize their affect on the environment from power usage, managing the construction waste, etc. They educate the construction workersabout the effects of chemicals and toxicities the workers and communities can be exposed to through construction process.

From Treeium’s standpoint, there are two aspects of green home:  One is energy efficiency, which people are more keen for these days because it affects their wallet; then there’s the “healthy home” aspect, which affects their wellbeing.

Now there’s been a huge shift in the industry where many companies are jumping on the band wagon to offer more eco-friendly materials. Plus the workers are becoming more familiar with green building.   As the prices of materials and labor are becoming more competitive, the businesses building green becomes more profitable.

By going green, it affects your health, your wallet and our community.  Treeium try to be a pioneer in doing the ethical and right thing to do while being profitable. 

Get more information on Treeium at: Treeium.com

Stuart Cooley is Professor of Renewable Energies at Santa Monica College and the lead faculty of the Sustainable Technologies Program, where he teaches courses in solar energy and storage, energy efficiency, lighting, and sustainability. 

Meanwhile, he and his wife Dede are about to start a green remodel process of their own home!  While targeting for net zero, Dede was influenced by watching HGTV and wanted a more modern home.  They started out with using an app to simulate the home design, then hired an architect, Kyle Moss, whom Stuart met on a green home tour in Santa Monica. 

Some of the green features to be included are:  Changing the hip roof to gable roof to allow more surface area for the PVs;  Installing the clear story window to allow natural ventilation and daylighting; LED lighting;  and most importantly the more efficient HVAC systems such as “heat recovery ventilation.”  And on the water-use end, they will install rain barrels to retain the rain water and use for irrigation of their drought tolerant, mostly native plants landscape.

The higher than expected bids from contractors wasn't because of the desire to be green, but rahter about the concern for the time it takes for permit and to build according to the green design.  The cities’ permit offices need to catch up with new and different technologies and be able to answer questions quickly.  Contractors and architects also need to become familiar with those newer and slightly different systems such as “quality insulation installation” requiring installation be place with no more gap than a half inch. 

If you’re thinking about green rebuild, just start the process!

Stuart can be reached at Santa Monica College, Sustainable Technologies Program:  smc.edu/stp.

Nick Brown has over 20 years experience in building materials and a passion for green building acquired from his time in the field observing how homes are built. He holds an Economics degree from Princeton and a Michigan MBA, and is certified to perform energy modeling for California Title 24 compliance.  Nick and his wife, Holland, who is also passionate about living sustainably, purchased a home in 2013 in Long Beach for them and two growing daughters and renovated it to be a truly “green” home that they call, “Net Zero Nest”. 

Nick and Holland had 2700-sq/ft 4 bedroom house where they started their family in Long Beach.  After taking green building classes at Cal State Long Beach, they realized things in their house wasn’t quite efficient or healthy.  They took on to find a home that they can turn into a green home.  They were determined to demonstrate that you could actually create an efficient, high performing home cost effectively. 

He shares the resources and approaches they utilized to accomplish their goal such as finding an architect and contractor; how the contractors were actually learning the process of building green including the cost of this project.  Also Nick discusses what he would do differently if he were to do this over again. 

Find more about Nick’s house at:  NetZeroNest.com