✅ The Green Impact Report Quick take: What if the greenest building innovation isn't waiting around the corner — it's already here? New Energy Works founder Jonathan Orpin makes the case for building better now, using durable timber structures, wood-fiber insulation, off-site construction, and mass timber to tackle carbon without sacrificing craft or economics. 👨‍🎓 Meet Your Fellow Sustainability Champion Jonathan Orpin is the founder of New Energy Works, a timber framing and sustainable construction company celebrating 40 years in business. Jonathan's environmental roots stretch back to college, when he became deeply interested in environmentalism. New Energy Works initially explored cellulose insulation and solar energy before pivoting toward timber framing in the mid-1980s. Four decades later, the company works across residential timber framing, off-site panelization, glulam, and mass timber construction. New Energy Works is also 100% employee owned through an ESOP and operates around a triple-bottom-line philosophy of People, Planet, and Profit. Now, Jonathan is preparing for another kind of sustainable design challenge: building a leadership transition that allows the company and its values to thrive beyond its founder. 🌱Breaking Ground on Better Building In this episode, Jonathan challenges Green Building professionals to stop waiting for the next breakthrough and start scaling solutions we already know work: 🧠 Key Insight #1: Build the enclosure like a blanket — and attack thermal bridging from the outside. The Challenge: Conventional assemblies can introduce thermal bridges through studs and other structural components, while some insulation products carry significant global warming impacts of their own. The Solution: New Energy Works wraps its timber structures with exterior insulation and has increasingly shifted toward wood-fiber insulation. The company uses dense-packed wood fiber in cavities and rigid wood fiber outside the structure to break thermal bridges. Jonathan points to domestically manufactured wood-fiber insulation made from lower-grade trees as an especially exciting evolution. ROI: Better thermal performance can reduce operational energy demand, while wood fiber provides a lower-carbon insulation strategy. Off-site panelization also helps move work into a controlled shop environment, reducing field labor and accelerating installation. 🚀 Key Insight #2: Stop treating mass timber as "next." It's ready now. The Challenge: Concrete and steel remain foundational materials for commercial construction, but Jonathan argues their carbon impacts create an opportunity for lower-carbon structural alternatives. The Solution: New Energy Works is expanding its glulam and mass timber work on commercial projects, bringing wood into structures that might otherwise have relied more heavily on concrete and steel. ROI: Mass timber gives project teams another lever for addressing embodied carbon while creating highly crafted buildings. For Jonathan, the bigger opportunity is implementation: Green Building professionals already know enough to make better material decisions today. 🫶 Key Insight #3: Sustainability includes building companies—and buildings—that can outlast their founders. The Challenge: A durable building means little if the knowledge, culture, and values behind it disappear. Jonathan sees the same longevity challenge in business ownership as he does in construction. The Solution: New Energy Works became 100% employee owned through an ESOP as part of a long-term succession strategy. Jonathan is now preparing to transition from CEO to executive chair while searching for a leader who will preserve the company's commitment to community, craft, and People, Planet, and Profit. His advice to that future CEO is simple: listen, learn, then lead. ROI: Employee ownership creates a pathway for workers to participate in the value they help create while giving the company a succession mechanism designed to preserve its culture and mission. For founders, succession planning can turn decades of work into an organization capable of continuing beyond them. 🎧 Sustainable Soundbite "My suggestion to the new CEO is, listen, learn and then lead." — Jonathan Orpin 🧗 Your Green Building Action Plan Transform your next project with these steps: This Week: Review one current wall or roof assembly for thermal bridges and investigate whether wood-fiber insulation or continuous exterior insulation could improve the enclosure. This Quarter: Identify where your project could reduce reliance on higher-carbon structural materials and evaluate timber, glulam, mass timber, and FSC-certified wood where appropriate. This Year: Start measuring instead of assuming. Establish a repeatable process for tracking the carbon impacts of your materials and projects so your sustainability claims can increasingly be backed by data. 🔗 Connect & Learn More 🌿 Access full episode resources: https://www.gbes.com/podcast 📄 Read the transcript: here 🔗 Connect with Jonathan Orpin: 🌲 Website: https://newenergyworks.com/, https://pioneermillworks.com/ 🌍 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-orpin-1017868/ 💚 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.

✅ The Green Impact Report Quick take: What if the greenest building innovation isn't waiting around the corner — it's already here? New Energy Works founder Jonathan Orpin makes the case for building better now, using durable timber structures, wood-fiber insulation, off-site construction, and mass timber to tackle carbon without sacrificing craft or economics. 👨‍🎓 Meet Your Fellow Sustainability Champion Jonathan Orpin is the founder of New Energy Works, a timber framing and sustainable construction company celebrating 40 years in business. Jonathan's environmental roots stretch back to college, when he became deeply interested in environmentalism. New Energy Works initially explored cellulose insulation and solar energy before pivoting toward timber framing in the mid-1980s. Four decades later, the company works across residential timber framing, off-site panelization, glulam, and mass timber construction. New Energy Works is also 100% employee owned through an ESOP and operates around a triple-bottom-line philosophy of People, Planet, and Profit. Now, Jonathan is preparing for another kind of sustainable design challenge: building a leadership transition that allows the company and its values to thrive beyond its founder. 🌱Breaking Ground on Better Building In this episode, Jonathan challenges Green Building professionals to stop waiting for the next breakthrough and start scaling solutions we already know work: 🧠 Key Insight #1: Build the enclosure like a blanket — and attack thermal bridging from the outside. The Challenge: Conventional assemblies can introduce thermal bridges through studs and other structural components, while some insulation products carry significant global warming impacts of their own. The Solution: New Energy Works wraps its timber structures with exterior insulation and has increasingly shifted toward wood-fiber insulation. The company uses dense-packed wood fiber in cavities and rigid wood fiber outside the structure to break thermal bridges. Jonathan points to domestically manufactured wood-fiber insulation made from lower-grade trees as an especially exciting evolution. ROI: Better thermal performance can reduce operational energy demand, while wood fiber provides a lower-carbon insulation strategy. Off-site panelization also helps move work into a controlled shop environment, reducing field labor and accelerating installation. 🚀 Key Insight #2: Stop treating mass timber as "next." It's ready now. The Challenge: Concrete and steel remain foundational materials for commercial construction, but Jonathan argues their carbon impacts create an opportunity for lower-carbon structural alternatives. The Solution: New Energy Works is expanding its glulam and mass timber work on commercial projects, bringing wood into structures that might otherwise have relied more heavily on concrete and steel. ROI: Mass timber gives project teams another lever for addressing embodied carbon while creating highly crafted buildings. For Jonathan, the bigger opportunity is implementation: Green Building professionals already know enough to make better material decisions today. 🫶 Key Insight #3: Sustainability includes building companies—and buildings—that can outlast their founders. The Challenge: A durable building means little if the knowledge, culture, and values behind it disappear. Jonathan sees the same longevity challenge in business ownership as he does in construction. The Solution: New Energy Works became 100% employee owned through an ESOP as part of a long-term succession strategy. Jonathan is now preparing to transition from CEO to executive chair while searching for a leader who will preserve the company's commitment to community, craft, and People, Planet, and Profit. His advice to that future CEO is simple: listen, learn, then lead. ROI: Employee ownership creates a pathway for workers to participate in the value they help create while giving the company a succession mechanism designed to preserve its culture and mission. For founders, succession planning can turn decades of work into an organization capable of continuing beyond them. 🎧 Sustainable Soundbite "My suggestion to the new CEO is, listen, learn and then lead." — Jonathan Orpin 🧗 Your Green Building Action Plan Transform your next project with these steps: This Week: Review one current wall or roof assembly for thermal bridges and investigate whether wood-fiber insulation or continuous exterior insulation could improve the enclosure. This Quarter: Identify where your project could reduce reliance on higher-carbon structural materials and evaluate timber, glulam, mass timber, and FSC-certified wood where appropriate. This Year: Start measuring instead of assuming. Establish a repeatable process for tracking the carbon impacts of your materials and projects so your sustainability claims can increasingly be backed by data. 🔗 Connect &amp; Learn More 🌿 Access full episode resources: https://www.gbes.com/podcast 📄 Read the transcript: here 🔗 Connect with Jonathan Orpin: 🌲 Website: https://newenergyworks.com/, https://pioneermillworks.com/ 🌍 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-orpin-1017868/ 💚 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.

Building for the Next 100 Years with Timber, Wood Fiber, Already Embedded Carbon with Jonathan Orpin

This year is just about to get more exciting as Charlie Cichetti brings you the Green Building Matters Podcast! Get to know what it is and how you can tune in!  "This podcast is gonna fuel your fire no matter where you are at with your green building career journey." - Charlie Cichetti

This year is just about to get more exciting as Charlie Cichetti brings you the Green Building Matters Podcast! Get to know what it is and how you can tune in! "This podcast is gonna fuel your fire no matter where you are at with your green building career journey." - Charlie Cichetti

This year is just about to get more exciting as Charlie Cichetti brings you the Green Building Matters Podcast! Get to know what it is and how you can tune in! &nbsp;"This podcast is gonna fuel your fire no matter where you are at with your green building career journey." - Charlie Cichetti

START HERE: Welcome to the Green Building Matters Podcast!

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.

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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.

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The Green Building Matters Podcast with Charlie Cichetti

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