building wellness & sustainability with evalore spain
Talking green buildings & healthy buildings with Pablo Munoz, CEO of Evalore, Building Wellness & Sustainability
The ‘Green & Healthy Places’ podcast series takes a deep-dive into the role of sustainability, wellbeing and community in real estate, offices, hotels and educational facilities.
evalore building wellness & sustainability
In this episode we talk to Pablo Munoz, Co-Founder and CEO of Evalore, Building Wellness & Sustainability with offices in Barcelona and Madrid. Founded three years ago, it’s a team of engineers, architects and energy modelers with an entrepreneurial spirit that immediately caught my attention.
indoor air quality, wellness villas ands more
We discuss air quality strategies for indoor environments such as corporate offices, the integration of both green building and healthy building strategies in each project, their first timber office building in Spain called WittyWood that is currently under construction, active design strategies to promote movement in an office building, their healthy home strategies for a WELL Villa at PGA Catalunya residential golf resort in Spain, their own in-house Air First air purification certification and their Evalore Method intended to push the green & healthy building movement forward with a focus on Spain and accessible price points.
healthy & well become commoditized
We also look ahead to the next 12 months in our industry and Pablo highlights the risks of well-washing, whereby an increasing array of products and services are branded as being ‘healthy’, meaning a dose of skepticism is going to become increasingly important for those on the inside of the healthy building movement in order to protect its reputation.
air first rating system
One of the topics we touch on in the podcast is Evalore’s Air First air quality management system that sets out to offer a more accessible alternative to the more extensive and capital intensive certifications such as WELL and LEED.
For me, this looks like the first in what may be an entire new generation of such accreditation systems that adapt what works for corporate America to a more local context, in this case Spain and its commercial real estate sector.
The protocols cover Purification, Disinfection, Monitoring & Training tin protocols to enhance Indoor Air Quality.
GUEST / PABLO MUNOZ
Full transcript below…
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Matt Morley 0:14
Pablo, to get things going perhaps you could just give us a really quick introduction to who you are, and also to the business Evalore that you're CEO of here in Spain?
Pablo Munoz 3:05
Hi, Matt and thank you so much. It is a pleasure for me to be here with you today. My name is Paolo Munoz. I'm an architect. I was licensed here in Spain but I have worked for most of my career abroad. I first worked in London for a couple years where I worked for a small architecture company then I went in Europe for a Masters of Science in Sustainability in the urban environment. I worked for a pretty big consultancy firm in sustainability then at some point I had the opportunity to come back to Spain. I founded Evalore with two co-founders And this has been going on for three and a half years almost now.
Matt Morley 4:02
You've been up and running now with the business for about three years, as you mentioned, what does your team look like today? And I guess I have to ask this one - how how has your team had to adapt with your offices over the last 10 or 11 months during the COVID-19 crisis?
Pablo Munoz 4:36
Yes, we have a team made out of consultants, architects, engineers, and also energy modelers. For the type of services that we provide, we need to have to have a pretty diverse backgrounds for our company and for sure COVID has been a challenge for us, as well as for everyone. And we are right now working remotely for most of the time. But we also come to the office, there's a part of our work that's difficult to conduct when we are not connected. There's a piece of commitment that is renovated every time we see each other and we talk about our projects, so even though we're trying our best to not be at the office, there is part of our work that has to be conducted in person.
Matt Morley 5:57
Thinking about the indoor environment within the Office. Are you monitoring air quality For example? Have you had to install plastic privacy panels or desk dividers to break up your office space? What kind of changes have you applied using your knowledge of, for example, the WELL building standard and applying it to your own home office environment or your own corporate office environment?
Pablo Munoz 6:22
Right, so the first thing was the protocols. We had to set the way we use the office, and how often we go to the office, we try to not be all at the same time at the office. How's the schedule, and when people use the office, that was the first thing that we had to think about. But independently from that, we also adapted the office so that when we are using it, we are safe. The first part was ventilation. And this is all related to the importance of the air quality in the office. It is funny, we've been talking about it now for three or four years. That was the that that's sort of how about already started. And we started talking about the importance of taking care of the built environment we live in and the importance of the indoor spaces. And so one of the things that we do at the office is we measure the quality of the air we're breathing. So we try to ventilate and we have a system that ventilation is connected to sensors, we can make sure that ventilation is high, we also have space so that desks have separation from each other. The same thing happens in the main meeting room where we have physical barriers to separate from each other.
Matt Morley 8:34
Are your air purifiers integrated into the air conditioning HVAC system or are they standalone domestic air purifiers, like a Dyson system?
Pablo Munoz 8:49
So in our case, we have purifiers standalone on the floor, because the system we use for the air ventilation air system or a heating system did not allow for incorporating those systems.
Matt Morley 9:13
You mentioned the idea of there being more awareness now and if there is any positive change to come from what we've all been through over the last year it is an increasing awareness amongst a wider portion of the population about what indoor Environmental Quality is. Where are you seeing the growth or increase in interest for your products and services coming from?
Pablo Munoz 9:51
We have certainly seen growth in consultancy, we're seeing that people are finally more aware and more interested in the impact that spending time in buildings has, right, like, over the last year, we spent so many days, stuck in our apartments or in our homes, we all finally realized that it had an impact on our physical and emotional well being. And I think that's working in our favor in the way that finally not only clients that are people who want to buy a house or want to build their home for themselves, but also companies are integrating this thinking their projects. But also, I think we cannot forget that this is, at the end of the day, this is a sustainability crisis. In a way it is an environmental crisis. It's not very clear what the origin of the virus is. But most experts agree that it has to do with pushing too far the limit of where humans meet nature and getting to areas where we were not supposed to be. And so I think in a way, this is also helping us realize that we need to do something, we need to build in a better way, when it comes to my sector to architecture, okay, we need to be building a more efficient way for in a better way for the type for the environment.
Matt Morley 11:58
That relationship with nature can be positive, it can bring health benefits But clearly, as you say it can also bring huge risks if not treating or not respecting nature in the right way. Or we're taking it for granted that it will only bring good because clearly, you know there are certain situations such as certain animals and certain markets in China or wherever, where Yeah, we can put ourselves at risk. But to get into that the idea of of reconnecting with nature in in urban environments... I know that you'd be working on a timber built construction project in Barcelona, that's been getting quite a lot of press attention recently. Can you talk us through what that looks like and describe that project?
Pablo Munoz 12:53
Yes, for sure. This will be the Wittlewood building and it will be the first timber building of offices in Spain, a five storey building in the district of Poblenou where most new offices have been built. And it is a very cool project. We're very, very excited as it is not only going for LEED certification. )LEED is one of the most renowned green building standards in the world together with BREEAM the UK version, and USGBC is the US version). It looks into all aspects of sustainability and not only does it look into making sure that the building doesn't consume too much energy, we are using a district heating system And of course, solar panels for photovoltaic production will be available in the building. The building envelope is very sophisticated so that we can decrease the energy demand of the building for both the winter and the summer. We're looking at using sustainable materials. We're looking at using materials that do not come from very far away, and that are produced in a sustainable manner. And often we're looking into making sure that they are using the circular economy system for production. One of the really cool thing about this project is that there will be a water collection system, the water will be used for both irrigation and also for, for bathroom use. WELL is the most, in this case, the equivalent of LEED but in the health and wellness area, it is based on six years of medical and scientific research. And so the strategies that were proposed are not random, they are based on very, very specific parameters that have been proven to improve the health of the people that spend time in those buildings. And in this case, we're talking about the quality of the lighting, or making sure that the lighting doesn't interfere with the circadian needs of the people that spend time in the building. Once we've looked at in a very holistic way it also has to do with acoustic comfort, with thermal comfort, with biophilia, which is the strategy of integrating nature into the interior side of the building.
Matt Morley 16:57
How did you address the nutrition and fitness components of the WELL certification? There just might not be space for a fitness room or a gym facility or there might not be an on site restaurant facility, how have you have you addressed those chapters of the WELL certification process?
Pablo Munoz 17:23
That's, that's a challenge very often. But it is interesting, because people sometimes think that fitness has also has only to do with being able to integrate a gym facility into building, but sometimes it has to do with the way we move, for example, if we place the staircase, in an area where it can be seen then we are promoting the use of it, instead of using the elevators. Something that's appealing to people, let's say, with art pieces, or music, or with coral reefs, or even nature, we're helping people to be more active. And so that's one of the strategies that WELL addresses. Then the nutrition part is a little more challenging here as well, because there is no restaurant in this building. And in this case, one of the things that we are looking at is the vending machines, we're making sure that the food offered in the vending machine is only healthy food.
Matt Morley 18:59
Then when you're focusing on something like a single family home clearly there are even more restrictions there. However, you do both the commercial and the residential side. So if you when you're applying those WELL building philosophy or design concepts to a residential project that's maybe just made for a family such as the one you did, at the PGA Catalunya resort, what does the process of transferring that same knowledge to a completely different context where it's really more about one one family living together rather than lots of co workers spending eight hours in an office each day.
Pablo Munoz 19:49
Right, I mean the principles are the same. We need to take care of the people who work for us and that makes them more productive. And that's pretty much the main reason companies are integrating WELL into their daily lives, because they know it is profitable for them. But when it comes to us making decisions on where we decide to live, don't we want the same thing for our health? We want our family to live in a place that cannot really compromise their health. And so the same principles have been implemented in a pilot study that was the first time in the PGA Catalunya that the WELL standard was applied to a single family home. We need to make sure that the air quality is optimal, with air monitors, sensors, ventilation, high performance filters , optimal quality water We also looked at all the materials being used in the project and we were very careful to use materials that didn't have any ingredients that could be harmful for human health. People listening to us might be surprised like, oh, are there products that are allowed in our homes or in our interior that are bad for our health? Yes! I could talk for hours about that.
Matt Morley 22:45
One of the really interesting things about what you're doing is not just providing consultancy services, as architects and as experts in LEED and WELL but you seem to be taking quite an entrepreneurial approach to this whole scene. And in a way I think, genuinely making your own contribution to that. I was really interested to read about your Air First air purification certification, which seems to be inspired by the bigger players in the market, but perhaps adapting it for Spanish or local requirements. Where did you come up with that initial idea? And what was the the objective in presumably not just creating something to compete with existing certification systems, but perhaps something better adapted to the local market?
Pablo Munoz 23:51
Yes, we actually realized that there was a hidden demand that was not being satisfied. We know that there's a big demand for big health and wellness projects in Spain, in Europe in general, especially in the office building sector, but what about those smaller projects that cannot really implement those measures, because simply don't have the budget to do so? We thought, okay, how can we make it available to them too? How can we make it more simple for those smaller projects? Why can't we choose those strategies that make the most difference? And that's how Air First came about, it is a certification that looks at one of the things that nowadays is probably the most important topic - air quality. So yes it is based on WELL but while it's an open standard, that said, it has been proven to work. So let's make sure that those authorities are available to everyone right, it is a way to democratize those standards for everyone.
Matt Morley 26:08
So then a separate piece of intellectual property compared to what you describe, is your Evalore Method, is that just your process? Or is there more to it?
Pablo Munoz 26:31
It is a way of working, we have set a very clear way of first communicating with a client, making sure of understanding what would they need and what are the goals of the project. And then working together through the process to make sure they they reach those goals through the strategies that we propose. And then helping them communicate those strategies that they have implemented at the end of project, that's the method or first would sort of be one of the forms that the Evalore method can take. Imagine that could be an office project, or it could be a building project for for a residential project or it could be a school and also a co-working has been one of our projects.
Matt Morley 28:45
It really looks to be about democratizing that knowledge and the scientific backing behind this whole approach to creating healthy buildings. But in a sense, it's almost like the next generation coming through now where the parents will be LEED and WELL, now there's the new generation, taking that knowledge and moving it forward and adapting it to new markets and new demands. I know you mentioned before we started talking today that you're also working on a modular homes project, perhaps you could is that is that also a healthy home concept that you're developing?
Pablo Munoz 29:45
Yes, yes. What you said about the parents being LEED and Well, all those standards in fact, what we've seen over the last few years is that codes created by the administration are little by little catching up and getting closer to our standards. And the main purpose, in my opinion, the main value of those standards, is to set a very high standard for those codes to catch up to, and so this is very, very interesting to me. And those standards are not a goal in itself, they are a tool to take buildings to the next level. And so that's the way we like to work, we don't make projects just to reach those standards, we make projects to reach certain levels of excellence. Right?
Unknown Speaker 31:00
So what about the modular homes project?
Pablo Munoz 31:15
Yes, this is a new project we're working on at the moment, we're working with a partner that create modular homes made out of silver concrete, which is a very, very interesting product, because it has really high benefits, it is a high performance material, because it can be used as a structural material, but same time, it has very high insulation benefits, both on the acoustic side and also on the thermal side. And it allows us to work in a modular way. So this is sort of like a research project we have started recently, but it is one of the new things that we have started to work on and together with this company that usually builds concrete homes, we are integrating all those health and wellness and sustainability measures. We are very excited to see that come to light.
Matt Morley 32:48
It feels like there's just so many different small niche corners of the real estate market that have yet to be touched by this kind of sustainable and healthy building approach. Right? There's just still so much to do. It sounds like you guys are really innovating and pushing the boundaries and hustling hard, which is great to see. If you were to look a year down the line into the future, what do you see as being the key trends?
Pablo Munoz 33:36
Well, I think one of the main trends is that wellness in general is going to be much more integrated in projects all over the world. It happened with sustainability and green building. Actually we reached a point of greenwashing in which everyone and everything and every product was 'green'. And then that was when the standards took on greater importance. I think a similar thing is going to happen with wellness and we need to be careful not everything is going to be labelled 'healthy' in the future. Every product is not going to take care of your health, it's not going to kill Corona.
Matt Morley 34:27
Amazing. Well, best of luck with the next year and I'm sure you have a very bright future with the business! Where can people find you online?
Pablo Munoz 36:02
Well, they can find us in our website, which is Evalore.es and also on social media and on Twitter and LinkedIn. So thank you very much for the time Matt it's been a pleasure for me to be here with you.