PODCAST · business
Building Good
by Jen Hancock, Geoff Capelle
This is a show about building a better world. Literally. The construction industry might seem like a conservative place, but we’re changing it. Building Good is a platform for conversations around topics like indigenous architecture, hiring and retaining women in trades and building sustainable energy grids. We want to build a better world, and we think the way to do that starts with the construction industry… so come and help us build good.
Episodes
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Looking Back at Season Six
As Building Good wraps up its sixth season, we’re looking back at the big ideas shaping the future of construction. A few key themes kept emerging. First, sustainability still faces financial and regulatory roadblocks. Second, meaningful change needs community buy-in to succeed. Third, bold ideas...
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Why Mass Timber Feels Good - with Andre Lema
For thousands of years, humans have built with wood. Today, mass timber is changing the way we design, build, and experience our spaces. It’s strong, fire-resistant, and capable of storing carbon, offering a sustainable alternative to traditional building materials. And beyond its structural...
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The Future is Electric - with Mariko Michasiw
Canada’s path to net zero hinges on electrification. As the world’s fourth-largest producer of hydroelectricity, we’re primed to take a global leadership role. With the provinces and territories at different stages of grid decarbonization, electrification doesn’t have to be “all or nothing” —...
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Why Climate Action is Good Business - with Heather Taylor
Climate change is polarizing. Between inflation, investor pressures, competitiveness, high interest, and economic sluggishness, climate change can seem like a far-off problem — just another thing to worry about. Sustainability often takes a back seat, becoming a “nice to have” instead of a “need…
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Carbon Negative Construction with Engineered Bamboo - with Amir Mofidi
In Asia, bamboo has been used as a construction material for thousands of years. Prized for its availability, strength, and flexibility, it has over a thousand uses—including scaffolding during the construction of high rises in Hong Kong. So why has it been slow to be adopted by the global...
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Cities as Exercise Machines - with Avi Friedman and Alexandra Pollock
What if your city wasn’t just a place to live, but a tool to keep you healthy? Dr. Avi Friedman, Professor of Architecture at McGill University, and Alexandra Pollock, landscape designer and urban planner, discuss how our cities impact our health—and how they can be redesigned for a better…
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From Moods to Microbes: Designing Better Indoor Spaces - with Emily Anthes
New York Times science journalist Emily Anthes, author of The Great Indoors, has spent a lot of time thinking about how buildings shape our lives, from mood to mortality. From designing hospitals that speed up recovery, to developing autism-friendly apartments, to rejigging offices to boost...
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Overcoming Capital Barriers for Indigenous Communities - with Mark Podlasly
Because of the Indian Act, Indigenous communities have been blocked from accessing capital markets, which means they haven’t been able to invest in critical infrastructure projects happening in their territories. For the past ten years, First Nations Major Projects Coalition has been working to...
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Changing Public Outcry into Community Buy-In - with Farhaan Ladhani
NIMBY. It’s a cursed acronym that can send chills down an urban planner's spine and jettison approved building permits into liminal space. It stands for “not in my backyard,” and it can stop even the mightiest projects in their tracks. Blamed for gentrification, urban sprawl, and a myriad of…
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From Mushroom Spores to Modern Structures - with Dr. Mercedes Garcia Holguera
Mushroom bricks sound like something straight out of science fiction or an 80’s arcade game featuring an intrepid pair of plumbing brothers. But mushroom bricks are more than just fantasy—they’re a biomimetic masterpiece. Biodegradable, eco-friendly, non-toxic, waterproof, fire-resistant, and…
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Bioplanning A Greener Future - with Dror Benshetrit
Urban planning is a constant negotiation between the bold dreams of the built environment and the delicate balance of the natural one. After all, we have a limited amount of space to terraform, and plants got here first. Urban growth is exploding: by 2060, the global building footprint is…
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Old Wood, New Tricks? With Eric Law
Wood isn’t what it used to be. Virgin lumber is generally less dense and grown faster than wood that was harvested from natural old growth forests. But logging what’s left of those old growth forests isn’t a sustainable option, so why not reclaim old lumber when buildings are torn down? Until now...
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Architecture is about stories - with Chris Cornelius
Buildings from around the world represent the culture they were built in. From gothic cathedrals in Europe to glittering glassy office towers. So why don’t we always think about local culture when we start designing? Why don’t we talk to the community and ask for the stories they grew up with, so...
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Rethinking road space - with Dana O’Born
If you head downtown in any major Canadian city you will see a lot of construction, and it is mostly large residential towers that are going up. That means more people living there, but the roads stay the same size. More residents, more cars, more traffic. So we have to rethink how we use those...
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The future is coming, ready or not - with Molly Connor and Markku Allison
Human nature makes the future a scary place. Scientists had predicted pandemics for decades, but the Covid-19 pandemic still felt like it came out of nowhere. Our tendency is to react to events, rather than get ourselves ready for likely eventualities. Markku Allison and Molly Connor have…
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Construction work is social work - with Nora Spencer
If job sites can be hostile environments for women and nonbinary people, how do we get them into construction in the first place, so they can change those workplaces? Nora Spencer founded Hope Renovations. They run a programme to bring women and nonbinary folks in the trades, which includes...
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Keeping people in their “dream” jobs - with Jamie McMillan
When we’re starting a new, dream job, we can overlook some annoyances, thinking they might get better. As we get older, more experienced though, we might realise that annoyance was a red flag. That coworker’s “jokes” were actually a sign of an intolerant attitude, and that promotion you wanted is...
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Profit and purpose aren’t mutually exclusive - with Afdhel Aziz
Afdhel Aziz is a “recovering marketer”. His purpose used to be helping some of the biggest brands on the planet sell their products, and he did that by connecting them with “cool”. Now, he thinks that “cool” has been replaced with “good”. He’s even written a book about it: Good is the New Cool.…
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More condos, but for who? - with Cheryll Case
Heading into downtown Toronto you see a forest of cranes and partly built condo towers. These buildings are providing new, much-needed housing… for a certain type of resident. They’re mostly small, with good amenities and high fees. So where will all the families live? Where do our low and fixed...
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When is a “smart city” too smart? - with John Lorinc
Cities are phenomenally complex, living spaces that can generate an overwhelming amount of data, so collecting, managing and using that data is also phenomenally complex. There are huge pitfalls to avoid, privacy being the obvious one, and misuse by private entities another. Data is an incredibly...
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Good Guys - with The Workplace Allies
What’s so scary about being the man who speaks up for women at work, especially when courage and accountability are traits that so many of us feel “make a man” in the first place? David G. Smith, PhD and W. Brad Johnson, PhD are “The Workplace Allies”, and they’ve drawn on their military and...
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Synthetic cities - with Myrna Bittner
Planning cities requires a lot of data. That data can be difficult to penetrate, and that’s where synthetic cities come in. Myrna Bittner and RWI Synthetics create complex visual models of cities that are used to experiment and model what might happen with new projects like transit, housing or…
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Biomimicry: nature is the best engineer - with Jamie Miller
Nature has been engineering for billions of years, so why do we think we can do better than her? Biomimicry is taking that ancient evolutionary design process and using it to build buildings and design systems. Jamie Miller is Director of Biomimicry at B&H Architects and he joins Jen to talk us...
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Building Good is about making the built world better.
Building Good is about making the built environment better. We’re a place for the conscientious construction worker, the innovative engineer and the environmentally conscious architect. We’re relaunching with a bigger and better show, and in this new season we’re looking at what buildings can…
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Immigration needs work, we need workers - with Bill Ferreira
With a labour shortage that isn’t being solved with only Canadian workers the solution should be obvious: immigration. Canada’s immigration system has values built into it which make it hard to recruit tradespeople though, and when workers do make it to Canada their qualifications are often not...
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Communities are the best builders - with Jodee Dick
Our host Tim Coldwell is not OK with the industry standard. There aren’t enough Indigenous partnerships and communities often aren’t involved in decisions around projects that affect them. That’s not just morally wrong, it’s a missed opportunity. Our guest Jodee Dick is CEO at Khowutzun…
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Diverse suppliers work for all - with Darrell Schuurman
Why does it matter if a construction project buys from diverse suppliers? If I’m a gay electrician, why should I be open about that? If an architect or carpenter is hiding their sexual orientation or gender identity, how will that affect the project? Geoff Capelle is our guest host and he’s...
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Is 30% women really so hard? - with Jeanette Southwood
Only 17% of construction jobs are going to women, and even those are mostly in off-site roles. Jeanette Southwood wants that to be at least 30%. She’s vice president of corporate affairs and strategic partnership at Engineers Canada, but right from the start of her career as an engineer she…
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Accessible design is future proof - with Sean Crump
Did you know a water fountain is a form of accessible design? It’s not just ramps, automatic doors, and escalators. Thinking about accessibility from the ground up makes the spaces we create easier and more beautiful for everyone who uses them. Sean Crump, CEO of Universal Access, spends his time...
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“Industry For All” is our new season
“Diversity” is not a buzzword. It’s not just the right thing to do. Diversity is the solution to a labour shortage, it’s the key to new insights and perspectives, and it’s a way to make our spaces easier and more welcoming to everyone. In the new season of Building Good we’re exploring how the...
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Carbon offsets: do they work? - with David Oliver
Buying carbon offsets when you take a flight or build a building can sound a little bit like cheating. Should it really be as simple as paying your way to net-zero? Do these offsets actually do anything, or are they more like sustainability cryptocurrency… just tokens that only have value because...
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Built today, emissions tomorrow - with Matt Grace
If you want to build a net zero project you need to predict its energy use. That’s where Matt Grace comes in. He’s an expert in creating virtual models of houses, extensions, or even entire communities to model the ways energy is used. This isn’t just a static input/output model. It changes with...
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A concrete solution - with Rob Cumming
If it were a country, cement would be responsible for more carbon emissions than the entire European Union. More than four times as much as Canada. Reducing the amount of carbon that concrete production creates has to be part of achieving a net zero future, so we’ve brought in Rob Cumming from...
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Understanding embodied carbon - with Luka Matutinovic
A huge chunk of a building’s emissions are baked into the fabric of the building itself. Even if its operations are net zero, the building itself might not be. This is called embodied carbon, and to truly get to net zero the industry needs to address this blind spot. That’s one of the things Luka...
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The future is retro - with Chris Benedetti
Achieving net zero by 2050 requires us to build differently, but what about the buildings that are already up? We can’t just knock them all down, even if they are inefficient carbon factories. We retrofit them. This can be expensive and difficult though, but it's possible. Chris Benedetti knows…
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“Zero by Fifty” is our next series
Canada has set an ambitious environmental goal: to have net-zero emissions as a country by 2050. One of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses are our buildings, so how does the architecture and construction industry help achieve that goal? In this series Building Good speaks to industry…
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Build smarter, not harder - with Jaimie Johnston
When car companies build a new car they don’t reinvent the wheel, and they don’t have engineers assembling each car individually. Pretty much everything in our lives is built out of other smaller components that are prefabricated with some degree of automation. Except for buildings. Jaimie…
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Caution: Men at work - with Natasha Fritz
Construction is rife with sexism. It’s not just catcalls on building sites, it’s tradeswomen being passed over for contracts. It’s being told you’ll never be as good as a man. It’s bad jokes… and sometimes it’s abuse. This isn’t just a question of crass language and a tough atmosphere, it’s...
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Indigenous Architecture - with Brian Porter
Construction often rubs communities up the wrong way. Architects roll in with a construction firm and big money decides what’s getting built and where. It’s no fun for the people who live there… but this isn’t how indigenous architects work. Brian Porter runs Two Row Architect, and he tells us…
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The future is battery powered - with Annette Verschuren
A lot of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, depend on the weather, making their power output fluctuate. We need to store energy at times of high output. That’s where Annette Verschuren’s company NRStore comes in. They’re providing energy storage solutions (aka batteries) across...
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The polymath’s view of architecture - with Anthony Fieldman
Architecture is an intersection of art and science, but the art isn’t just in a beautiful facade. The real artwork in architecture is in the space between. It’s the experience, the livability and now, importantly, the sustainability of a space. Thinking in this way requires a creative mind, and…
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Empowering Indigenous clean energy - with Jordyn Burnouf
The climate crisis is no longer a future problem. As forests burn across North America we turn up the AC, which increases the fossil fuels we burn, which makes climate change happen faster. We need clean energy solutions, and we need people who know how to use them. Jordyn Burnouf is a member of...
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A woman's work - with Carol Moen
The construction industry is overwhelmingly male, and notorious for sexist attitudes towards women. There’s also a huge labour shortage, and plenty of women out of work. So how do we get women into those rewarding and lucrative trade careers? Carol Moen is the CEO of Women Building Futures and...
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How to clean up your supply chain - with Martin Kotula
To build good you need to use materials that have been built good. But how do we know that the materials we’re sourcing have been produced ethically, with sustainably sourced materials in an ethical work environment? The global economy is full of people looking to make a quick buck by producing...
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100 million people, 100 million reasons for change - with Senator Ratna Omidvar
Immigration is key to building Canada’s future, but we haven’t been hitting the nail on the head so far... so how do we do it right? And how do we make sure that it works for everyone in Canada? Senator Ratna Omidvar is part of The Century Initiative, which means she wants to see 100 million...
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Mental health supports are load-bearing - with Dr David Goldbloom
Looking after our minds is not something that’s just nice to have, it’s a crucial part of our occupational health. People work better when they have that support. So where do we start? Psychiatrist Dr David Goldbloom walks us through how we build good environments and good jobs that look after...
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Building Good is Back!
How do we build better systems, better lives and a better place to live? How do we build… good? Tim Coldwell and Jen Hancock are back to ask those big questions. We’re aiming to make the construction industry (and the world) a better place to live and work. Back with weekly episodes starting July...
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Building A Carbon Capture Enterprise with Derrick and Stephen Emsley
With a vision to plant over 1 billion trees by 2030, the co-founders (and cousins) of tentree, Derrick Emsley and Stephen Emsley, believe that big change starts small. They join host Jen Hancock to discuss the unique business they've built around sustainable fashion with one goal in mind—plant…
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Where's The Human In Infrastructure? with Marianne Lefever
How we design our cities has a huge impact on the health and wellness of people. In a recent series of articles, A healthy city, beyond cycling, Marianne Lefever and her co-author explore the complex interconnections of health and infrastructure. For example, cycling is a great way to create...
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Partnerships For The Future with Pat Boucher
We're better together, right? There’s no “I” in team. There are dozens of ways to say it, but no matter which we choose, working together is sometimes easier said than done. Today, Tim Coldwell is joined by Pat Boucher, the Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer for the Canada Border...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
This is a show about building a better world. Literally. The construction industry might seem like a conservative place, but we’re changing it. Building Good is a platform for conversations around topics like indigenous architecture, hiring and retaining women in trades and building sustainable energy grids. We want to build a better world, and we think the way to do that starts with the construction industry… so come and help us build good.
HOSTED BY
Jen Hancock, Geoff Capelle
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Building Good have?
Building Good currently has 59 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Building Good about?
This is a show about building a better world. Literally. The construction industry might seem like a conservative place, but we’re changing it. Building Good is a platform for conversations around topics like indigenous architecture, hiring and retaining women in trades and building sustainable...
How often does Building Good release new episodes?
Building Good has 59 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Building Good?
You can listen to Building Good on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Building Good?
Building Good is created and hosted by Jen Hancock, Geoff Capelle.
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