Episode #75: One Number – Jonathon

Welcome to Glass Talk, Canada's podcast for.
The architectural glass industry.
Now, here's your host, Patrick Flanery.
Hi everyone, it's Pat Flannery here.
I just wanted to give a short introduction to this longer conversation that I had with Jonathan Jomo Layton at Layton Consulting.
I wanted you to have an understanding of what we're talking about in this podcast.
You'll notice the discussion took place in two parts.
First of all, the first was a rather noisy room at the Fenestration Canada Spring Conference in Halifax, and then we finished it up the last half on a much quieter zoom call.
What Jomo and I are talking about here is the idea of moving our regulation approach away from our present patchwork of sustainable building rules and instead moving to what I call the one number approach.
This would be a framework where each building project has to hit one number, the total carbon dioxide emitted as a result of the building's manufacture, manufacture, construction, use and demolition.
So all of those things rolled together, the number would be prorated over the expected life of the building and expressed as an allowable amount of carbon emitted per square foot per year.
It would also consider the operational carbon emitted by generating energy for the building, and also the carbon emitted in the making, transporting and disposal of the building materials.
So embodied carbon and operational carbon altogether in one number.
Because the building's lifespan would be included in the calculations, the building's resiliency and longevity would also contribute to the 1 number.
So really, we're looking for a total picture of the carbon that gets released into the world because that building existed.
What Jomo and I are exploring here is how this concept would be different than how we do it now, which is to closely control individual aspects of the envelope with sort of arbitrary pass fail compliance paths.
We talk about how it would affect the various stakeholders in the construction process and whether this would be good or bad at each level.
It's still very early days for this idea.
It's something I'm just sort of kicking around.
The idea has been tried in other jurisdictions around the world.
We talk a little bit about Denmark.
My objective here is to initiate a discussion that will hopefully inform or give some ideas to our regulatory bodies going forward and hopefully lead to a system that is less complex and will allow for more innovation and growth in our industry, even as we meet our controlling climate change demands.
I want to give huge thanks to Jomo for this great conversation.
We had a lot of fun and hopefully we're going to get lots of feedback and argument from all of you on this idea.
Whether you think it's something that, that could work for our sustainable construction regulations going forward.
So please enjoy my conversation with Jonathan Jomo Layton from Layton Consulting.
Jonathan Layton, gonna ask you a bunch of questions.
I want them answered immediately.
As Arnold Schwarzenegger would say, the firing round.
Yeah, yeah.
Denmark says on a building project can emit 12 kg of carbon dioxide per meter squared per year, period.
That is the energy standard.
That is the energy embodied carbon everything standard that you have to meet when you make a building project in Denmark.
And they don't give a shit how you accomplish that.
They don't care what product you use, they don't care about materials you use.
They don't care what your new values are.
They don't care what your solar heat gain is.
They don't care what your, whether you could be burning coal.
If you can do your trade off.
Question to you is we're candidate to have a system like that.
How would that change your life as a consultant?
Oh wowing engineer.
I told you I was going to kill you.
Yeah, no, that's a great, that's a great question.
I think, I think the, the primary, whether you want to say the primary challenge or the primary change or whatever it is is that we, we would be involved way earlier in the design of a project as it currently stands in construction.
You know, a rendering gets put together by the architect, the architect reviews the building standards, you know, kind of has that preliminary, I would say fence of feasibility and safety and whatnot and then goes to, goes to market and tenders and bids and undercuts and all the things that come with that.
So, so many decisions are made before technical requirements are agreed upon.
You know and, and actually I can prove that.
I recently saw a scope that had written all these different things and then at the very bottom it said fenestration products to meet design or to meet building code specifications.
Right.
So it was a catch all statement.
Right?
Like I don't really, it has to be code.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's like I don't care who's giving me the window.
Just you know, you guys go figure that out.
Whereas I think the model in, in Europe that they're, that they are accustomed to, you know, you're not shifting a mindset is hey, we need to look at this as a whole before we even put a shovel on the ground, before money shifts to, to the, to, to actually I should reform.
Money goes from the end users buying, you know, we don't even build a condo until 75% of units are Sold.
Right, right, right, right.
How do you think it would change what manufacturers have to do?
It definitely would increase or cause people to have an increase in their performance, like an understanding of their performance of their products.
Right.
And also it would, it would.
There's a muddiness in the water in the manufacturers where we have specifications for, I would say, like threshold metrics.
Right.
You know, U value, solar heat gain based and like your nav performance.
Those are all based on specific size or orientations or, you know, configurations.
And I think that's really good.
I think that's a great place to start because we want to make sure that we're, you know, providing a.
A.
Product that, you know, meets threshold models but also is minimally viable for what the, that the customer is receiving.
Right.
But that understanding of what those metrics mean, how they're tied to each other, how everything performs as a whole unit gets lost when it gets on a building.
Yes.
Because it's outside of what that actual test was.
Right.
Yes, yes.
And that, and that's what, that's what we see.
Right.
Is manufacturers designing product to those thresholds.
Right.
Yeah.
Then the frustration becomes the threshold moves.
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's part of it.
The, the, the, the threshold moves or it becomes.
I'm knocking myself out.
I'm, I'm adding coatings.
I'm, I'm adding triple, triple glazing.
I'm, I'm, I'm doing this, I'm doing that to get this point 2% of a, of a U value out of the thing that is going to have no conceivable impact.
Yeah.
On the warming of the earth.
Yeah.
And, and you're adding cost and you're adding all this, all this, all this difficulty to get to that.
And that could be dispensed with if you didn't have these thresholds to design product to instead try this idea out on you.
We talked about it yesterday.
The, the manufacturer could have, I mean, outside of obviously, a custom build where you're engineering it from the start, you could have basically a bad, better best options on your, on your standardized glazing units, whatever they are, and, and, and, and kind of go from there and let the architects sort of.
Yeah, it is, it is odd that there is a.
I feel like the system's kind of backwards here where architects essentially are deciding based on price whether they're going to accept bad, better best.
Right.
And, but then they offload, you know, and I wouldn't say necessarily wrongly because they're not experts of the product.
But they offload the expectation that will you give me the precision.
You give me the.
The numbers that are.
That are accurate.
Problem is if you're sitting in threshold or what's the other term for it?
I know you mean like Gateway.
Gateway, yeah.
If you're designing to that.
But then you want precision at the same time.
Yeah.
There now becomes this mess of like, well, how accurate is gateway?
And you know, that's a whole.
We could have a whole conversation on that.
And the architect is specked on a prescriptive model.
And no.
And how often it comes to the point of well, this happened in the project.
Please change your curtain wall now because this happened over here.
And so having that.
I guess my point is having the precision of meeting the codes and the standards and hitting the thresholds gateways.
Leaving that to the manufacturer is like carving out a little chunk of the project and handing it over here with no relation to everything else that's going on.
How much waste.
We just had a session on lean manufacturing.
How much waste is introduced into the entire process by having these silos?
Yeah.
100% just.
I would say the silos is a huge challenge because it makes.
It gives the perception that every siloed expertise has equal weight.
And, and I don't mean that that like, okay, hey, you, you know, get out of here.
We don't care about this one thing, you know, on the lower thing.
But there's no.
Whether it's in the code or whether it's per the architect or even building inspector can vary.
There is no clear designation of priority, of expectation of.
Right.
So human safety, I think we can all agree is going to be one.
Right.
But then acoustics, bird glass, thermal, you know, air, water infiltration, extra station.
Like it's structural and like, well, I need to get this span.
Okay.
Well, you're put.
You got to reinforce it.
I can't do that.
I need to get my thermal.
It's like great point.
Yeah.
Who.
Who is going to win?
And meanwhile, aesthetics is probably trumping.
Yeah.
All of that.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And it's.
It's funny how many times I'm involved in a conversation where they want a certain performance of a product.
And I.
And the.
The reality is the way in which you've designed this building is.
Is prohibitive of being able to do that.
Your window to wall ratio is way out of whack.
Right.
You've robbed like I love windows.
Honest.
I want my manufacturer sells many windows as I can.
But a window cannot perform currently on a commercial scale.
The same as what a wall can.
Oh, I gotta get Art Hewitt and Vig, the vig guys on here after you.
But if you're gonna spend on that.
If you're pay for that 45 wood in a wall ratio because you want to overlook the water, and then you're complaining that you can't get, you know, your, your window to perform to a certain, you know, energy advisor wants a crazy high solar heat gain to make up for it.
I'm like, you're looking at this wrong.
You're trying to force something that is not going to do what you think it is.
And it's robbing the wall of performing the way that it's designed to.
But that's, it's not a, it's not an inherent problem of the window.
It's an inherent problem of understanding what, what needs to like the, the sequence or the trump of what needs to happen to get to your designs.
And that does not exist.
I mean, or, or even another example is, you know, they want to have a certain sight line and so they, they specify all this really thin line of fixed units above your doors and all these things.
And I'm like, that window choice is ruining your performance as a whole.
So yeah, there's all these all sorts of stuff and even just selection of the right product.
I had a university that called because they had a pool where they had put in curtain wall and it kept having condensation.
And the guy said, really?
Around a pool?
Exactly.
Amazing.
You know, this is ridiculous.
And we were guaranteed.
And this is their CI models and all this stuff.
And I said it's an indoor pool.
I don't know if this is the window problem.
Have you ever seen an indoor pool facility that hadn't rotted out from the inside from moisture?
It just happens.
Yeah.
No.
And you know, all of, and all of which, all of which goes to the, you know, goes to the point of.
Well, well, two things.
One number system is going to add to your flexibility, your, your design flexibility.
And all, all of these areas you're talking about where you're not, you're not pigeonholed into, into hitting this thresh.
And then, and then the other, and then the other is this should rest at the architect level.
This, this, this, these are the questions that should rest at the overarching design level.
And you, and you shouldn't be again, as a manufacturer trying to wrestle with things that are completely outside of your control and not even really properly, properly inside making product.
Next one.
Yeah, what.
How do you think this would Change the life of contractors.
Of the, of the, of the actual installers.
Oh, man.
Guys would start drinking less.
Oh man.
I, you know, I think of all the frustration that the manufacturer has to deal with.
If, if, if you've got the manufacturer and, and installer contractor together in one, I think they can appreciate this.
But when the contractors disconnected the, the, the lack of information with the weight of responsibility, that's shift.
That they don't necessarily even understand.
Right, right.
Is crushing.
Yeah.
And, and I will be involved in some projects where they've said, you know, you've heard the old adage, anyone who's worked in any kind of construction.
Well, we've done this for 20 years.
Yeah.
And, and there's situations where I said I am worried not because I think you've done anything wrong in the sense that you've been, you know, trying to skate the system.
It's not intentional.
You're not a bad apple.
Yeah.
But if you've been doing this for 20 years, 10 of those years you.
Have not been code compliant.
Right.
And if someone finds out about this building and there's a problem, even though nine times out of ten there's not going to be a problem.
But is there a problem?
There is potential that we could open up the next 10 years and you could have a big headache.
So I think there's that.
I also think that it would tie a better.
If you, if you, if you, if you lay the, and if you actually prepare the information in, in a way that's easily digestible for the architect to make good decisions.
You can actually tie a better communication from the architect to the actual product being installed on.
Right.
Right.
Rather than what I think sort of happens, especially on the, on the west coast, where the manufacturer ends up being the communication lead and then the architect just tells them like, okay, well, I need your engineers stamp drawings and I need your completion sign off by the, by the installers.
Like there's really so no common.
Isn't it?
And it comes back to the earlier point about somehow the manufacturer becoming the, the, the expertise.
Yeah.
On the project.
Like, it's like, it's like somehow this person has become the one that knows everything about, about how it was made, what, what it, what it conforms to, what it's got to hit.
And, and yeah.
The installer is getting all their information from them.
The architect is getting all their information from them and they've somehow become the project lead, at least for that area that they're, that, that they're doing.
And it, and it Again, I, I, I feel like it's skewed.
Yeah.
And they'll, they'll fit and that with the thing I feel on the manufacturer side on that and the, and the contractors.
So they'll, they'll finish, they'll supply the information, whatever it is, to the different party.
And then all of a sudden a new, a new consultant comes in and says, what are you doing?
Why are you doing?
How on earth would you do it that way?
And like, yeah, you know, I, yeah, it is a challenge.
I, I am have been amazed as time has passed on of how much longer as a consulting engineering firm were involved in a project.
Right, right.
Simply because there's this, I would say there's so much, there's so much and there's, there's.
What I think some people don't understand about information is when you deem someone responsible for it, they have now control for it.
And if the parties involved are not focused as a whole of like, hey, we are, we're all in this together, we're completing this together, we want to deliver a good thing, then information can slow down real fast.
Because as soon as they give something, it's like, well, I'm going to find the way to get you wrong.
Like you've, you've been involved in talking with people where it's like, did they just put red marks on this to justify their existence?
Yep, exactly.
Yeah, like, yeah, like we, if you give someone a chance to look at your work, they're going to find something wrong.
They'll work at it till they find something wrong with it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I've restamped projects or my team has re stamped projects simply because someone else put a reviewed stamp on it and then wanted to clean set.
I was like, why?
So anyway.
Exactly.
I think what we're talking about here, at least what I'm talking about here is, is a burden shift to architects though, isn't.
How do you think, how do you think their lives would change on a situation where they had just had to hit a carbon budget for their, for their project?
They would have to do a lot of work.
Yeah.
If we were just to shift the information requirement, I think you'd see an uprising.
Yeah, you'd see an uprising or you'd see it like you could pound sand kind of attitude.
You know, I'm not taking responsibility for that.
I think ownership looks, maybe not ownership's the wrong term, but delegation.
Well, my next, I was going to go to owners next, sure, yeah.
But delegation, responsibility looks like time and money Right.
Present it in.
Like, you're responsible now.
Right.
Like, I'll bring another thing.
Right.
You know, and I think that's where manufacturers have gotten so frustrated recently is all this stuff in the code and the architect and the building inspector has become delegation responsibility, but they're not allowed to charge anymore for all that.
That stuff.
So I think the real goal or entity of aspiration, I put it, that is getting the manufacturers to prepare the information in a way that's saying, here, I have done the burden of making, as you put.
Yeah, the one.
The operational testing.
I've done all of that.
Yeah, I've done all that.
Here it is.
Here's the three products that I have.
Right.
Or the four or whatever.
Here's my price point.
Here's how it's going to be in your building.
And I know that my standard is comparable to any of my competitors.
We're all presenting these three options or whatever it is.
Right, right.
You pick from that.
Yeah.
Yep.
So then the responsibility is still for the architect to decide how this is going to integrate in my building.
But not.
I need a 1.
22 and you got a 1.
23.
And, like.
Yeah.
And I want to work with you.
So can you do something with this?
And.
And do you have epd?
Because they.
They have epd.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is it this EPD of the product they're selling you?
No, but they've got epd, so it's like.
Yeah, there's a lot of.
Yeah, that I think so.
There is a.
There's a.
There is a burden shift.
But.
There's a.
But presenting it to the architect in a way that they're like, yeah, I totally get it.
I want to do that.
That's an industry decision that I think needs to happen.
Awesome.
All right, Jomo, how do you think the one number concept would affect how owners have to do things?
I think.
I think that it could make it a lot simpler for owners to know kind of what they're going into and what their expectation is.
Do you know what I mean?
When you set.
When you set parameters based around performance can be really difficult for someone to recognize why they would upgrade or downgrade a certain system, because they're like, well, at the end of the day, it all pencils out.
That's a really hard thing to ask an owner to be on top of.
And it kind of gets down into that, I think, in that muddy waters of, well, just trust me, I'm the expert.
And as you know, being as we are in this industry, consultants When I have to deal with other professionals, it gets frustrating when it's just like, well, I know what I'm doing and I'm like, man, I sort of know.
So we can have a conversation about it, you know, if there's an obstacle with what they want and what we can provide or what the window and door manufacturer could provide.
So imagine being an owner who doesn't know anything and are just told, yeah, this is what you're getting.
Just be happy with it and it's going to be great.
Like there's no, there's no real ability to feel confident in what you're, what you've got.
So I think having a simplified, you know, one number or you know, design an ability that someone can digest, it would go a long way and give a lot more comfortability to people being like, yeah, I know what I got.
I know it's not an area that I need to be concerned with.
And then when inevitably problems do come up quickly, you can decide, okay, that's not an issue.
I mean, we know lots of people and been involved in shotgun lawsuits.
Just sue everybody.
Because we don't know who's wrong, but somebody is.
So we're just gonna sue everybody.
Right, right, right.
Let God sort them out.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
I wonder if maybe a, maybe a potential downside.
Do you think the temptation on the value engineering side would.
Well, actually, I guess if anything, I mean if, if it leads to more flexibility where you've got a broader range of trade offs to consider and you can still hit the energy mark in basically in infinite different ways.
Yeah, the, there is an opportunity there for owners to save cost on the most expensive parts of it.
Right.
Which is probably mechanical.
I don't know.
I guess that would be.
Well, yeah, and I think it sounds good.
It's good.
Politics, marketing, or maybe one, maybe those are the same to say save costs.
What I think it actually would be is you are, you are knowledgeable of the costs that you're, you're taking.
Like you are going in knowing why I'm spending the money I'm spending rather.
Because you're going to spend a lot no matter what.
Right.
I mean, I got a friend who wanted to replace a couple of windows in house and when I told him with a quote, he's like, holy cow, I can't believe that so much windows cost.
And I'm like, okay, there's some variation of product, we can look at some stuff, but at the end of the day you're going to spend money like it's going to happen.
So I think rather than going in saying, hey, here's a, here's a switch that's going to give you the saves cost.
It's like, hey, here's a methodology of you recognizing why, if you're making this choice here and why you're spending those dollars and how that's relating to the other components that are overall related to your overall energy, including all the carbon that goes in and savings and everything.
Because I think at the end of the day, if we always focus on the politics of saving money, you almost can simplify it too much.
Where now the parameters aren't properly set out.
Like I, for instance, as an example, you have projects where people have decided, okay, I want to have, we're selling the best, most energy efficient building and we're putting in this type of heating and this type of windows and all these things and then we have an overheating problem.
You sold it because you decided, okay, we're wanting this end result, but some parameter wasn't thought about.
And so there's a problem.
And I think that's kind of, it's not so much like we're going to save you money.
It's more like let's define the parameters that are important, let you choose and you know what you're taking on.
Like you're picking up both ends of the stick, essentially is what the old saying would be, right?
Exactly.
It's back to the point you made close to the start, which is the entire design, like the design.
All the designers are getting in on this way earlier.
Right?
You guys are in earlier, everyone's in on this earlier.
Having to make more of a plan before you go forward and like you say, pick up both ends of the stick, look at the, look at the whole thing and, and, and, and, and go from there.
And it's got to, at the end of the day, it might end up giving the owner some more certainty.
Yeah, you know, maybe.
Anyways, it's, they probably don't care too much as long as that the architect and the consultants are doing all the work on that.
That's, that, that, that'll be the important part.
And as long as the costs don't balloon, get out of control.
But, but this whole, this whole concept is, is regulation force.
Like there's going to be, as you said, there's going to be cost.
Like there's, you know, building stuff that lasts longer, is low embodied carbon and is operationally good is going to be more expensive than building some leaky thing that's you know, that isn't insulating.
That's, you know, it's usually pretty much that simple.
Okay, let's talk about government.
And I mean that's a big topic.
But what do you think in a one number scenario where absolute carbon emissions over the life of the project is the goal, what happens to the regulations, what happens to all these energy codes and laws and tiers and everything that we have out there?
What does that all start to look like?
And maybe how to, you know, what, what direction the governments need to go in order to, to encourage that.
Yeah, I think government's in an interesting position, especially now the appetite for pre approved designs, you know, kind of the old war home model, which I think we talked about earlier, does I think lead itself to a concept of whether it's one number or a tiered system defining like what are we trying to build?
And this is how we're going to approach it.
Like don't get me wrong, we built our company off doing engineering consulting, you know, but, but, but I don't, I think we can over consult, we can over engineer.
There's times when you know, the building that was built across the street and now we're treating it as if like it's the whole new product and everybody, or a whole new project and everybody is nefarious and you know, we gotta, we gotta hold back anyone from, from doing anything wrong.
I'm like, it's the same builder, it's the same material, it's essentially the same building.
It's just, we have to start all over again.
And so I think there is, there is a, an opportunity if the government really wants to focus on this.
We're basically defining like here's our comfortability with residential homes, here we are with Townhouse or you know, multi user, you know, you kind of chunk out these different, different building strategies, building designs and then you can bring in this one number concept to say okay, how are you going to address or what are we, what are we prepared to let happen?
Or this happens?
Wrong term.
But what are we prepared to face when it comes to the products that can be, that are available, that can be selected?
Whereas what I think happens now is a, a, you know, a computer program or algorithm spits a number out and says the only way to make this work for the X tiered or the, the performance that we're deciding that we want to perform is the windows have to do that.
So you're actually like telling the manufacturer hey, you got to hit these numbers.
I don't care, I don't care what you do.
I don't care if you're a better performing frame and you can lower your glass.
Whereas I like more the idea of like, hey, as manufacturers, as an industry, we come forward and say, you know, here's the products that we make readily available, here's our middle, our top, our bottom.
And yes, we can make small variations there, but this is what's available, this is what we can do.
And choose what you want for these specific types.
I think that would actually make a ton of sense from a government perspective because if they want to fund super energy efficient, they're not looking outreach to this like world market.
They don't have to go around the, they don't have to go around the block with the man.
Yeah.
To go 15 rounds with the manufacturers.
Yeah.
They don't have to go 15 rounds with the H Vac people.
They don't have to go 15 rounds with the insulation people.
100%. They, they, they.
You know, it's like, you guys, you guys sort it out.
And, and you know, I think the best, the other thing that comes out of that sort of government oversight and involvement in it is what Jeff Baker and I were talking about this and he, and he, and he said this, this interest in precision versus accuracy.
Exactly.
And you know, and it's like, it's like, well, I'm sorry, your, your window product is 0.
2 off.
It's.
I don't know, I want to tell you, it ain't compliant, you know, and like that could be dispensed with.
Yeah.
100%. 100%. It's funny you bring that up.
I have a client, a wood window manufacturer who has a promissory contract two years in the making here on a.
Funded some government fund.
I won't go deep into it, but it's a really unique project on the coast here and the amount of iterations, of little changes and like, well, what if we do that and what if we have to do that?
And I'm like, all these decisions are not, they're not, you're not shaking the earth.
Right.
Like pick the, pick the model, pick the design.
Give me your opening and I can do an energy model for you.
And I can tell you, you know, we can do it, an EPD kind of calculation essentially just of what your product is.
But oh, what we're going to use 3% more wood or we're going to make.
It's like we're so drowned out in this pursuit of perfection that I just, I don't get It, I just, I can't see the positive of it.
And this client who's wants to employ people and get them to make Windows and get paid, it's like, yeah, I'm sitting on this big project for two.
Years, you know, and well, and this is really where all of this came from was again, just me, like me being.
Well, it's funny in the job that I'm in, me being the non detail person who is like 100% of it, just freaking get it done, you know, just get, you know, I mean, if you get bogged down making magazines, you're never going to publish anything.
Yeah.
And you know, and just sitting there going, all of this misses that.
All of this misses the end goal.
It all just becomes a, it all just becomes a slog through numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers.
And you know, what are you getting out the real end?
How different is it really?
And you know, those incremental changes, I don't know how many sessions I've sat in where somebody, usually Baker is, is pointing out that, you know, this, this difference from, you know, say a 1.
2 U value down to a 0.
8 or whatever they wanted people to get to at one point is like you, you would have to, you would have to use a space laser to detect the difference in the, in the, in the operational, the actual operational outcome of the house.
But technologically, getting to that in your window is a big deal.
It's extremely difficult.
And so you're introducing all this cost and embodied carbon and everything else to try to get to this notionally best number, but you're really not accomplishing much of anything.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know what, I appreciate that the government are not experts and that could be taken way out of context, but illustrate.
Yeah, they, they do, they rely on manufacturers and, and consultants.
In fact, we, we had a conversation once, I can't remember who it was but.
And probably not even appropriate to share, but someone from, from natural resource.
And they, we asked them like, how do you decide where to drop down to the next U values or whatever?
And they said, oh, we just wait until about 60% of the manufacturers tell us that they can manufacture to something that low.
And I was like, well, so then should manufacturers shut their dang mouths and not tell you what they can build?
And it made me realize, like, when I was in business school, we talked a lot about bell curves, you know, and there's a bell curve of manufacturing as well, where companies can actually hurt themselves when they advertise a product that they aren't tooled to actually build.
And I see this all the time.
I can, I can give you a 0.
9 U value window, but I really am cranking out 1.
4 windows in my factory.
Like no one buys that window.
So in some ways we've, the manufacturers, they, I think they're like, their intent is good.
They, they recognize, okay, we play a role in how a building performs.
Like the, the, the, the tier system here in BC was designed I think to push that conversation as well.
But the disservice has been somewhat that they're just like, yep, we can deliver that.
Whatever you guys say, whatever you want.
But then if we push back, we're kind of told from a government perspective of a scene is like, well, we're not, we're not the police.
We want industry to take care of it.
But like there's a disconnect between like what the overall goal is.
So that's like my only other comment on government involvement is like, instead of picking up what, what manufacturers are doing, like then Canada has done an amazing job at this.
It's like coming to the table with the government saying like, hey, let's talk, let's talk about what your decisions, what the implication actually is that, so we don't have problems where someone's putting, you know, four layer glass in Victoria where the cost savings you're never ever going to see like you, there's no way that's going to have a payback.
I've been impressed, I've been impressed with Narcan.
They have, they have tried very, very hard to understand everything that's going on here.
They have, they have, I think they've held the meetings, I think they've had discussions, they've come out to the events.
They have, they have smart people from a science and engineering side of it on it.
Their knowledge tends to be general rather than specific.
Which I guess goes to my point, you know, that they shouldn't be dinking around with the specifics.
Right?
It should be, it should be, it should be.
Let that, let the manufacturer figure that out.
So, so that's, you know, but they've, you know, they're, they're trying to, but there's only so much you can do because, yeah, like when a manufacturer tells you, oh, I do a 0.
9, you know, how much knowledge of the industry do you have to have before you know how seriously to take that?
Some manufacturers might be doing 0.
9s all the time.
Guys that specialize in custom, high end, you know, this is what we do.
This is our niche, you know.
Yeah, but another guy could be saying it just because he wants it on his brochure.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, it's hard to parse out as a person in Ottawa.
Exactly, exactly what you're dealing with there.
Yeah, cool.
Okay.
Barriers.
Jomo.
What, what, what, what in your, to your mind, what would stand in the way of going with a, with a one number concept?
What are the big, what are the big hurdles?
Oh, man, there's probably a lot of, there's a lot of them and I'll try and break them up.
The bigger ones that I see, one big one is I think all windows and doors get lumped into the same grouping.
Like, like just looked as.
It's a window and door.
Like heck, I've had people before and an engineer is an engineer.
Windows and window.
A door's a door.
Like that attitude can be, can come across on anything.
And I think, you know, whatever you want.
Homes, a home, like even that, like, that's not necessarily true either.
So I think one of those challenges, I think there does need to be.
And why, why it's so complicated is because there are, there are differentiators between manufacturers or window types that do exist and there's not really, the code doesn't really have a metric to like outline that.
Like previously when the combustibility was a big issue that we had, it was just like, hey, well, we don't talk about PVC guys and we're only talking about aluminum guys.
That's changed.
So now more consultants are involved to say, okay, is this product approved and how we do that.
So there's, there are, I think some, the openness to the market is helpful, but it can also be hurtful because we're essentially pushing, I would say, very specific information for all window types that within the market that they're playing in actually isn't that big of a differentiator.
Differentiator meaning, like if I'm specifically a townhouse window supplier and single volume home supplier, is the same amount of scrutiny needed for me as someone who's doing, you know, industrial or towers or what, you know, schools and offices and all sorts of stuff.
Like the jump from different markets, which I don't think a government may understand, is actually very difficult for manufacturers.
In fact, some of the manufacturers that we work with who've just had to jump from single family to multifamily because the single family market has essentially collapsed in some areas, they, they have been caught off guard and they're just like, we just didn't know they weren't trying to do anything wrong.
It's like we just didn't know.
We didn't know what the requirements were.
So.
And there's no clarity in.
In a lot of that.
So I think that's one challenge is creating, I would say, X segmented segment expectations for the manufacturers.
Does that make sense?
But, but that would be the barrier now.
Now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
With the product specific and with what we're trying to do now.
Yeah.
What I'm saying is what's the barrier to get from here?
From that.
Yeah, the one to the one number.
What's.
What's.
Oh, yeah, okay.
Specific to the one number.
All right, so you can cut.
You can cut all that brief.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because that's that part.
I know.
I agree.
All of that is a barrier, and that's what we're trying to.
That's what we're trying to overcome.
Yeah.
To the 1 number.
I think one of the barriers is that you have manufacturers who have worked really hard to be on top of all their stuff, and you have others that, that haven't.
And so that there will be almost this attitude of.
What do you call.
When you're like, the first investors are like, oh, man, I did all the hard work.
Buyer's remorse.
I think maybe, maybe buyer's remorse, but also, I don't remember.
It is an investing.
But the guy.
The guys who prove the concept are like, I bore all the initial costs and now you guys just get a bounce, get off my hard work.
That's a barrier.
I think the second barrier is because you do have manufacturers who've spent a lot of time and effort and energy.
They.
Hold on.
I got a train passing.
Oh, I can't even hear it.
Oh.
The manufacturers have spent all the energy.
Probably the stuff that they've put in will be simplified in some way.
I know we talked earlier about just the embodied carbon calculations, and I've had struggles comparing the two because there's different methods, different standards that are involved.
It doesn't mean that their information is wrong.
It just means that because I can't unite it, we're going to have to come to some United version.
And it's like, I did all this investment.
I'm going to fight.
I'm naturally going to fight that.
Right.
Like, I don't want to have to adjust or there's going to be.
There's going to be a winner and a loser.
Yeah.
As far as what standard gets chosen.
Right.
Like, like, like in, in this model, the Government would have to say thou shalt do your EPDs this way.
Yeah.
Thou shalt use this labs method for testing.
Right.
Yeah.
To arrive, to arrive at your numbers there, there's going to have to be some.
Well not this lab but you know, this, this, this astm, this methodology, this.
Yeah.
This standard, this ISO, whatever it is.
They'Ll have some pronouncements on that.
Well and that's just it.
That was my second barrier is who's the law.
Like at the end of the day is a challenge even in I think all of construction, but especially in this industry who has the final say.
And it's, it's odd to be in situations where let's say a product's not performing but it's performing as it was sold to be like as consultants to come in and to assist I would say in like a second review kind of thing or, or you know there's a problem on site and say, you know, this is not, this is not a failed water test.
I'm going beyond this.
It's just like we, you know, we talk a lot about solar heat gain and that's obviously one of them but there's other things that go along with that too.
And to then say like nothing's actually wrong.
There's no one to sue here.
We just know that you're not getting what you kind of designed it as or you wanted it but you really wanted to hit this energy model or you wanted to hit this particular design or look or whatever it is.
I mean I think I talked to you the black painted curtain wall and it pings in the morning when it's heating up.
Like people were mad about that and I said I get that and I wish that a manufacturer who hadn't retained us earlier, I told you but you chose black painted curtain wall.
Yeah, like this is what's going to happen.
This is why it's generally commercial product because Nobody cares at 9 in the morning when their commercials creaking.
So are there products creaking so yeah, I think, I think that's a challenge is defining who, who the police are or who is the authority, the law saying this is what has to, this is the design metric that we're going to follow because I think that was kind of the hope with the Energy Advisor program.
And as, as I have potentially seen or as my, my kind of feel on didn't quite get to that.
So there's a lot of funding into that and it didn't, didn't get there that it actually.
Oh, go ahead that's, well, that's, that's, that's.
We're on.
Potentially the biggest barrier that's been in my mind since I started thinking about this was I don't see how enforcement works at the code level.
Yeah, we can't even get building inspectors to understand a window label.
Yeah.
I mean it has been a massive lift and it's only certain jurisdictions that are even willing to try to, to, to, to confirm whether a window is compliant or not, they say I want a sticker on there that says compliant, non compliant.
And short of that, don't give me a bunch of numbers because I don't know what they mean.
Yeah.
And, and, and so to enforce the one number, I see nothing short of a small army of energy advisors that literally have to go and confirm you built to model.
They have to go and confirm you built to the drawings or you built a model.
Maybe they don't have to confirm.
Like again, this is just on the energy side, not the structural side.
So maybe they don't have to confirm every single component and every, you know, like maybe it's like an audit or like we're just going to look at elements.
You don't know what we're going to look at.
You better do the whole thing right, because you don't know what we're going to look at.
But we're going to pick a few elements of the building and we're just going to confirm that those are built to spec and, and, and that's how the enforcement lands.
What do you think of that idea?
No, I totally agree because like the way in which I have seen how energy modeling advisors, whichever group you want to put has worked.
And then this is not a critique of this.
Actually the last barrier, we'll get to the critique part.
But, but the of that group is just that because the architects at the code level are essentially acting as the police.
Right, right.
It's there, it's their call.
At the end of the day, they're the rpr.
And if there's another group, I mean sometimes this building envelope.
But, but let's just talk specifically the architects.
It's not the owner.
It's on the money necessarily.
It's not, it's, it's the architects, but they have this mandated individual and they just kind of pass the like.
Well, I have to get that because that's what this energy advisor says.
Like it's still not connecting all the dots.
It's, and it's not a shift of responsibility, like somebody's wrong, but it Is it is.
There's no.
The clarity of the information doesn't happen.
And I.
I think that's a challenge when we recognize as a nation that we need to build efficiently and we need to find ways to control costs because of just cost of building.
And then we need building in our cities because people do want places to live.
When we're spending so much information, it's not passing the buck, but it's passing the information.
No one's doing it because they don't want to get caught.
They're doing it because there's not this.
This what I would say, pragmatic linear line.
It doesn't exist.
Well, was it.
I think you were.
I think you or someone else from your office was involved.
And now I can't remember if the session was Kelowna or Canon ask us, but there was a really interesting session on building and.
Well, actually, I was amazed to find out how different Alberta's setup is than Ontario's.
For instance, was that you guys that were part of that?
Yeah, it was my partner, Jonathan Adams.
Yeah.
He spoke on the.
The role and the relationship between the supporting professionals, supporting engineers and.
And consultants and the architect and the city.
And our biggest takeaway was you actually want us involved with your architect.
Like, some of the attitude is often like, I don't want to talk, you know, don't talk to the architect, or, you know, I don't want to rock the boat.
But the amount of actual relevant and beneficial things that come from being actively involved in that information transfer makes it go a lot faster.
And you know what?
Since that time, the clients that have adopted that the beneficial relationship and the quickness of information passing has been actually really like.
We've seen a lot of success with them and in just overcoming hurdles, because inevitably hurdles come up.
But then it's not like, what is going on?
This is ridiculous.
It's like a quick email and like, solve this.
Boom, we're done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See, we have an opportunity here for peace in our time, Jomo.
There can be peace in our time, right.
If everybody has to do the one number and has to get the designers and the consultants all talking and working together up front and, you know, and then the building authorities are ultimately a little more comfortable relying on, you know, what the designers have said for what they're going to do.
Wow.
Who knows?
Everyone could end up working together in a miraculous sort of way anyways.
That's crazy.
What other.
That's never going to happen.
Well, it's funny because you hit on my critique and this is a critique even, even internally.
Like the biggest obstacle is that people are currently making money with how things work today.
And I'm a total business guy at heart.
I pursue pragmatic solutions, but there's got to be a business case, you know, no matter what it is, right?
I think if you want, if you want to change the world, you got to make sure everybody makes some money along the way, right?
Maybe that's pessimistic, I don't know.
But I just see that's how the world works.
And so I think there's a real, one of the biggest obstacles is that people will not want to relent or they will find some code writer, code interpretation somewhere that says, well, we have to do it this way because that's how we do it and there's no alternative and we can have as many meetings on interpretation forever that nothing changes.
And I think it would take a concerted effort and approach to people to be comfortable enough to say, I'm willing to change how I run my business, I'm willing to adapt to something new because I believe it's going to make the whole process better rather than I want it to stay this way because I can just focus on my projections and I get that scariness.
I employ people, but it's something that I've actually put my money where my mouth is.
When we first concocted, and I'm sure we'll have another conversation on this, but the, the, the thermal modeling site specific tool that we've helped develop for FEN Canada and you know, all the time that we've put in with the task group in defining that and ensuring that it makes it into the city of Vancouver energy modeling guideline to solve a B.
C.
problem, we've decided to open it up to the nation.
And when we had a meeting internally, you know, my head of our thermal team said, why are we doing this?
We do all these site specific reports all the time, we've got all these people.
And I was like, because I don't want to do it that way anymore.
Yes, we're making money by doing it that way, but there's a better, more efficient, clearer way to do it.
So I want to pursue that way.
And it's on us to improve how we run our business and not us to hold industry hostage to what we do.
And so there really is, you know, it's a scary void.
Like I don't remember who the quote is, but it's like running businesses like, you know, staring to the abyss and eating glass like you still have to do that.
But guess what?
If you don't choose your challenges, the world will figure it out.
Covid, you know, recessions, they're going to happen inevitably.
So just choose your challenge.
Decide like I want to make this efficient so that when there are challenging times we can still be work moving forward.
We don't have to just up and down with whatever the world's doing.
Right.
Well and that's, and that's why, that's why this entire discussion exists.
Because we're up against a non market forced challenge.
Right.
I mean, I mean climate change, this is, this is what is, or at least yes, the policy response to climate change.
Yeah.
Is what we're talking about here.
So, so and that's why, and as I believe I said earlier in our discussion, the market forces failed to drive energy building, energy efficient building, sustainable building.
So the governments are stepping in with regulation and that's the thing that's being confronted and that's what everybody is going to have to deal with.
I see a business case on the one number.
I love that you brought that up because I actually hadn't thought about that too much.
But just sitting here thinking, I mean people certainly found ways to make money off operational carbon and off just general energy efficiency.
Right.
Companies positioned themselves, they did the work, they became known as having capability in this area and they made nice money sometimes building hospitals and government buildings and owner occupied stuff where they would, where they would splash out for the, for the energy efficiency side of it.
That is absolutely a niche that you can be in.
What I see with the one number thing is all the component management, it broadens out where you can exist in the market 100%. You can be making, you can be making cheap and dirty, right?
Yeah.
You can be making high end, super duper best in the world and then everything in between and you're no longer shut out of anything.
It's no longer impossible for you to sell something at either end.
Right.
Some builds are going to want your super duper high end, some builds are going to want your cheap and dirty and they'll do their trade offs to get it somewhere else.
Yeah.
And you know what I mean.
So in a way I like the business opportunity either for individual countries and for the industry.
Because what we've seen, Jomo, is I was reading some report here a while ago, you know, the Canadian facade manufacturing industry is actually underserved.
There's way too few manufacturers and curtain wall manufacturers and stuff like that for the amount of activity that there actually is.
And the amount of demand that there is in the guy.
And that's why you see people going to Sealy and you know, overseas.
Well, it's one of the reasons.
But there's a market for that regardless, the overseas import.
And I've serviced that industry too, like don't get me wrong.
But yeah, I.
So the business, hey, talk about business opportunities.
The software guys, I mean, part of this whole discussion, and I'm definitely going to get some software people on to talk about this.
I mean, part of the one number thing, and now I'm sticking my own barrier in here, but anyways, is it's going to have to be easier than it is now to generate carbon models for projects.
But I think that technology exists.
I think that the software guys can come up with stuff that will give you carbon models for your designs fast.
I don't think they have yet, but I think it's out there and.
Right.
So that's another way that people could make money.
Well, and that's what I think needs to shift.
I remember the word I was thinking was the early adopters.
The early adopters sometimes feel penalized because they're like, I did the work.
What I think that could happen is we could universally come to some agreement that we're going to accept carbon models.
Put it to that energy models that we know are imperfect.
We are going in knowing they're imperfect, yes.
But we are starting there so that we can build better and better models.
I, I was in a meeting once and you know Anton, I know he's been on here too.
We were both in the meeting and a representative said, well, we don't have time to figure out if this is correct, if this is actually we just need to do it now.
And it was like, almost like, I get what you're saying, that the planet is already in distress.
I 100% agree.
But if we're just solving here, there, everywhere, we're actually not making the industry any better.
Good.
Fast and dirty is still going to get made.
It's still going to get put.
It's still going to be put in.
It'll just be someone smarter who can change the paperwork.
Right.
Like, it won't actually be better product.
So I think if we could universally decide, hey, we want to support port rather than, you know, just okay, the big guys, the early adopters, let's make this easy for everybody.
The smallest manufacturer, like you said, there's not enough.
Make it easy for every manufacturer to, to jump on board and say, yeah, I want to, want to do this which was the goal of our FEN can site specific thermal tool.
Anyone can do it.
And that other guy, what is it?
C3 I believe is something.
Remember that other presentation?
I believe it was Canon.
Ask us he's attempt that.
Yeah, right.
Once.
If you can, if you can break it down that everyone can have a slice.
Right?
Yeah.
Then, then we can work on something that benefits me.
And that is.
No, that is not going to cause harm to the big guys.
Right.
And what it's going to do is that's actually going to push, I would say the smaller manufacturers to, to want to buy into a program.
There's nothing worse than being told this is what you have to do and too bad we're not giving you instruction on how to do it.
Well, that's fueled like in a sense that's fueled all of it.
I mean the government, bless their hearts, has understood, I think for decades that the days of them handing down tablets from the mount and having all of that manufacturing do what they wish are long gone and that they had to get something on site.
But what that's resulted in, you know, I think what that's resulted in to some extent has been this piecemeal approach.
Because I think the manufacturer's first response to energy efficiency was we want prescriptive.
Just tell us what to make and we'll make it.
We don't want to mess around with all of this stuff.
Right.
And I think that's come back.
Well, it's going to come back to bite them in the ass or the whole industry in the ass because it's.
The goalpost shifted.
Yeah.
So here we are.
Yeah, I'm excited for the future.
I think that's the one thing I wanted to get across was if I was in window and door manufacturing, I would not be looking in the future as this is a bunch of headache and a paperwork and I don't need to know or I don't want to know or if it's going to cut into my margins, all these things.
I actually think this is an opportunity for a united front as an industry where we essentially are, we have government's ear to say this is what we want to do, this is what we're prepared to do today and this is what we're prepared to work forward in the future.
That will mean that we are probably going to challenge some of the knowns.
Right.
Like you said, prescriptive people are going to have to challenge that in themselves.
We might have to challenge naps, we may have to challenge our.
How we do thermal like all these things in my mind should be on the table with the understanding that what we want to do is solutions that are edible and then solutions that push us.
And as long as we're doing that and get out of the, out of our own way, I would say there's, there's, there's the other side of this where the rest of the world actually looks at us as like, oh, wow, you guys figured this out.
Because in my mind, the alternative is monopolization.
And we're just going to see what is, I think is a beautiful backbone of small business that is run, you know, essentially, I would say, quite productively.
Like I think most manufacturers, if you go back or started 40 years or so, they've grown, right?
They've all kind of grown.
It would be a shame to see them just bought up because they're like, I can't do this, this is too much.
Right.
I don't want to do it.
Some big boy take me over and I'm done.
Yeah.
So it leaves the door open for that guy that doesn't want to go down that route.
He doesn't want to be.
He's not a technologist, he's a window salesman.
He's good at selling windows.
And he, you know, he just needs something.
He just needs something he can move at a price point that others can't beat.
Great.
That guy should exist and it.
And the other.
But it's funny, you know, the other end of it is so NRCan comes out with a.
0 8.
8 or 0.
82 or whatever, right.
And you're the manufacturer and you go, oh, well, I can do that with a triple.
I can do that with a triple and three silvers and I'm done, right?
Yep.
Under the one number system there's actually incentive to do better.
To do better, make a big product, have a big product, you know, like, like there is actually incentive to do that because some project somewhere is going to be able to use this to get their other thing done.
The other thing is.
Sorry, Jomo, you're making me think of all these things.
I haven't.
No, keep it going.
This could be a two parter, right?
Yeah, this might have to be.
The other thing was I always have my favorite story of being in a NAFS meeting years ago and the old door guy from Hamilton is there and they're talking about air water ingress under the door and why the water's leaking under the door and they're having all these difficulties stopping it.
And how high does your sill have to be.
And do you need to have a wiper on there?
You know, all this stuff.
And it's all in the, you know, and this is all in the code development.
It was, it was a Jeff Baker thing, I think.
And talk about pioneer in the industry there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The guy, the guy goes, I'll tell you why you have a problem with the water coming into your house these days.
He says, because you can't suck water through a 6 inch pipe, but you can suck water through a hose or through a straw.
Yeah.
What he was saying was you're building the house so tight, the pressure differential is causing the water to come into the door.
He says the old farmhouse, the water never came in under the door because the whole building leaked.
It's the same pressure as the outside all the time.
Right?
Yeah.
And so I know it's hard to tell where I'm going with this, but where I'm going is we've spent all this time and work on nafs because it is true that if you're air principles.
Energy, you're leaking air, you're losing energy.
There's no question about that.
Right.
But again, if you do your trade offs, you might find that it gets easier to build that house.
Maybe your air quality isn't such a problem.
Maybe you don't need all this mechanical.
Right.
Like, what if, what if you are turning up the heat and letting the place leak a little bit?
Yeah, no, I, it's true.
You know, I, I think we, we actually had a podcast several years ago.
You asked me, if we don't change anything or what's the future?
You said, And I was like, if we don't change anything in how we manufacture windows or anything in like code interpretation, dynamic shading.
Right.
And, and, and you know what it is?
It's blinds.
And guess what our ancestors figured out 100 years ago.
Dang, it gets hot up here.
Let's put the blinds on.
Like numbers in a computer program are fantastic until you show up on site.
You know, like the real place does something.
And it's exactly true.
You put a straw there, you're gonna get capillary action that you weren't planning on.
And talking in the world will not exactly.
Yeah, they've shown.
Exactly.
So I, I think that there's, like, I've won from this conversation.
I'm super excited for the criticism because I think having the conversations.
I know.
Important.
I know.
And I think there's a, there's a gun shyness in the manufacturers.
I, I do Believe I, I would say because they've kind of figured out how they want to adopt the current system or they don't even want to deal with the current system.
So the thought to like bring something up is terrifying.
But having these conversations and looking to, I would just say it's like pragmatic problem solving, knowing we're only taking care of 85%. Yeah, that's it.
That's right.
We're not trying to do 100.
Let's, let's get out of that mentality.
And we know we will have to work forward on that and that there is challenges that we'll still have to face on site specific things on, you know, everything from the manufacturing side to the sign off to everything.
But can we at least get into a system that we're all able to move forward with is going to require us to have some pretty difficult but open discussions.
And I'm, I think we could do it.
It's just.
Oh, you know, we're gonna have some people coming off the top rope on us for this one, Joe.
Oh, I'm sure.
100.
Absolutely.
But at the same time, Patrick, I can't figure out why a building's built in a southern state.
We'll put it that way.
That claims to have, you know, lead whatever status and yet keeps their air conditioning on all, you know, almost every month of the year because the place is piping hot, like all glass.
And the conversation is, hey guys, can you tell us how to fix this?
And I'm like, yeah, tear it all out.
Like, sure.
Yeah, fill up, fill it up with walls.
Like, I don't know what to tell you because you guys, you can, you could trump around how great the building is, but at the end of the way, it only performs the way it performs.
I got lead.
I got lead because this complied and that complied and that complied and that complied and that complied and that complied and you add it all up and the thing's a fricking carbon nightmare.
Yeah.
So like, you know, this is to some extent what it's.
Listen, I've kept you a long time last, last.
So I think you might have answered this.
But sum it all up.
Do we want this as a fenestration and glass industry?
Do.
Do you think we should want the one number system?
I do.
If we can get out of just like as a country.
Yes, absolutely, 100%. I cannot emphasize enough that Canada has lost its role as an industry leader in so many things.
Like, like, I'm amazed when you look back in history, like who Are the experts of like nuclear design and building?
Canadians.
Who's extra this medical field, who is the expert of like the Canada arm, Like all these things that, that we come out.
We are not experts anymore.
Do not joke with yourself.
It is, it's almost sad to see, I think, where we've gotten without understanding how quickly it's become and, and a lot of it.
To be honest, between you and me.
And all the listeners.
And all the listeners, I think we got reliant on the US dollar.
I really think we did.
Yes, we got reliant on somebody who would take what we got and was like, sweet, it's cheaper in Canada.
I'll just buy that.
So we didn't have to push ourselves.
And I think that this really isn't going to affect essentially manufacturing today.
It will, don't get me wrong.
But to take the time and to sit down and be like, hey, what are we actually trying to solve as a country is a model that we could show the whole world and would really just be leaps and bounds.
So, yeah, I think, yes, we do want it.
It's just you have to decide to want it.
And there are parties that one have figured out the current system so they, they don't want to change.
Totally agree with that.
Totally understand you.
You were the early adopter and then you have others who are just like, well, I don't, I'm not doing anything about it now, so why the heck do I need to do anything different?
Right?
So it just will take it an effort, a unity to say, yeah, we see that our roles diminished, we see that our position in the world market is diminished.
And we're now having conversations with people, laying people off.
And at the same time as saying we're not building enough.
Like, that is not correct.
That is disappointing.
Specifically, like, it's just disappointing to hear.
And I'm not blaming any one party.
I think it's multi.
But I can't, I can't understand how Canada can be in the role of the positions it's in the role, it's in the world.
And yet everybody I talk to around the world is like, man, I just would love to be in Canada, but it's too expensive or I can't, you know, I can't.
There's all the barriers.
I'm like, but we are the land of resource opportunity, hard work, technical advancement.
Yet it's not playing out, it's not moving forward.
Yeah, I wouldn't be talking about this if I didn't see a business opportunity there, a potential cost saving opportunity there and a simplification opportunity there that enables actually more people to enter the market and more people to do what we do in the administration industry.
I see all three of those potentially there.
I also see a less, less need for bureaucracy and government oversight there, which many people like.
Oh, it'd be great to say to government, we figured it out.
Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, we're, yeah, we're good.
We're doing it.
Carbon number, you know, you want to.
Go ahead and look it over.
We're happy for you to look it over.
The AI we did.
It says it's good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, like, that's, that's, that's, that's where it's got to go.
So listen, Domo.
Jonathan Layton, Layton Consulting.
Thank you so much for joining me and having this conversation.
That was a lot of fun.
Anytime, Pat.
Love it.
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