How to Make Real Estate More Sustainable and Regenerative #67

Podcast
Written by Nick Halaris

Hi Everyone and Welcome Back!

This week on The Nick Halaris Show we are featuring Nate Helbach, the founder and CEO of Neutral, a regenerative development company.  Neutral’s mission is to develop financially responsible, sustainable living spaces that foster healthy lifestyles and friendly neighborhoods.

Ready to dive in? Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform.

I wanted to have Nate on the show to learn more about Neutral and its incredibly ambitious socially conscious business strategy.  While many developers have dabbled in sustainability, few have gone all-in like Nate and his colleagues.  The real estate industry is one of the biggest contributors to climate risk, producing an estimated 40% of annual CO2 emissions, so, making progress here is essential.

Tune in to this inspiring episode to learn:

  • How Neutral is using mass timber to dramatically improve the embodied carbon in its developments

  • Why it’s so important for real estate developers to consider the environmental impact of on-going operations

  • Strategies for real estate owners to consider for reducing on-going carbon emissions

  • Why consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainable living spaces

  • What Neutral is doing to try to democratize real estate investing

&

  • Much, much more

Stay tuned to the end to learn why Nate thinks nuclear power could play such a crucial role in decarbonization and hear how his faith inspires his passionate commitment to pursue profit and good at the same time.

As always, I hope you all enjoy this episode.  Thanks for tuning in!      

Love this episode? Please rate, subscribe, and review on your favorite podcast platform to help more users find our show. 🙏 Thank you

 

Summary

Nate Helbach, the founder and CEO of Neutral, discusses how his company is making real estate more sustainable and regenerative. They focus on reducing both embodied carbon and operational carbon in buildings. On the embodied carbon side, they use mass timber, which has a low carbon impact and acts as a carbon sink. They also consider other materials and use the Living Building Challenge's red list to avoid harmful substances. On the operational side, they optimize building design to reduce energy usage and promote user behavior that minimizes carbon emissions. Nate also discusses the supply chain for mass timber and the challenges of gaining approval from building departments. Neutral is a real estate development company focused on creating regenerative and sustainable buildings. They prioritize the health and well-being of occupants and aim to reduce the environmental impact of construction and operation. Nate Helbach, the co-founder of Neutral, discusses the demand for sustainable buildings and the premium that people are willing to pay for them. He also talks about the different certifications in the industry, such as LEED and Passive House, and the need for a more holistic approach to sustainable real estate. The conversation touches on the retrofitting of existing buildings, the role of natural gas in new construction, and the potential of nuclear power as a clean energy source. Nate shares his mission-driven approach to real estate and how Neutral is democratizing real estate investing by allowing local communities to invest in their own neighborhoods.

 

Keywords

sustainable real estate, regenerative design, embodied carbon, operational carbon, mass timber, carbon sink, Living Building Challenge, red list, energy optimization, user behavior, supply chain, building approvals, real estate, sustainability, regenerative buildings, LEED, Passive House, retrofitting, carbon emissions, natural gas, nuclear power, mission-driven, democratized investing

 

Takeaways

  • Neutral focuses on making real estate more sustainable and regenerative.

  • They reduce embodied carbon by using materials like mass timber and avoiding harmful substances.

  • They optimize building design to reduce operational carbon and promote energy efficiency.

  • Gaining approval for sustainable building materials and practices can be challenging. There is a demand for sustainable buildings, and people are willing to pay a premium for them.

  • Certifications like LEED and Passive House are important, but there is a need for a more holistic approach to sustainable real estate.

  • Retrofitting existing buildings to make them more carbon-friendly is a challenge, but there is a need for solutions in this area.

  • The debate around natural gas in new construction should consider the current energy source and what is most sustainable.

  • Nuclear power has the potential to be a clean and sustainable energy source.

  • Neutral is a mission-driven company that aims to create regenerative and sustainable buildings while democratizing real estate investing.

Titles

  • Reducing Embodied Carbon with Mass Timber

  • Making Real Estate Sustainable and Regenerative

  • The Debate Around Natural Gas in New Construction

  • The Potential of Nuclear Power as a Clean Energy Source

Sound Bites

  • "Neutral's thesis is to make real estate more sustainable and regenerative."

  • "Mass timber acts as a carbon sink, storing carbon for the life of the wood product."

  • "Neutral optimizes building design to reduce operational carbon and energy usage."

  • "There is definitely demand in America and probably all over the world for people who are willing to pay a little bit more if they can trust that the product was some kind of contributor to sustainability."

  • "As we progress over the next five to 10 years, we'll see more of a premium for buildings focused on health and wellbeing."

  • "LEED is not the best certification if you're truly focused on regenerative and sustainable real estate."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Overview of Neutral

05:08 Reducing Embodied Carbon with Mass Timber

09:04 Optimizing Building Design for Energy Efficiency

18:27 Challenges of Gaining Approval for Sustainable Building Practices

28:19 The Demand for Sustainable Buildings

30:28 The Need for a Holistic Approach to Sustainable Real Estate

33:41 Retrofitting Existing Buildings to Reduce Carbon Emissions

38:13 The Debate Around Natural Gas in New Construction

41:03 The Potential of Nuclear Power as a Clean Energy Source

44:36 Neutral: A Mission-Driven Company Democratizing Real Estate Investing

Nick Halaris

I’ve been fascinated by investing for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I would read the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Barron’s, pouring over the data tables, stories and interviews with a passion and an insatiable kind of curiosity. As I grew into adulthood, I struggled to find the right outlet and channel for this passion and spent much of my twenties wandering and trying out different things. I had a very brief career as an attorney, spent some time as a strategy and leadership consultant for big multinational companies, failed in an attempt to start a hedge fund, and even ended up helping run a scrap metal recycling operation for a while.

At the age of 30 though, I took my stand. I made up my mind that no matter what I was going to be an entrepreneurial investor. As crazy as it sounds, I owe everything in my life to this one foundational decision—even my amazing wife and my beautiful kids. I don’t think I would ever have met Alicia had I not made this one choice. At that moment in time, the financial world had just been devastated by the crash in the housing market and the near systemic failure of the global banking system that followed. I’ve always had a contrarian bent to my investment thinking; so, to me the carnage in real estate looked like an opportunity.

It all started with one house in Compton California. The business plan was simple: buy a distressed foreclosed home from a bank, bring it back to life with a big renovation and sell it to a first-time homebuyer. Things progressed slowly as they tend to do with real estate. In the first years of this, I think I did 6-7 homes. But then after plugging away day-by-day, suddenly it seemed, things just came together. I found the right investors and the right loans and the right deals and in just a few short years I ended up investing in over 100 such transactions, building a portfolio of almost 2,500 multifamily units and creating a fully vertically integrated real estate company with almost 100 employees.

Fast forward to today and I’m running the second evolution of my entrepreneurial investing career and having so much fun that I have to stop and remind myself that this is all real.

http://www.nickhalaris.com
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