As of the 1st January 2009, all houses, apartments, offices, etc sold or rented must have an Energy Certificate. Its like the refrigerators have an A, B, C etc rating…now homes in Portugal has the same thing.

One night in September 2008, I realized that there needs to be an online platform where people can go and find out information and find an “expert” who can calculate this rating. Like the yellow pages of energy certification.

So, we made a proposal to the Government body that manages this stuff here in Portugal and would you know…they accepted it…

I was lucky that the person I wanted to do the site had just left his permanent job (brave guy…leaving his job in a recession…)(but that’s another story…) so the site is designed in Ruby on Rails…my Mum’s name was Ruby so I like this technology…

Today we went live on the first phase…a two week period where the experts will register…

Then we go live to the public, which will allow them to leave ads to request an expert to contact them…

It’s very exciting…and I have to say I am a little proud to have envisioned a project and 5 months later it’s online…

Have a look… www.casacertificada.pt

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Having been involved in the design and building of Energy Efficient buildings for the last 20 years (in Portugal), and having proved that “yes we can” reduce the energy needs of a building by at least 80% without jumping through hoops nor major lifestyle changes, it’s not easy understanding this CO2 issue.

If it’s a problem…and we do have to assume that we all know that IT IS A PROBLEM, then we know we can fix it. HOWEVER, this implies some change in the way we do things. There is no point just passing the problem on to someone or somewhere else. The problem starts with each of us. The sequestration solution is the equivalent to burying our heads in the sand, so a non starter.

The Cost of Cutting Carbon in Money. The Cost of NOT Cutting Carbon is HUMANITY…I truly fear for my childrens’ children.

Carbon is a direct consequence of energy consumption. We reduce consumption, we reduce Carbon.

Approximately 40% of all global energy is consumed in Buildings. It’s therefore relatively straight forward to understand that our buildings need to be very lean and very mean.

Energy Efficiency: all buildings can consume 80% less energy…It’s possible and it’s not expensive. In the process we create major employment and EcoJobs…

Renewable Energy: Give energy the same order of priority as we do communication. Most of us in Europe pay far more for communication than we do for energy. Get the priorities right. We know we can use wind, solar, biomass, wave energies…get as much as we can out of these Renewable Energies and we are probably on track to providing most of the energy in our buildings. And we create more major EcoJobs

SmartGrids will need SmartBuildings.

Of course we still need to tackle the transport issue and I am sure after the recent debacle of Detroit we already understand that we do need to change our mobility policies.

We can do this…it’s quite easy actually. We do need to think about the environment from a sustainable perspective and not just an economic venture. After all (and as even Al Gore says), what good is all the money in the world, when we don’t have a planet to live on.

(This post responds to a question posted here)

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Listening to the radio this morning and the adverts being played, I got the impression that the marketeers seem to be continuing using the values of the old world “win a Porsche” “win a trip to Disney…” or whatever…coupled with the fact that the statistics of the motor industry are (to say the least) devastating, (even with bailout seemingly approved) I wonder if this is not the ideal opportunity for the corporate world to redefine their company strategies dramatically.

This is ideal opportunity time to be visionary…albeit way too late…we all saw this coming like from way back.

The reality is that we are living in a completely new world and I believe we are living with new values, the quicker we realise this, the better.

Make the change, be the change, cause change is here…The next 4 years will be the most exciting time we have ever lived through…loads of shit and bullets, but which gives us the possibility to change “for the better” from so many perspectives: individually, as a more caring society, save the Planet, all things we believe in and wish for the future.

The deal is: Do we sit back and watch it pass by, or do we join in and be part of it…

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This morning (17th October) I made a presentation on Sustainable Construction at this conference, which was a great initiative organised by my good friend André Rebeirinho of Adegga…was my pleasure to be to see a group of young enthusiastic Portuguese guys & gals, all involved in the internet world, highly motivated and very professional. Check out the site…

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Over the past months, I have resisted getting involved in Social Networks like Facebook, HI5 and the rest. Some of the solicitations are just so way out, but you can always refuse them eh…To be honest, I don’t seem to have the time to keep up to date…keeping this blog up to date is hard enough…

Anyway, I was recently contacted by some long lost friends (and family) through Facebook, which made me think there must be something there after all…

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