Passive House Podcast · Matthew Cutler-Welsh, Zack Semke, Mary James, and Ilka Cassidy

281: BuildingEnergy Boston 2026 Part 1

March 31, 2026·1 hr 15 min·6 clips

Ilka Cassidy shares raw interviews from Building Energy Boston 2026, where the theme 'Don't Stop Us Now' confronts industry challenges.

The opening note is sober, but it has a pulse. With programs being cut and some work stopping, the conference tape asks a simple question: how do people keep pushing anyway? Ilka Cassidy acts as the guide through BuildingEnergy Boston, bringing back conversations that feel practical rather than polished. The questions stay close to the work. How do practitioners keep climate on the table when clients, institutions, and public programs are all feeling pressure? Julie brings the institutional view. She describes MIT's climate and sustainability commitment as a framework that starts at the individual level and keeps widening: campus, city, state, region, nation, globe. The point lands because decarbonization is not a campus-only project. Supply chains, climate impacts, and the places around the campus all matter. MIT's own arc is blunt enough: it started with coal and is now aiming for zero carbon within 25 years. Arlen comes in through the client side, with a question about keeping people focused and treating climate as something that cannot be negotiated away. The episode is interview-heavy, and the host mostly clears room for Ilka and the guests to work through the details. The close points to part two, a Passive House Accelerator Live session on mechanical systems design in smoke and extreme conditions, and a coming conference on passive survivability.

As heard by us

Climate work under budget pressure, with campuses and client conversations kept in view.

Building Energy Boston reads as a discussion about keeping decarbonization work moving when programs get cut, budgets tighten, and the pressure to slow down gets louder.

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Why you'd press play

Listen if you want a calm read on how climate work survives budget pressure.

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