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Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions

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Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions

Designing Buildings for a Climate That No Longer Exists

February 11, 2026 • Tom Raftery • Season 1 • Episode 259

0:00 | 42:49

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What if the biggest mistake in climate action is that we’re still designing buildings for a climate that no longer exists?

In this episode of the Climate Confident Podcast, I’m joined by David Sellers, principal architect at Hawaii Offgrid Architecture & Engineering. David designs net-zero and off-grid buildings on Maui, not as an experiment, but because the climate he’s designing for is already shifting. Faster than most regulations, models, or assumptions can keep up.

Buildings account for a huge share of global emissions, energy demand, and climate risk. Get the design wrong today, and we lock in higher emissions, higher costs, and lower resilience for decades. This conversation is about how to stop doing that.

We dig into why designing with historical climate data is quietly undermining net zero goals, and why buildings completed today will spend most of their lives in a climate no human has experienced before. David explains how shifting wind patterns, rising temperatures, water scarcity, and fire risk are already breaking “best practice” design rules.

You’ll hear why off-grid no longer means uncomfortable or compromised, and how advances in solar, batteries, heat pumps, and building envelopes have changed the economics completely. We also talk about fire-resistant construction after the Lahaina fires, reusing waste surfboard foam to create ultra-insulated building blocks, and why resilience that only the wealthy can afford isn’t resilience at all.

This is a grounded, experience-driven look at climate tech, decarbonisation, and the energy transition, without the fantasy timelines or glossy nonsense.

🎙️ Listen now to hear how David Sellers is rethinking buildings for a future climate we can no longer ignore.

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