Link to Everybody in the Pool Podcast (May 21, 2026) | This week on Everybody in the Pool, Molly Wood sits down with Ben Stapleton, the CEO at the U.S. Green Building Council of California, to talk about what it actually takes to make our buildings work for the climate instead of against it. …We talk about:
- USGBC California’s Net Zero Accelerator and the startup trends Ben is tracking in green building tech
- Why buildings — not cars — are the biggest source of carbon emissions, and what that means for climate strategy
- The difference between operating carbon and embodied carbon, and why that means we need two different performance standards for buildings
- How building performance standards work and why California is building a statewide framework to get there by 2030
- How to get developers to root for performance standards: sell them on lower energy costs, lower insurance premiums, and higher resale values
- What rebuilding after the LA fires could look like if we get it right, and why waiving the all-electric requirement was a missed opportunity
