Healthy Spaces Podcast: Season 3, Episode 5 - Keeping Our Cool

[00:00:00] Dominique: In recent years, heatwaves have become less and less of an anomaly due to climate change.

Across the globe, scorching temperatures are changing the way we live, work, and play; however, not everyone is impacted in the same way.

[00:00:17] Kurt Shickman: The impact on people of weather conditions is very different. And so, when we're in East Africa and you're in an informal settlement with a building that someone built for themselves, that's a galvanized metal building. They're living in an oven, and their experience of temperatures that might be survivable for me, are very different because of the built environment they're in. But I think the really important thing here is, you don't have to get on an airplane to find these disparate impacts, from heat in people's lives. This is not just around the world, it's around the corner.

[00:00:47] Dominique: And although droughts and wildfires provide the most dramatic illustration of the dangers of extreme heat.

The threat of heat stroke presents a great danger to human life, and this is leaving many of us asking the question: what are we doing to help keep our most vulnerable population safer? 

[00:01:07] Rohith BL: As part of our primary research, once we zero down on a city in Ahmedabad, we spend a lot of time with various construction workers. I'd like to talk about one particular person, Ajay, who is a construction worker. And in the case of Ajay, he's the sole breadwinner for a family of four. So, every day his work is essential for him. His work typically starts about, eight in the morning. So, he has to wake up very early and he continuously ends at around six or seven in the evening. He typically earns a very little amount, about $5 a day. You won't believe that during the summer he experiences a working environment of 46 to 48°C, even sometimes more than that.

[00:01:54] Dominique: You just heard from Kurt Schickman, Director of Extreme Heat Initiatives at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and Rohith BL, Director of Innovation at Trane Technologies.

I'm Dominique Silva, and you're listening to Healthy Spaces, the podcast exploring how technology and innovation are transforming the spaces where we live, work, and play. 

And in today's episode, we're exploring the innovations, keeping individuals and communities safer in the face of extreme heat.

We'll find out about some of the initiatives helping to keep buildings, and even entire cities, cool. And we'll learn about the wearable tech, protecting construction workers in India against the dangers of heat waves and heat stroke.

[00:02:44] Dominique: With the dangers of extreme heat becoming a much more global issue than it ever was, organizations such as the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center are working to find new ways to develop community wide strategies to keep people comfortable. 

And when you're dealing with a global crisis, you need to take a global approach. And this is exactly what Kurt and his team are trying to do. 

[00:03:08] Kurt Shickman: We're a nonprofit based in the United States, where we work on improving resilience and our goal is to reach a billion people with resilient solutions by 2030. The thematic focus of the center is addressing the increasingly dire challenge of extreme heat in our communities, in our cities, and even in our rural areas as well. My background is really in the passive cooling space. So, I've been working on this issue since 2011, where I launched a nonprofit called The Global Cool Cities Alliance, which worked on this idea of bringing really simple, straightforward, common-sense design and technology solutions to buildings, to cities, to communities that help us cool off those indoor and outdoor spaces so that we can have more thermally comfortable and safe environments. We worked around the world developing both policy and implementation, so actually getting these, technologies out there. And now it's really focused on the broader issues. So, it's not just the solutions, but how do we help people understand the danger of heat in their environment and what they can do about it. And then I think the other really important piece is; how do we stop doing just heroic opportunism? How do we think about this in a global scale? So, it's really thinking more about how we scale this work at a time where we absolutely need to.

How do different places adapt to extreme urban heat?

[00:04:25] Dominique: So, you've had the opportunity to travel all around the world, and you've probably experienced heat waves in more places than most of us. What can you tell us about the difference you've seen in the ways that communities experience and adapt to extreme urban heat?

[00:04:42] Kurt Shickman: The impact on people of weather conditions is very different. And so, when we're in East Africa and you're in an informal settlement with a building that someone built for themselves, that's a galvanized metal building. They're living in an oven and their experience of temperatures that might be survivable for me, are very different because of the built environment they're in. So, you're absolutely right, and this varies around the world. But I think the really important thing here is, you don't have to get on an airplane to find these disparate impacts, from heat in people's lives. You can walk around your block. I'll take my block as an example. There are people on my block that have air conditioners, but they can't afford to run them all the time. There are people that have no choice but to work outside and so they're exposed more. There are people that take certain types of medications or have existing health conditions that make them predisposed to more risk from heat. 

And so our response to this has to be scaled but it also needs to be thoughtful about the communities into which these technologies, these solutions, are going and that they need to meet many different needs. And so, that's why in the work we do, we want to find ways that can cool cities and using all the different methods that are out there, passive and active, to make that happen.

What is passive cooling?

[00:05:52] Dominique: It's really good that you are encouraging us to think beyond just the climates that exist around the world. And indeed, when we think about hot and humid climates, our minds tend to go to East Africa and India. But really, you gave your example of your block, right? I live here in Brussels and there's a really big difference between if I'm going for a walk on a hot day, in a more low-income neighborhood that has no trees, that has no parks, I'm really going to experience that in a very different way than if I go to an area with newer buildings and in less heat, less concrete, more trees, more parks. And we even talked about that a little bit in our first episode. So, it's really important to think that it's not just, where we live from a geographical perspective, but the built environment around us can impact the way that we experience heat. So, throughout your career, you've been really a big advocate for passive cooling measures and passive cooling technologies. So, let's start there. How would you define passive cooling and why do you see it as such an important tool?

[00:07:01] Kurt Shickman: Passive cooling is essentially ways that we regulate thermal comfort in our buildings and in our communities that don't require energy. It can be a package of solutions, like physical solutions. It can be designed choices, both in the building themselves and in the sort of design of the communities. It can be natural solutions, incorporating water and thinking about the way wind flows, to capture cool spaces and moving that coolness to other places. So, it is a package of design and material choices that leave us with the most thermally comfortable environment we can have before we think about energy-based cooling, or what I will call active cooling. I often hear passive versus active, as if they are two different things and we do one or the other. These are absolutely integrated with the active cooling solutions we're thinking about. And it's not just on buildings that don't have air conditioning or won't ever have air conditioning, like when we talk about informal settlements, for example. It's also critical on commercial buildings, institutional buildings, and so on, that we have these as an integrated set. So that we can optimize the efficiency, the resilience, and ultimately the thermal comfort of the people that are living, learning, and working in the buildings we build.

[00:08:20] Dominique: And while Kurt's current work is helping to develop and promote the latest innovations in heat resiliency, his experience in this area extends back over a decade, all the way to when he founded the Global Cool Cities Alliance.

And in his 10 plus years working in this area, he's seen some pretty impressive initiatives implemented in cities all around the world.

[00:08:42] Kurt Shickman: In terms of what the types of solutions are out there that we've seen deployed, categorizing into two big categories. The first would be rejecting solar energy. So, by that we mean when the sun's energy hits a building, it is either going to degrade and turn into heat that warms the building and warms the air, or it can be reflected. So, lightening the colors of the buildings or increasing the reflectivity of the buildings is really important. That can be done very simply or with a lot of high technology, very sophisticated materials. We see terms like cool roofs or white roofs, cool walls, increasingly cool pavements, roads that are lighter in color or more reflective. That's one sort of piece of the puzzle. The other side is cooling through evapotranspiration or sort of the natural process that vegetation absorbs solar energy and releases water vapor that the sun's energy can then absorb to help cool the space. It's a latent heat reduction. There we're talking about things like, increases in park space, increases in tree cover, and that can also benefit buildings by creating the third piece of this, which is shade. Those are sort of the three kinds of keyways that we think of passive cooling. Now, I would also say that's sort of on the solution side. On the design side, it is thinking about how buildings are used and where people are. So, for example, in a hospital, you wouldn't want to put your maternity ward on the top floor of a hospital. You would want it on the lower floor where there's more protection from the direct solar radiation, for example. It's having bedrooms, in the northern hemisphere, on the north side of the building, rather than on the south side of the building where the sun's energy's is heating up the side of that wall, all day. And then, you've got a warm bedroom to sleep in. There are design aspects to this. It's also orientation of our buildings. All those things factor into, passive cooling. I guess I started off saying there are two things. I guess there's more like five things here.

What are some cities that act as a good model of best practice?

[00:10:42] Dominique: I'd love for you to maybe give us some examples of some cities that you think would be a really good inspiration if we want to look for a model of best practice.

[00:10:49] Kurt Shickman: In terms of solution sets, let's talk about sort of individual solutions. You've got a number of cities around the world that have really leaned into this idea of requiring materials that will generate thermal comfort more readily than the sort of traditional building materials that we've used. Let's take Los Angeles as an example, the idea of a cool roof is a no brainer when you're talking about a flat roof that no one sees. You can make it bright white and, no one's going to even know. But most of our cities, at least in the US, are steep slope or pitched roofs and they're residential. There was a need to think about what are the solutions for all of that roof space are. Where a purely white roof would not really make sense from an aesthetic perspective. LA has done amazing work on encouraging through code regulation and through incentives the use of cooler shingles that can look as dark as regular shingles but actually reflect more of the sun's energy. And those are now required in Los Angeles, the city, and in the county. These little incremental changes over a huge set of roof areas, are really powerful ones. LA's really led the way in that respect. We've seen, cities like, Phoenix, San Antonio, and cities in Australia and in the Gulf, try out things like cool pavements. So essentially the same concept, but on the 35 to 40% of our cities are paved. These cities are testing out different solutions for improving the ability of those services to reduce thermal load and increase thermal comfort in different aspects. And then I'd say, you could look all over the world. Medellín, in Colombia, all through Europe, in Seoul, South Korea, this idea of how do we get creative and innovative in bringing nature back into our cities. And so, it's not just planting trees and walking away. It's how do we really think creatively about adding those green spaces, how do we link those green spaces up so that people can move from space to space, in a thermally comfortable way in the shade? And also, how do we make sure the sort of underlying structures support the sustainability of those trees?

How do I stay safe during a heat wave?

[00:12:55] Dominique: Those of us who probably aren't living yet in really cool urban cities, just yet. What tips would you give to someone who's thinking about, well, how do I stay safe during a heat wave? How do I keep my parents, and my grandparents, and my children safe during a heat wave? Do you have any tips or recommendations there? 

[00:13:18] Kurt Shickman: I would first start off by saying I am not a doctor and I'm not a medical practitioner. I'm not even a public health expert. So, there are amazing resources from the Red Cross and others that will give you very specific guidance on what to do. But the first thing is, I think it's really important, we often talk about vulnerable populations, and we then immediately think of elderly, we think of, pregnant women or pregnant people, but actually we're all vulnerable. When you look at this particular heat wave that's going through Europe right now. There's been three high profile deaths that have occurred. There have been many, many, more that haven't been covered, but the three are, men in their late thirties and early forties who are outdoor workers. So, these are healthy people who are in conditions that their bodies couldn't sustain. I think the first thing is to remember that we are all vulnerable and we have to listen to our bodies. And when you start to feel lightheaded, when you start to feel not yourself, that's the moment when you need to get yourself inside. If you can't get inside, you know, cooling your wrists or cooling your ankles, places where your blood is near the surface is really helpful. It's planning ahead; so having enough water with you or being able to access water if you can, that's cool and potable. It is finding shade and staying in it. If you're an outdoor worker or you're outdoors a lot, if you can, change your schedule, if you have that luxury that’s the time to do it. There are all these sort of individual preventive behaviors that can be done. But the other thing that's really important here, is the social aspect of this. When you look at communities that are resilient to heat, it's not just the things they're doing for themselves. It's not just the types of buildings they're in, it's the things they do for each other. It's things like checking on your neighbor, checking on family. And this is where government support can come in. Phone banking to people that you know are in your system for other reasons, making sure they're doing okay. In New York for example, there is a program where home health aides, who are often a single point of contact for shut in elderly folks and a trusted source, they're actually trained to see the threat of heat stress and heat and heat sickness and take preventive action. These ideas of sort of the social safety net, formal and informal kicking in during these hot days is really critical. 

[00:15:41] Dominique: Some excellent advice there from Kurt. And if you want to learn more about some of the work Kurt and his team have been doing around implementing strategies to reduce urban heat, follow the link in the show notes.

[00:15:54] Dominique: Earlier, we explored how cities and communities are leveraging new and old technologies to become more heat resilient. But the impact of heat waves is felt at an individual level, too. And construction workers are among the most vulnerable to experiencing heat stroke. And here to tell us more about the part Trane Technologies is playing in addressing this challenge is Director of Innovation, Rohith BL.

[00:16:21] Rohith BL: I'm Rohith. I'm a part of the corporate innovation team in my organization. So, my job is basically to engage with the external world, scout for new technologies, and see how we can commercialize them by integrating them into our product lines. In addition to that, I actively participate in organization initiatives on sustainability and create a positive impact on communities.

[00:16:47] Dominique: Oh, that's cool. And your organization, just to be clear, because we can say it, is Trane Technologies. 

Alright so let's dive in and talk about perhaps one of the first social innovation projects that you worked on. We call this the personal cooling vest or the personal cooling jacket. I'd love for you to tell our listeners: how did the idea of the personal cooling vest actually come about and how did you decide where you were going to start? 

Tell us about the personal cooling vest.

[00:17:16] Rohith BL: So, this idea of a personal cooling vest or jacket got triggered by the CEO himself. During the conversation, he actually questioned the team and later it came to us that we are one of the world leaders in providing cooling solutions to the people who actually occupy the buildings. What about for those vulnerable population who are involved in constructing these buildings because they go through a lot of hardship, right? We took up this challenge, and started the primary research in India because we are deciding in India. India has this kind of vulnerable population. We quickly figured out that, it is indeed a very big challenge for those people who work in harsh environmental conditions. Our research showed that, there's a city in western part of India called Ahmedabad …already has a heat wave mitigation plan in place because they experienced one of the devastating heat waves during 2009. The local municipal corporations and NGOs all came together and came up with a heat wave mitigation plan. We thought, okay, this is the right city for us to spend time and understand how exactly these construction workers face problems, especially during heat waves. Once we understood that, we actually traveled to our Ambar,  and we spent quite a bit of time there with important stakeholders, municipal corporation, NGOs, disaster mitigation departments from the government of India, and most importantly, the construction workers. So this is how it all got initiated.

Take us through a day in the life of one of these construction workers

[00:19:09] Dominique: So, for our listeners can you take us through a day in the life of a construction worker in Amed Deba?

[00:19:18] Rohith BL: As part of our primary research, once we zero down on a city in Ahmedabad, we spend a lot of time with various construction workers. I'd like to talk about one particular person, Ajay, who is a construction worker. And in the case of Ajay, he's the sole breadwinner for a family of four. So, every day his work is essential for him. His work typically starts about, eight in the morning. So, he has to wake up very early and he continuously goes and ends at around six or seven in the evening. So, he typically earns a very little amount, about $5 a day. You won't believe that during the summer he experiences a working environment of 46 to 48°C, even sometimes more than that.

Even for me, being from a southern part of India, I never experienced that kind of temperature. It was a very, very challenging experience for me.

[00:20:19] Dominique: But it's not just the fact that it's hot outside. I mean these, people are really doing really intense work, right? It's not like they're sitting on a chair watching the birds fly by. It's really heavy labor kind of work in such hot and humid climates. 

[00:20:37] Rohith BL: Yes, very true. You are right, it's all heavy, intensive, physical work, you know? And by the way, once we understood that we really felt like we have to do something to help out these people, like Ajay. We figured out that only in India, there are about 170 million plus people working in harsh environmental conditions like Ajay. You won't believe, worldwide the number goes up above 740 million. And, to our surprise, if you look at their working age group, it is anywhere as low as about 15 years old sometimes, and it can go above 65 years old. So, throughout their life they need to keep working because they're daily wage workers and one day not working, they will really struggle for food. This population, they belong to the base of the pyramid population. There are about 4 billion people that come under the category of the base of the pyramid population out of 7 billion plus. And interestingly, if you really deep dive into this, base of the pyramid population, you actually see a pyramid within the pyramid. That means within these 4 billion populations, so you see a varying income level.

How did you go about defining the requirements for your solution?

[00:21:57] Dominique: Wow. That's really impressive. So, once you understood Ajay’s sort of journey, right, his day in the life, his needs, the challenges he has to deal with on a daily basis, how did you go about defining the requirements for your solution? 

[00:22:14] Rohith BL: We did spend quality time in Ahmedabad. We basically wanted to understand what happens to the human body during heat waves and when heat stroke affects you. So, when any human being is affected with heat stroke, it often results in dizziness, cramps, or convulsions and things like that. It starts with that. And if it is not treated immediately, it may result in death. Remember I mentioned the 2009 devastating heat wave in Ahmedabad? I believe, a thousand plus people actually died because of that heat wave in 2009. And remember its more than that. It also affects daily earning capability of people like Ajay; no earnings, no food for them. When we spent time there with them, we also found out that they have manage of this heat wave because they really don't want to stop working. So, what they do is they carry a small amount of sugar, so whenever they feel that kind of dizziness, they understand that the heat wave is affecting them. They consume sugar, which gives them instant energy. So, Ajay needs to have a sustained respite from heat, extreme heat, when this temperature source and he need to comfortably work even in that kind of peak temperatures. Now, another important thing you also need to understand here is that these higher daily peak temperatures during summer and more intense heat waves are becoming very frequent. Right? Nowadays we read about that day in, day out in newspapers. That's mainly because of this global warming which means the condition of working for these people, like Ajay, is deteriorating every summer. 

How does the vest work?

[00:24:09] Dominique: Wow. Well, that's such great examples of designing with empathy and really understanding the needs of your design target, who in this case was, was Ajay, right? He was your inspiration, for the journey that you, you went on. So, once you came up with the idea for a personal cooling vest, maybe let's start by just quickly explaining, to me, how does it work exactly? What is this? 

[00:24:36] Rohith BL: So far, I spoke about Ajay and his working condition. So then later we spent time with other major stakeholders like local governments, NGOs and tried to understand what their mitigation plans in place. So whenever there's a heat wave, they basically come up with their plan, which includes, awareness campaign, public warning systems, providing some temporary shelters, and providing some extra portable water. Though all of these are designed, keeping in mind people like Ajay, this is actually in fact not helping Ajay much. You know why? In order to use these facilities, he has to stop working. So, the only solution where we can help out Ajay is providing something personalized. So that's how, we concluded that a personal cooling vest is an ideal solution for him and why we spoke about the vest is because the upper torso of the body has to be cooled, in order to protect anybody from heat wave. And that's how we zero down on providing a personal cooling vest. So now that we understood that this is the way forward to providing a solution.  The time we spent with Ajay also helped us in defining some of the requirements. One of the examples I can tell is that we understood the weight of the vest cannot exceed half a kilo. The moment it exceeds it really affects a person like AJ because as we discussed before, it is a very physical, intensive work.

What technology made this vest a reality?

[00:26:16] Dominique: For people like Ajay, the cooling vest needed to work with them and for them, keeping them cool while ultimately allowing them the freedom to carry on with their job without impacting their performance. So Rohith and his team needed a solution which would be light, durable, and simple. So, what kind of technology did they ultimately land on to meet these requirements? 

[00:26:41] Rohith BL: We as humans have two temperatures; one we call it as core and other is surface temperature. At any point of time, our core temperature should not get affected, it should always be maintained at 37 °C. Now the surface temperature can be about five to six degrees less or more. So as long as this is maintained, we will not get affected by heat stroke. Whenever heat stroke affects us, for some reason, it actually immediately affects the vital organs like the heart or kidneys. We understood from the medical experts that as long as you actually keep these vital organs cool, then you can actually postpone the effect of heat stroke. That's how we learned and with all these inputs, what we did is we went ahead and chose a technology, which we call a cooperative  cooling vest, which means the vest needs to be dipped into the water and squeezed to remove excess water. AJ needs to wear it, while working. Due to the cooperative cooling effect, which is a technical term, AJ feels it cool because when you water cooperates, it actually takes the adjacent heat and provides that coolness. Now, the challenge was to identify the right material. Which can hold enough water and do not gear up this  water so easily to the other apparels and also provide this cooling continuously for Ajay for at least for three to four hours? We identified some right  polymers, which does all these jobs perfectly. So that was the key to designing our jacket. And in addition to that, we went ahead and designed the vest in such a way that, it is adjustable to fit all types of body types. Then we also came up with some antimicrobial treated coating, which can be worn by Ajay safely. Durability is also another important thing. So, we designed it in such a way that it lasts at least for two to three seasons.

Did Ajay like the vest?

[00:29:02] Dominique: So once you landed on a design, you went on to build and tested prototype.

And how did that phase go? Did Ajay approve of your solution? 

[00:29:11] Rohith BL: We were eagerly waiting to build a few prototypes of this, vest. Now we had to validate a few of the technical and marketing uncertainties. We did carry out this lab test with something called thermal mannequins. Thermal mannequins are actually exact replicas of humans. You can simulate the metabolism, you can simulate sweat rate, measure the core temperature, and the skin temperature. We learned that we could test this way, and we quickly partnered with the UC Berkeley, California, who had this kind of mannequin and carried out a series of tests. At 48-degree ambient condition, simulating that, and I'm happy to share some of the results. We were able to bring down the skin temperature of this mannequin by six to eight degrees, which means it is within that 37-degree core temperature, plus or minus five, six degrees of skin temperature. We were able to provide this cooling at 40 degrees ambient for about three hours. And another interesting thing is that we also observed that 40% less heat was absorbed by the skin of the mannequin from ambient. Which means the dehydration rate which people experience during a heat wave, you can postpone or prolong. I, myself, was wearing this vest because I couldn't tolerate that, yellow alert and red alert during a heat wave. It honestly helped me and to answer your question, whether Ajay liked it. He's definitely liked it as much as our mannequin at UC Berkeley liked it.

Have you been able to scale the vest solution?

[00:31:06] Dominique: All right. So, last question here about the cooling vest. So, have you been able to, scale the solution?

[00:31:13] Rohith BL: Yes, of course Dominique. And that's another challenge, which we learned. We thought that it's working so well that it can be easily scaled up. But we learned that we really need to work with a lot of stakeholders. The good news is that after presenting them the case studies of Ajay and testing, we were really able to engage with very important stakeholders, including UNDP, United Nations Development Program. They work very closely with the various municipalities across India, and they have shown interest. As we speak today, we actually scaled up, and introduced these jackets to many people like Ajay across India, along with UNDP.

Have you been able to work on any similar projects?

[00:32:04] Dominique: So, Rohith, we got two last quick questions here, since this experience that you had with the personal cooling vest, have you had the chance to work on any other similar projects? 

[00:32:17] Rohith BL: There are many such initiatives from our organization, I'm happy to say that. One more success story, which I would like to mention, and I was a part of it, is what we call a cooling cart. So, in countries like India, the bottom of the pyramid population, a couple of them also engage in selling fruits and vegetables on streets using a cart, which you might have seen. They enter this profession because there's no barrier to entry. That's one of the reasons they get into it. These street vendors, they contribute to the last mile of food supply chain, which is a very important thing in countries like India. And for those who do not know about it, about 40% of these fruits and vegetables get wasted because of some unscientific ways of preserving these perishables and vending them. We have thought that, okay, we need to do something here. We have developed what is called a cooling cart. I'm happy to say that it's completely passive in nature, which means it keeps the cart cool without using any energy. It is helping them to reduce waste of up to two thirds what they have been experiencing today. And because now waste has reduced, it has also doubled their income. So, we are not only addressing food waste and hunger here, but also helping uplift the livelihood of this population. 

[00:33:46] Dominique: A big thank you to Kurt and Rohith for joining us on today's episode, where we discussed heat mitigation strategies, keeping people safer at both the personal and societal level.

And thank you for listening. If you want to find out more information about our conversation today, make sure you check out the show notes. And remember to rate and review Healthy Spaces in your favorite podcast app. Healthy Spaces is a Lower Street production in collaboration with Trane Technologies.

This season was produced by Ryan Setzen, with production support by Daria Lawson, and our sound engineer is Ben Cranel.

I'm your host, Dominique Silva. That's it for this season, but don't worry, we'll be back soon for another special episode of Healthy Spaces, leading up to one of the most important climate events of the year, COP 28.