Tom Ryckaert speaks with Christa Dodoo and Eleni Myrivili about how rising urban temperatures affect facility management, highlighting the role of retrofits, traditional design and climate leadership in balancing sustainability with occupant comfort.
In today's episode, moderator Tom Ryckaert, a board member of IFMA Belgium Chapter, sits down with Christa Dodoo, the chair of IFMA's Global Board of Directors, and Eleni Myrivili, Global Chief Heat Officer for the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center and the UN-Habitat, explore the rising temperatures in cities and their impact on facility management They discuss the importance of retrofitting historic buildings, leveraging traditional design for sustainability and the need for targeted education and leadership in facility management to address climate challenges.
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Eleni Myrivili: [00:00:00] Facility managers and the different people in the leadership of either the cities or the countries they have a really important role to play for raising awareness and preparing the facilities for our climate era.
And I think there's a lot to do both to raise awareness. To prepare, so that when we have heat waves, we don't lose people and lose productivity. And finally, how to redesign, retrofit, et cetera, so I think the leadership is important that they step up to it and they do things.
Host: Welcome to Connected fm, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources help you succeed in facility management. This podcast is brought to you by ima, the leading professional association for facility managers. If you are ready to grow your network and advance in your career. Go to ifma.org to get started.[00:01:00]
In today's episode, host Tom Ryckaert, a board member of IFMA's Belgium Chapter sits down with Christa Dodoo, the chair of imas Global Board of Directors and Eleni Myrivili, Global Chief Heat Officer for the Atlantic Council's Climate Resilience Center and the UN-Habitat. To discuss the rising temperatures in cities and their impact on facility management.
They also emphasize their importance of retrofitting buildings, leveraging traditional design and the need for education and leadership and facility management to address these climate challenges. Now, let's get into it.
Tom Ryckaert: Welcome everybody my name is Tom Ryckaert. I'm a board member of IFMA Belgium Chapter, and also co-founder and managing partner of to enrich consultancy and advisory company of facility management and corporate wellbeing. Before we dive in our discussion yeah, maybe it's also good to introduce our panel list in this podcast. So yeah, christa. [00:02:00]
Christa Dodoo: Thank you Tom. Happy to be here. My name is Christa Dodoo
I'm currently the chair for IFMA on the Global Board of Directors. My day job, I am the chief of infrastructure and facilities at the UN World Food Program. I manage corporate real estate facilitators, asset management, sustainability, health and safety. And whatnot. So, hopefully I'll be able to bring some of that experience, some of that background to the discussion today.
So thank you. Okay.
Tom Ryckaert: Thank you Eleni.
Eleni Myrivili: Hello, Christa and Tom, lovely to be here. My name is Eleni Myrivili and I have the crazy title, global Chief Heat Officer. I work for the Atlantic Council which is a think tank. Think tank based in Washington and they have seconded me to UN-Habitat. And I also work with Unap trying to address the issue of extreme heat rising in cities around the world.
I'm also in the advisory board for the EU mission [00:03:00] adaptation, which is an effort of the EU to help cities and regions in Europe adapt to climate change and the different extreme weather phenomena that we will be dealing with. Alright.
Tom Ryckaert: Thank you for the introduction. Yeah, I think if we look at the agenda for facility managers all over the world, I think sustainability is really in the top priority list.
So I really enjoyed your keynote this morning. Thank you about yeah, the extreme heat challenges in the cities. And I wrote down that in 2024. There is an increase of one point 55 degrees. Yeah. Can you explain a little bit from the
Eleni Myrivili: pre-industrial era? Yes. So globally, 2024 reached an average temperature globally that we have not seen before.
Since we started measuring global heat, which was in the middle of the 18 hundreds, like 1850 to early 19 hundreds. We started having global temperature measured. So ever since we started [00:04:00] measuring it, we've never seen this type of temperature. It's, and from there, we, which is the industrial.
Times the early industrial era until today we have a 1.5 degrees increase. So the problem is that for thousands of years now, the earth has never reached this type of temperatures or reached it so fast. So up to now, we were saying that we know that climate change is because of human. Activity and for, because of all the greenhouse gas emissions that we are, and everybody was saying, but we've seen crazy changes in temperature in other periods of the planet's history and stuff.
And we were always saying, yes, but it has never been happening so fast. Now we can also say that. We have never seen this type of global heating since humans have been living in communities on the planet. Like we can go back thousands of years and [00:05:00] we know that we have not been living in these kinds of temperatures already.
Yeah. Yeah. I
Tom Ryckaert: think everybody is witness of this because yeah, we are living all on this globe. Exactly. So, and you also talked about resilience and risks and as facility manager, we like that, talking about those things. So maybe for you, Christa, what are now the risks or the challenges that are on the top of the agenda within facility management to, to work on this from your experience?
Christa Dodoo: I think even before this conversation and we hit in the 1.5 degrees. Mark. Think for a facilities manager, the typical issue we face on a regular basis, number one work order request is too hot or too cold. It's always been an issue, you know, and now we are even seeing it at an escalated level. A lot of organizations are trying to balance sustainability with ensuring that the people's comfort in the buildings being managed. So [00:06:00] if we experiencing this global heat on a faster rate, as you mentioned, and at the same time you getting a lot of complaints, you know, as a facilities manager that my office is too hot, our challenge now is how do we balance that? And not just go to the easy fix, which is okay, increase the temperatures with our acs.
Let's just ensure that we have 22, 21 degrees in our offices instead of keeping it at 26, 27 and have other mitigation, you know, issues. Exactly. You know, how do we ensure that we don't add to the problem? Exactly. That already exists. So that is the issue that we are facing now. How do we balance this?
Pretty well, and I like your comment this morning about moving away from infrastructure to people because then that helps the conversation. We are not just focusing on okay, HVAC system. Less temperature come down. But these people, [00:07:00] and especially with the way the office is set up now, when we are talking about space planning, we have the opportunity to create microclimates.
Yes. In our buildings. Yes. So we take advantage of that. Create a microclimate, satisfy the needs of the people without us adding to carbon emissions and increasing the problem. So that's the balance that we are trying to face.
Eleni Myrivili: Ideally, it's best for the wallets of the people as well. Right. Because, you know, we can't just keep kind of cranking up the air conditioning the amount of not just.
The fact that we are contributing to climate change, but the fact that It's expensive. It's expensive. It's expensive.
Christa Dodoo: Yeah. It's just, and people don't understand, one degree is, like you said, one degree is expensive. So when you tell people, at least within Europe, there are regulations on which times of the year.
Yes. And what range of temperature you need to be in with within your organization, within your building. And we are supposed to stick with that. The problem is people do not care. [00:08:00] I'm too hot, so I'm just gonna, I don't care what the regulations says. Push it up. Yeah, push it up. I want my office to be cold.
Yeah. But they don't understand that one degree difference is so costly to an organization, especially when infrastructure is massive. So it's really interesting conversations to be having now.
Eleni Myrivili: The other thing that's really important is, okay, let's say that we don't have the capacity to cool down. The building as much as we would like because for whatever reasons, economic reasons, or because our building is not well enough, insulated or well enough whatever, to, to cool down with air conditioning.
Also, it's important I think for, your sector to take more leadership in is to understand that heat influences very much our productivity, our workers' productivity. Mm-hmm. We've seen extraordinary amounts of losses in productivity with 1, 2, 3 degrees as the temperature goes up, that productivity falls radically.
But also with, you know, health. Like I, [00:09:00] again, especially in countries, let's say like here people like the heat and they want to go out and to be in the sun and kind of really enjoy as soon as things get hot. It's really also sometimes difficult to tell people how dangerous it is for their health.
Mm-hmm. So both with productivity and the health, I think. That facility managers could take a more leadership role in creating like campaigns. For example, in the buildings I was in Manila, in the Asian Development Bank, which is the headquarters, which is a really big building. Had for a whole month a campaign that was running about extreme heat, how it affects people, the data who is vulnerable.
What people could do, et cetera, because in the hot cities it's the opposite, right? Like you can't persuade people because they say, oh, I'm used to heat. It's not dangerous. The cold cities people, you can't persuade them that it's dangerous because they really like it. The hot cities, they think it's, everything's fine because they're used to it, but they're not.
So in, in Barcelona on the beach, there were loudspeakers that [00:10:00] were telling people, you know, we're under heat wave conditions. Don't stay on the beach without, you know, being under shade for more than 20 minutes. Like there were specific directions through loudspeakers, you know, in the beach in Barcelona.
So I'm trying to say that facilities managers can actually really. Come to the forefront more instead of being in the back and help people understand the risk and the need for awareness raising, preparedness, and redesign.
Tom Ryckaert: I think that's really an important factor to address that facility managers.
Yeah, we need to communicate. We need to be like a spider in a web because there are so many stakeholders we need to take into account. And I really liked what you said and you also said in the keynote, it's about people. Yeah. And I think, yeah that's really important. Yeah. Also in the occupancy rates, which can have an impact I think.
Yeah, that's what you said with aligning everything about Yeah. Your heating, ventilation, and cooling. 'cause it has an impact. But yeah, looking at Europe for example, we have a really how do you [00:11:00] say that? Legacy and a lot of historic buildings. True. So this also has an impact.
So yeah, maybe how do you look at that as facility manager or expert in the heating, because Yeah, you can't do all the necessary works.
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Eleni Myrivili: It's often a problem. It's difficult to deal with historical buildings because they're harder to retrofit.
They have peculiarities and often maintenance issues on top of figuring out ways to make them [00:12:00] more sustainable. On the other hand. Sometimes we have to be clever and to understand that older buildings had ways of dealing with weather. Both cold weather and hot weather. That we have to think about augmenting them.
Mm-hmm. And thinking what they were thinking. So for example, in Paris they were saying Osmanian buildings often have this downstairs, which are often, they have an internal courtyard and they have these big doors and stuff. If we keep the door's more open. I know it's a security issue, but maybe if we move the security stuff more.
To the private, for example, apartments, but we keep the downstairs more open. Then we have a kind of wind circulation, both at the bottom, but also upward through the shafts that could actually create more passive cooling for the building. This is just an example, but it's like we have to think of, you know, shading as well as wind circulation ventilation first. And see how the [00:13:00] building, sometimes even our older buildings have ways that incorporate these aspects. And with a little bit of tweaking, we can actually have good results.
Christa Dodoo: I totally agree. And I think it's funny how. We are evolving as a people and as building managers, building engineers that yes, most of these buildings were created in a way that they could sustain themselves because we didn't have these mechanical systems exactly in the back.
And then we got up a few decades ago, we wanted to be smart. We wanted to do something fun and we changed and modified these systems and put in modern infrastructure in there.
Eleni Myrivili: Christa, can I just add just you? But the main thing was that we started depending on fossil fuels and we forgot the design aspects.
Yeah. That were So continue. I just wanted to just add this because we just, which is right. We just decided that we're gonna heat and cool things whenever we want. [00:14:00] Exactly.
Christa Dodoo: And we forgot about the fact that. All these engineers centuries ago.
Eleni Myrivili: Exactly.
Christa Dodoo: They had good ideas, but we thought we knew better, and then we changed the system.
Now we've realized these changes that we've incorporated are not sustainable. So how do we go back, to her point, to look at these old buildings because retrofitting is expensive. Yes, there are examples. You know, there are a lot of examples in Netherlands, in London where really old historic buildings have been made smarter and they are sustainable and green and all that.
Yes, there are examples. But that's just the minority. On the large scale, how do we ensure that we retrofit this? We can't because they are expensive. So can we go back to what their original designs incorporated and can we see how we can get some of those back into the design elements? Because they were there.
Yes. You know, the ideas were there, the designs were there. The base. For us to improve on [00:15:00] some of these conditions are there. So I think we have that opportunity whether we are willing to do it. That is another issue because then we are thinking, we want something fancy, we want something shiny. And those old ideas, like the example you gave, opening windows.
No one wants that, or sha or aside, the security components. We don't want that. We want everything to be concealed. We want to have the indoor air quality to be more controlled, so we want to have everything sealed out. So we need to, again, it comes back to balance. We need to figure out what works for every sector.
Every environment, what the cultural components are, and see how we can incorporate that as much as possible. And I think we'll may be able to find that balance there. Yeah,
Tom Ryckaert: and I think it's really a complex balance because yeah, Europe is also a little bit complex. I always look at facility management with a D step approach, demographic, economical, [00:16:00] social, technological.
Ecological and political. And I think all these factors have a huge impact because just talking about historic buildings, for example, I'm from Belgium, so the Belgian government's really complex if you want retro outfit buildings, but I can imagine in other countries it's the same. Absolutely.
So I think if they're not going to meet us halfway we have a huge challenge. So. I don't know. You worked on a global level also, and you also within, in facility management, so maybe how you look at these as the, you're absolute right, the government governance,
Eleni Myrivili: there's regulatory aspects for cultural heritage that are stopping people from doing things.
That can be an example recently that I was thinking about again, in Paris some friends are trying to create, and they've created structures for green roofs that can be attached to the old roofs because the tin roofs in Paris are, can be incredibly hot and create conditions that are like being in a microwave woven if you are, if you're living on the top floors of these [00:17:00] buildings with a metal, with the metal roofs.
So, it's not tin, I'm sorry, it's copper. I think it's copper roofs. So. So these copper roofs are extremely hot. So they have, you have to figure out, you can't do anything to them because they are part of the cultural heritage of the center of Paris. But you know, you can't have people inside that, you know, get you, you can insulate enough.
I mean, you can insulate to some extent, but you have to create capacity so that you also have some kind of reflexivity or some kind of green roofing to bring temperatures down. So that's an issue in, in, in Greece as well. We have tons of different issues with listed buildings and all around Europe, you're right.
So we might have to be a little bit more flexible with our regular regulations to, to adjust. And adapt to climate, to the new climate era. But also, I think it, I was thinking as Krista was talking, that we have to also start learning from cities that are to the south of [00:18:00] us. So sometimes there are solutions that are being used to our South and it's kind of interesting to to consider that also that, you know, a little bit, we can, we can take lessons from
Tom Ryckaert: Totally agree. I that's what our whole IFMA stands for. The international part also because, just a total different example. Last week was in the news in Belgium that the biggest shopping street in Antwerp, they are going to. We remodel it and they're going to put in some green, it's really sad to see.
So it's still a lot of concrete and they just put in some trees. So I'm just making it a little bit ridiculous now. But I think you can do much more by learning from other cities and just incorporate a lot of nice things. But yeah, just as an example. But yeah,
Christa Dodoo: I think we are driven by economic factors.
You know, so most of these decisions, it's not the environmental or the social components that drives this decision. Economic factors true. And that's the [00:19:00] reality. You know, so yes. The example you gave is it better to put just few trees just to say we are doing something in Antwerp. It's not the best, you know.
But it's better than what the concrete jungle is right now, and the government knows that completely changing that street to make it more green, to make it a more livable space for people is going to be costly.
There's no motivation to do that. You know, and so we need to keep looking at what are some of the intangible costs.
Or intangible impact that we are not focusing on. Yes, the financial components are clear. You can see the numbers, but not doing that was the impact on people on their social life and their cost of living and their wellbeing and all that. Exactly. If you focus on that, then you realize that not doing that is more costly for the people you are trying to protect, and I [00:20:00] think that will help the conversation.
A
Tom Ryckaert: little bit. I also agree on that when you have profit, it's not only about the quantity, about the numbers, yeah. It's also about the quality that you're going to generate for the wellbeing of people.
Eleni Myrivili: But we also have to figure out how to quantify the different impacts. So we have to give it a monetary value more clearly.
So that people can translate it into bankable projects. 'cause people keep saying, okay, like for example I was I was talking about this report that came out a couple of years ago, which actually they measured nine in 94, I think cities around Europe, that if you have 30%. Canopy cover from the trees.
You can lower deaths that come from extreme heat by one third. So this is like very specific, quantifiable kind of measure. You can say this is what the result I'm gonna have on heat related deaths, but it's deaths. And then you can figure out what does it mean for my health system?
Like how this 30% of canopy cover, [00:21:00] what does that cost? What kind of cost does it relieve from my investments to my public health system? What kind of cost does it relieve from let's say. Productivity losses, like how can I measure the productivity losses and how can I say that 30% of canopy cover actually will not, you know, I won't lose a hundred million per year that the US loses today from productivity losses because of heat.
But I will lower it down to, you know, 50 million or something like that. Like it's like we have to start making these things more measurable and more linked to specific values, monetary values so that we can facilitate decision making and financing of things that right now we're not financing.
And this, I think, is really crucial for which has to be linked together with universities and, and policy makers, [00:22:00] the EU has already started kind of creating these types of guidelines and tools, but not strong enough yet. So when a city or a facility manager kind of decides what kind of retrofits are they going to do and how they can justify doing this, which might cost, you know, 20% more.
How can they justify that financially justify it? Not for, you know, the environment or for health in general, or for, you know, better comfort, but actually what does it mean in financial terms?
Tom Ryckaert: Yeah. And I think also, yeah, you said in the beginning also the design phase. I think that's also an important one.
Eleni Myrivili: Very
Tom Ryckaert: So, and yeah, I'm a tech guy, so I think, yeah, technology could also play a huge role in, not only in the infrastructure. So how do you look to that?
Christa Dodoo: I think the technology as this now, it is easier for some of these buildings to be adapted. We have the technology, we have the knowledge.
[00:23:00] Engineering designing of buildings is not as difficult as it used to be in the past. There are a lot of sustainable ways. To, you know, re-engineer some of these infrastructure compared to, you know, times in the past. So I think we need to take advantage of what technology has to offer. We need to maybe need to plug it in here quickly that, whilst taking advantage of technology, one of the things we haven't, we keep forgetting is the cyber security and cyber safety components. You know, so facility managers don't think too much about that. And we need to put that at the forefront that cyber safety, cyber security is really key. So yes, let's take advantage of the technology.
Let's embrace all the opportunities and advancement it brings. But let's do that with safety. At the forefront with, you know, safety of the people, the infrastructure, and the communities that we find ourself in. So that we are [00:24:00] able to, again, I keep saying balance, but that delicate balance I think is really critical.
We can't do anything on one side of the pendulum. We need to have that delicate balance so that everyone or the other stakeholders will be able to buy into whatever ideas and, you know, initiatives that we want to promote.
Tom Ryckaert: Okay, great. So I think we are almost at the end of our time. So maybe just one last giveaway or tip and trick for our listeners.
So, yeah,
Eleni Myrivili: well there are two things that come to mind. One of them is the fact that again, facility managers and the different people in the leadership of either the cities or the countries. I think they have a really important role to play for raising awareness and preparing the facilities for our climate era.
And I think there's a lot to do both to raise awareness. To prepare , so that when we have heat waves, we don't [00:25:00] lose people and lose productivity. And finally, how to redesign, retrofit, et cetera, so I think the leadership is important that they step up to it and they do things.
But also the other thing which is really important is how can they. Help the people that work in the sector to understand what is important and what isn't. We have so much abundance of information now and so much knowledge and information kind of. Coming to us like a, like an avalanche.
And sometimes people don't know what to prioritize. And I think it's a really important role for anybody that finds themself in a role relatively of leadership or of decision making to kind of help people prioritize the knowledge. Like what should we do first? What should we do second? What should we do third?
And how can we gain knowledge in this thing and not a hundred different things. Because this is what we're gonna focus on, at least for now. And [00:26:00] then that thing, and then this. So three things, and let's help people focus, understand what's most important and and empower them to do things.
Okay. In relation to these issues we're talking about
Christa Dodoo: our pivot on the last point for my takeaway is educating people. Targets education and there is a lot of information. So to your point, refocusing I think we need to educate people. Let's have a very targeted message. What is the impact of the heat on our infrastructure, on our people?
Educate people. Let them be aware that it's not about the environment. You mentioned it's about people
Eleni Myrivili: and it's about their health. It's
Christa Dodoo: about their health and their survival. Exactly. So that target messaging, that target communication, educating people about this. I think for me that will be the main takeaway.
And we, as custodians of the infrastructure, let's try and do more. Let's do the leadership as [00:27:00] she mentioned, and ensure that we are at the forefront and advocating for some of these issues that impacted us both directly and indirectly.
Tom Ryckaert: Okay. Thank you very much Christa. Thank you very much Eleni to share your insights and
Christa Dodoo: yeah, that's a wrap.
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