Climate change seems like such a huge challenge that addressing it can feel overwhelming. How do you make a dent in such a huge, intractable problem? If you look at energy consumption and carbon emissions around the world, buildings are a great place to start. According to the International Energy Agency, the buildings and buildings construction sectors combined are responsible for 36% of global final energy consumption and nearly 40% of total direct and indirect carbon emissions. In a city like NYC, buildings account for 67% of carbon emissions (NYT story and source of data). If we can reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, we can make a big dent. Most of these emissions come from activities related to heating and cooling.

What if I told you that there is a simple way of designing and constructing buildings that would reduce energy consumption of buildings by ~80%? It sounds too good to be true. That’s what I thought until I first learned about passive house building. My curiosity in passive house construction was first piqued when I noticed that the House at Cornell Tech was a certified passive house. I read more about the concept and, long story short, I am now involved in a passive house project myself and have learned even more seeing the process up close. There are very few things in life that appear too good to be true but actually real and practical. Passive house building is one of those things. I’ve learned that there is no “catch.” During this year’s polar vortex when temps dipped to -24F in Chicago, a passive house there maintained a comfortable 71F interior temperature and used 90% less energy in doing that than conventional homes. It just plain works.

My friend Michael Ingui of Baxt Ingui Architects recently launched a one-stop-shop site for all things passive house called Passive House Accelerator (disclosure: I am an advisor). It is the place to go to find out anything you want to know about the concept, from the basics to details on specific implementation issues. To learn more, start with the “what is a passive house?” post or watch a 3-minute video that recently aired on CNN. On a simple level, it’s building a house that is much like a thermos that keeps your coffee hot or your beverage cold for many days, but with a built-in fresh air system so that occupants of a passive house breath clean, fresh, filtered air at all times. Passive houses are healthier for both people and the planet. A thermal image of a row of brownstones in the CNN video shows how passive houses don’t leak (and conventional houses leak like crazy). The passive house is the dark blue one that is fourth from the left:

Building costs are 2-4% more on a typical passive house than conventional building and decrease as a building scales because the mechanicals and heating/cooling systems go farther in such an environment. Of course, when you are reducing energy usage ~80%, the slight premium on building gets paid back pretty quickly with substantially reduced operating costs. With modest solar installations, many passive houses can achieve net zero energy usage, or close to it.

Passive houses aren’t just for people and organizations with lots of money and resources. The positive long-term economics mean that passive house building is increasingly being used for affordable housing projects. In May, an affordable housing development for seniors in Corona, Queens was unveiled that was built to passive house standards. The Rural Studio at Auburn University’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction has an exciting 20K Initiative where they are experimenting with passive house design to provide affordable homes in rural Alabama, recognizing that the initial cost of a home is only the beginning of the equation when it comes to affordability. Operating the home is key, and lowering energy usage is the clearest path to ongoing affordability. Sustainability and affordability go hand-in-hand (read this in-depth Dwell piece for more info on this program).

I have never been more excited about anything as I am about passive house building. It’s rare that you see something that successfully combines human comfort and massive gains in energy efficiency. If you’re building a home or involved in a building project anywhere in the world, make sure you ask your architect and general contractor about passive house (and point them to Passive House Accelerator to learn more). This is not science fiction or a “wave of the future.” We don’t need new investments in research for this to work. It’s possible right now and happening all around us. Spread the word.

Jerry Colonna is a Trojan horse of the best kind. Back when I became CEO of Etsy in 2011, I was introduced to Jerry as the best CEO coach around. He had been Fred Wilson’s venture partner. He knew business. I thought of him as an advisor who was going to help me build my management team, raise money, crush it as a CEO. And that’s the Trojan horse aspect — who knew that inside this container of business excellence that some kind of spiritual transformation was in the offing? I certainly didn’t. But in the six years I worked with Jerry as a CEO, I learned how to live a better life, love more fully, and be the man I had been trying to be — so much more than being a chief executive.

Jerry’s book, Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up, comes out today and I couldn’t be more thrilled for my friend. The book is also very personal to me. Chapter 2, “The Crucible and the Warrior,” leads off with the story of Jerry and me sitting on the rooftop at Etsy after I knew I had been fired** but hadn’t yet told the company. Lots of things got written about me and Etsy through that period — some true, some shaped to better fit the corporate narrative that was needed at the moment — but what Jerry writes in Chapter 2 of his book is the most real and true thing ever written about me. It’s because Jerry was there for me and he listened and he witnessed. He previewed the chapter with me and I didn’t ask him to change anything. Jerry is a truth-teller.

A story of a private moment between Jerry and me that isn’t in the book tells you a bit more about how Jerry thinks and what working with him meant to me. In one of our sessions, I was a little worked up because I had taken a personality test and the results had shown that my personality type was a strong fit for the occupations of “poet” or “priest.” I couldn’t reconcile this with being a CEO. Jerry smiled and said, “Why can’t you be a poet and a CEO?” Good question. I was reminded of my studies and how Wallace Stevens, one of our greatest American poets, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1955 while serving as a vice president at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, where he spent this days evaluating surety insurance claims. Jerry has a way of reminding you of these things.

And that is really the point. The proportions are different for everyone, but we all have a little poet and priest in us because we are human. To live a full life, you have to embrace all parts of yourself. Selectively suppressing parts can have a high cost. (Jerry also told me I should read Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, which I did read and highly recommend).

Leaving Etsy started a very difficult time for me but also a new beginning, and the beginnings of that beginning are captured beautifully in Chapter 2 of the book. Today I’m working on a project that very few people know about that has absolutely nothing to do with tech. I text Jerry about it regularly and he sends back words of encouragement. I think it’s fair to say that this project calls equally on the poet, priest, and CEO within me. I’m not sure exactly where it will go, but it’s important to me regardless of the outcome.

The book is important because it captures Jerry as truth-teller so perfectly. When I read the book, I hear Jerry’s voice in my head and it sounds exactly like the hundreds of hours of conversations we had. It is a gift to the world and I believe will touch many lives in the way I’ve been touched. I’m glad to see it out in the world.

Thank you for helping keep the poet and priest alive in me, Jerry.

**the fact that I publicly said I had gotten fired versus some “decided to pursue other opportunities” corporate bullshit is largely due to the sense of truth I gained from working with Jerry. Life is full of pain — lean into it. If you got fired, speak the truth. It always catches up to you anyway.