The Last Crusade

Perry England started his career in 1985 turning wrenches while he was still in college. Forty years later, he is focused on one of the biggest levers left.

Pilotlight co-founder Jeff Nichols sat down with England, Building Performance Vice President at MacDonald-Miller, at the Vision 2026 Awards, where he was nominated for Leadership. What drives him is a conviction that the built environment cannot decarbonize on willpower alone. It needs capital.

What he called one of the last crusades of his career is contributing to the success of Washington Builds, what Washington state calls what the rest of the country calls a green bank. The idea: use public funds as credit enhancement to attract private investment. By his math, $20 million in public money can spend like $60 to $100 million when structured right.

Commercial real estate is under real pressure right now, with new compliance obligations, rising costs, and a shifting market. England’s argument is that decarbonization has to become not just the right thing to do, but the economically obvious thing to do.

That argument only gets made building by building, which means owners need a clear picture of what they owe, when, and what it will cost them to miss it. That is the part Pilotlight handles.

He has been in buildings his whole career. Now he is trying to save them.