After the 196 parties signing of the Paris Pledge for Climate Action in 2015, many have consistently advocated for sustainable design practices and social justice on the world stage. We believe that it is our obligation to mobilise and lead the building industry around these critical initiatives.
To hold ourselves accountable and provide a roadmap for governance in the industry, we believe the entire industry should produce multiple reports detailing progress against global climate change standards, on an annual basis.
Cop28
The Cop28 summit will be the first formal assessment of countries’ progress towards Cop21’s Paris Agreement’s target to limit climate change to 1.5 Celsius of warming. Countries’ current policies and pledges have failed to meet that goal, therefore Cop28 will be focused on accountability as well as immediate impact solutions. The assessment at Cop28 – currently coined “the Global Stocktake” – will increase pressure on major emitters to update their actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The construction industry should be developing a greenhouse gas inventory and associated carbon reduction strategies for operations to achieve the governmental Environmental Protection Agency’s “low emitter” status in their carbon footprint. Specific areas of focus should include a green lease strategy and low-carbon mobility.
The industry’s biggest opportunity to make a positive impact is through project work, this is where the emissions happen because of the volumes involved. Using a combination of energy-saving and energy-generating strategies, low-carbon material selection, passive solar design, and more, the entire industry could be eliminating millions of metric tonnes of potential carbon emissions through their project efforts.
Industry accountability
Some tangible steps the industry should be looking at:
- To partner with the building community to develop an approach for specifying construction materials and products that meet all clients’ sustainability targets. The goal must be to make sure every designer ensures the materials purchased have Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) Disclosure or Global Warming Potential (GWP) limits.
- Train designers in climate action and design resilience strategies. Embed a network of sustainability leaders in every office, studio, and project team. Without leaders, there is no accountability. Without accountability, there is no real action.
- Achieving carbon neutrality entails eliminating or offsetting all CO2 emissions from the built environment. To that end, our focus should be on minimising two primary sources: Emissions related to using buildings (operating carbon), and emissions related to making buildings (embodied carbon).
- Industry governing bodies should prepare product-specific sustainability standards for many of the most commonly used items in architecture and interior design projects. Sustainability criteria should be shared with the industry that focuses on high-impact, market-ready materials within our control. Our goal must be to work with manufacturers to reduce environmental impacts from their products, and ultimately transform the architectural supply chain.
Designing with enhanced technologies
There are so many opportunities to drive change using technology, and both technology and data are already being used to reduce, improve and safeguard buildings.
Using a Gensler example, as part of our NFORM Ecosystem, a proprietary data-driven design tool that enables the company to deliver sustainable design solutions for architecture, interiors, and urban design, with the aim of creating a better world through the power of design, Gensler created gPlanet, a comprehensive approach to resilience analysis that allows our designers to achieve design resilience in real-time on projects.
Based on metrics established by the AIA 2030 Challenge, our annual combined projects are estimated to save 9.67 million metric tonnes of CO2 each year. We are mobilising our efforts around decreasing operational and embodied carbon on our projects.
Dubai’s Expo 2020 is a good, and recent, example of using cutting-edge technology solutions. It functioned as a snapshot of cognitive buildings, creating a template for global smart cities on a sustainable, human-centric basis with optimised operations and reduced carbon emissions.
The built environment
As the world’s largest construction site, the Middle East is responsible for taking measurable steps to change the built environment’s impact on the world. Forty percent of all global carbon emissions come from the construction and operation of buildings.
With over $2 trillion worth of construction and infrastructure projects planned and under execution in the Middle East, we have a unique obligation and opportunity to establish the region as a global hub for sustainable solutions, taking action against the climate crisis. The urban built environment contributes to 75 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, with buildings and conventional construction alone generating nearly 40 percent of the sector’s solid waste.
According to a recent study by PWC’s report arm, Strategy&; 322 million, or two-thirds of the MENA region’s population, live in urban areas, and the numbers are expected to increase. Urban development has resulted in substantial CO2 emissions; the building and construction sector accounts for about 37 percent of energy-related emissions, with a record high in 2021.
Existing change
Although climate change action needs to be massively increased to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, the years since its entry into force have already sparked low-carbon solutions and new markets.
More and more countries, regions, cities and companies are establishing carbon neutrality targets. Zero-carbon solutions are becoming competitive across economic sectors representing 25 percent of emissions. This trend is most noticeable in the power and transport sectors and has created many new business opportunities for early movers.
By 2030, zero-carbon solutions could be competitive in sectors representing over 70 percent of global emissions. Gensler is committed to decarbonising our projects. By 2030, we will have saved 300 million metric tonnes of CO2.