Green architect

Courtesy : www.bioregional.com/

Even the construction industry has begun to stir. A group of 17 Stirling Prize winners have formed the group ‘Architects Declare’ calling for a shift in behaviour and collective action within the sector, to confront the climate and biodiversity emergencies. The members have pledged to design buildings, cities and infrastructure that have a more positive impact on the environment.

This backdrop provides the opportunity to revisit and recharacterize what constitutes sustainable building. We need to move past reliance solely on compliance and certification because there is zero space for grey anymore. From now on, your development is either sustainable, or it is not. It either maximises its contribution to the fight against climate change and nature loss, or it doesn’t. It fully supports people to lead wholly sustainable lifestyles, or it’s part of the problem.

And to achieve this new, higher expectation that must be adopted, we must look at every scheme on its own merits to understand the challenges and opportunities it is faced with. There is no blanket solution found within an Excellent or Gold rating. At the least, every project must achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its lifecycle, now helpfully defined by the UKGBC’s Net-Zero Carbon Task Force (of which I was proud to be part).

We must also understand what motivates the people who will be living, working and visiting the buildings we build, and how they can be helped to address their own ecological impacts. It is no longer solely about design – as a sector we must look at how our buildings will be used, how we can provide and manage the environment and facilities to enable a move towards lower-impact, resource-efficient ways of living.

Although useful as a vehicle to promote better standards, I hope in the future there will be no need for Certification & Benchmarking groups, no need for assessment tools at all in fact. Instead, there will be a renewed commitment in place to building sustainably throughout the sector. A full, unquestionable pledge to tackling the causes of these global crises by those responsible for designing, building and managing the places we live and work.

The architects have declared a state of emergency. Now the whole industry must follow suit.