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The ending of this year’s COP26 conference has left many architects to ponder how effective the mostly non-representative group of negotiators were in addressing the skepticism and high expectations coming into the meeting that is meant to address what is undoubtedly the greatest moral issue of... View full entry
With COP26 entering its final day in Glasgow, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have used the event to unveil their vision to transform the built environment into a network for absorbing carbon. Titled 'Urban Sequoia,' the project is centered on the concept of “forests” of buildings which sequester... View full entry
Far from Glasgow and COP26, Ithaca, New York, just made an unprecedented move to tackle climate change and the city’s carbon footprint. In a unanimous vote on Wednesday night, Ithaca’s city council approved the full decarbonization of its buildings. — CNBC
This is the first US city to begin work on a 100% decarbonization plan. It secured $100 million in private financing from private equity partner Alturus to support the effort, a move that may be more effective in tackling emissions than federal and state efforts. Ithaca’s energy efficiency... View full entry
A new study released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) highlights the role solar energy could play in decarbonizing the country’s power grid. The Solar Futures Study shows that by 2035, solar energy has the potential to power 40% of the nation’s electricity and employ as much as... View full entry
California is set to mandate the inclusion of solar panels and battery storage for new buildings. Following a unanimous vote of approval by the California Energy Commission, the measure is expected to be included in an overall revision of the state’s building code in December of this year... View full entry
Decarbonising the construction industry is something in which Oslo wants to lead the world. And it's with good reason. At present, the construction sector alone is responsible for more than 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of construction is even more evident when looking at CO2 emissions from energy use – with the sector contributing 38% of the world's emissions. — BBC News
Matthew Keegan explores how cities like Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen are working to clean up one of the world's most high-emission industries. View full entry
This post is brought to you by Architecture at Zero The American Institute of Architects, California (AIACA) announces the launch of the tenth annual Architecture at Zero competition focused on decarbonization, equity, and resilience in building design. The annual competition is open for... View full entry
On the subject of architecture and construction’s contribution to climate change, our existing building stock is coming under increasing scrutiny. While the United Kingdom recently announced a review into embodied carbon in buildings, thanks in part to the Architect Journal’s RetroFirst... View full entry
Buro Happold and the Battery Park City Authority have published a 10-year sustainability plan that aims to achieve carbon neutrality for the 36-acre district situated on the southern tip of Manhattan by 2050. The district, which sits just beside the World Trade Center site, contains over... View full entry
In recent decades, architects, developers and policymakers seeking to lower the carbon footprint of buildings have focused on reducing energy use by improving the efficiency of lighting, heating and other systems. To lower emissions even further, they are looking beyond such operational matters to the carbon emitted in the production and transportation of the materials that make up the structures, or so-called embodied carbon. — The New York Times
Jane Margolies of The New York Times surveys advances in concrete decarbonization strategies, highlighting a set of concrete manufacturers that are using novel additives and different concrete recipes to save on carbon emissions. Margolies takes a look at LafargeHolcim, Solidia... View full entry
As Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden moves to set out a concrete policy regime to counter that of President Donald Trump, the Biden campaign's "Unity Task Force" coordinated with supporters of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has announced a slew of progressive policy aims... View full entry
Local Laws 92 and 94, which went into effect on November 15, 2019, require all new buildings and major roof alterations to be capped with a green roof, solar panels, or some combination of the two.
If successful, the new policies could transform New York’s skyline.
— Urban Omnibus
In their publication Urban Omnibus, The Architectural League of New York asked experts from the Green Roof Researchers Alliance to elaborate on the implications of NYC's ambitious decarbonization legislation, the Climate Mobilization Act, which — since November 2019 — requires all new... View full entry
Perhaps the biggest risk is that the appeal of natural-sounding solutions can delude us into thinking we’re taking more meaningful action than we really are. It “invites people to view tree planting as a substitute” for the sweeping changes required to prevent greenhouse-gas emissions from reaching the atmosphere in the first place, says Jane Flegal, a member of the adjunct faculty at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society. — MIT Technology Review
James Temple, writing in the MIT Technology Review outlines the argument against viewing tree-planting as a climate crisis silver bullet. While planting trees might seem like a quick and easy way of helping to abate the climate crisis, Temple explains, increasingly, researchers are finding that... View full entry
With a new Executive Directive issued by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the City of Los Angeles has become the latest California municipality to make a plan to decarbonize its municipal building stock. Under the recently unveiled Executive Directive No. 25, L.A.'s Green New Deal: Leading... View full entry
[...] a team of Canadian science and engineering graduates is pitching a dream to plant a billion trees by 2028 using drones. The project is dubbed Flash Forest and combines the use of drones with specially-designed pods and an accelerated seed germination process. According to Flash Forest, its technology can plant trees 10 times faster than a single worker and at a cost that is 80 percent cheaper than traditional tree planting methods. — New Atlas
On their Kickstarter page, the team behind the Toronto-based Flash Forest project explains what happens before and after heavy-lift drones pneumatically fire their custom-designed seed pods into the ground: "Before we plant our pods, we pre-germinate the seeds inside using our own 'secret sauce.'... View full entry
