Current Trends in Sustainability
After reading about each of these organizations they have many shared goals one is to operate to make a positive difference in the climate, individuals health, and the built environment. CLF on carbon emissions in materials, Architecture 2030 on climate-aligned performance for buildings and communities, and HBN on human and environmental health hazard transparency in materials. All together they offer a layered approach to carbon reduction, energy performance, and health safety. That can all guide sustainable design and industry practices together.
Carbon Leadership Forum
The Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) is a nonprofit organization focused on eliminating embodied carbon. This would be the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a building's materials and construction processes. CLF accelerates decarbonization in the construction industry through research, tools, and community building. It was so interesting getting too deep dive into their website and understand what they do.
Their missions are to eliminate embodied carbon of buildings, materials, and infrastructure to create a just and thriving future. They want to drive transformational change so that buildings and infrastructure contribute near-zero embodied carbon. The organization does this by improving life cycle assessment (LCA) tools and data access. This informs policies, and creates a network of architects, engineers, contractors, material suppliers, policymakers, and others. This creates a great deal of cross-sector collaboration between all sorts of practices that can help to share knowledge and helps create action.
Architecture 2030
Architecture 2030 is a nonprofit climate-action organization that was established in 2002. This program drives strategies to make the built environment a central solution to the climate emergency.
The company's core mission is to rapidly transform the built environment. This applies to cities, buildings, infrastructure all from a leading source of emissions to a zero-carbon. They aim to achieve dramatic reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030, and complete elimination of fossil fuel-related emissions in the built environment by 2040.
They have a focus on the 2030 challenge; this is a highly influential framework setting targets for energy and emissions reduction in new and renovated buildings. This has been adopted by many professional firms, cities, and policymakers. Architecture 2030 has developed strategies and tools (like the Zero Tool) to help and aid designers and planners benchmark and track energy reduction performance. Through their partnerships and networks, the organization scales impact across urban areas, this aligning's climate science with development.
Healthy Building Network & Pharos Chemical Database
The Healthy Building Network (HBN) has recently rebranded as Habitable. It is a nonprofit focused on reducing toxic chemicals in building materials through their research, education, and specification tools. One of HBN’s flagship resources is the Pharos chemical database, which aggregates hazard information from over 70 authoritative lists to help evaluate chemicals for human health and environmental risk. Pharos helps designers, manufacturers, and researchers identify the hazardous chemicals and explore much safer alternatives.
They have talked about adding hazard data for previously uncharacterized chemicals. This refers to ongoing efforts to bring more chemical hazard information into Pharos, addressing gaps in transparency for chemicals with limited prior data. This is a major key step into making healthier material decision-making.
For my One Step Further this week I decided to look into the wats and strategies that an interior designer can implement into their designs to limit carbon footprint from the inside out. I found so many interesting resources that discussed the responsibility that we have as interior designers. One brand specifically was Ideal Standard; they talk about the elevated plan that they must meet to sell and produce products that are sustainable and efficient. They talk about how all their materials have been recycled and, in the future, can be reused. I also found such an eye-opening video about the carbon footprint of a sandwich. That we can always think about the larger items but what about the things that we may not consider. So then I looked into the carbon footprint of a chair. This video was quite long, so I watched just apart of it starting at 17:30 and ending at 36:00. This was so interesting getting to hear and learn the breakdown of the products.
What is the Carbon Footprint of a Piece of Furniture?
The Carbon Footprint Of A Sandwich
Sustainable Focus: Ideal Standard’s roadmap to carbon neutrality
Extra Credit
What is a Carbon Reduction Strategy?
3 Sustainable Interior Design Techniques
I really liked how you explained the goals of the Carbon Leadership Forum, Architecture 2030, and Healthy Building Network. You clearly showed how each group focuses on something different, but they all work toward lowering carbon and creating healthier buildings. I also liked your example of looking at the carbon footprint of everyday items. It shows how interior designers can make better choices in small but important ways.
ReplyDeleteHere is an article I read about carbon neutral interiors. It connects to the ideas you wrote about reducing carbon through materials and design choices.
https://britishinterior.com/carbon-neutral-interiors-sustainable-guide/
This post outlining the current initiatives is sustainability is very comprehensive and well organized- thank you for sharing the links and graphics. Well done!
ReplyDelete