Welcome to 2025, Materials Community! We are excited to be co-chairing the Materials Pledge Working Group as we dive headfirst into the second year of reporting, open from February 1st through May 31st.
We learned a lot from the inaugural reporting cycle last year (thank you to the 92 firms submitting inaugural data!), most importantly, the deep level of interest and engagement from this community. We've been able to address some of the feedback provided in this current reporting cycle, including:
- Separate survey for firm questions versus project and product questions,
- Clarification to questions and response options, elimination of redundancies,
- Links to definitions and resources,
- Additional detail on embodied carbon,
- Definitions by Impact Category for Transparency and Optimization, and
- Capability to report up to seven product types.
We know this current reporting cycle will yield even more insights, and we are looking forward to having more time to dive into that data this year, while also keeping our sights on what stories we are really looking to understand and share. What is the early data telling us, what are we missing, what are the best paths to combine big jumps alongside fine-tuning and refinement. As always, we will also be looking at how we continue to grow knowledge and participation in the Materials Pledge. Luckily, we have a powerhouse group to collaborate in all this good work! This year's Materials Pledge Working Group includes the following:
- Returning: Tanya Eagle, JLL | Jay Hindmarsh, The Miller Hull Partnership, 2025-2026 Co-Chair | Maria Papiez, EwingCole, 2024-2025 Co-Chair | Misha Semenov-Leiva, Centerbrook
- New: Kristi Ennis, Boulder Associates | Simona Fischer, MSR Design | Surya Prabhakaran, KieranTimberlake | Amy Running, BORA |Jenna Ritz, TenBerke | Melanie Silver, Payette (new)
- We also have several liaisons serving bridge roles between organizations and groups:
- Mary Dickinson, Perkins+Will
- Ashley Mulhall, Orcutt Winslow
- Lona Rerick, ZGF
- Our amazing AIA Staff representatives are Eana Bacchiocchi and Melanie De Cola.
- See the full Materials Pledge member roster here.and take a peak at our map below to see where our WG represents geographically.
So how you can best stay connected to this work over the year? Please join us for a final Open Office Hours session for RY24 reporting May 15th at 2pm ET, covering any lingering questions on this reporting period (register now!) You can also follow and participate in the AIA Community Hub for the A&D Materials Pledge. This forum provides the opportunities to post questions, discuss with fellow signatories, and find resources. We will also be posting periodic newsletters, like this one, as well as several with COTE News. If you are attending conferences this year, watch for Materials Pledge and related sessions; various members will be presenting at Living Future, NeoCon, AIA25, and other events! As always, email us at materials@aia.org for more information.
In closing, we enter this next year of the Materials Pledge inspired by the momentum, optimistic about our collective future, and eager to gauge our industry’s progress towards holistic materials selection. Critical to this effort is listening to the story of each reported project, and every firm’s journey towards improved design and documentation practices. The Pledge and reporting framework embodies a core principle: You can’t improve what you aren’t tracking. We are ready to continue moving the needle together, we can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to!
Best,
Maria & Jay