Dear 2030 community,
On behalf of the 2030 Working Group, we want to send a much-appreciated thanks for your firm’s continued participation in the program. This year, our Working Group and staff have been hard at work on two exciting projects that we’re excited to share updates on below:
This year’s 2030 By the Numbers report has signs of hope within it, including the number of firms reporting data, the number of projects reporting Embodied Carbon Intensity (ECI), all electric buildings, and renewable energy. But the data also shows there is clearly more to do as predicted Energy use Intensity (pEUI) and the number of energy modeled projects has plateaued at roughly 50% for the past 5 years. We are progressing as an industry towards net zero emissions as we move towards quantifying and building low-carbon buildings, but there is, as always, more to do.
On September 18th, eighteen months since its inaugural gathering, the Embodied Carbon Harmonization and Optimization (aka ECHO) Project released its White Paper and Schema, a spreadsheet designed to streamline data reporting, reduce inconsistencies, and support seamless data exchange across various LCA tools, platforms, and databases.
AIA was represented on ECHO by A+D Materials Pledge Co-Chair Lona Rerick, AIA, and 2030 Commitment Co-Chair David Arkin, AIA, Climate Leadership Kathleen Lane, AIA and Melissa Morancy, Assoc. AIA, one of the primary authors. The project included representatives from SE2050, MEP2040 and similar industry groups, and was convened by Architecture2030, USGBC, IFLI, Carbon Leadership Forum and Building Transparency. Its aim is alignment around reducing embodied carbon impacts of the built environment along with calculating and reporting.
The 2030 Commitment Working Group added Embodied Carbon into the Design Data Exchange (DDx) for the 2020 Reporting Year and has seen doubling to tripling every year. Fields will be added aligned with the ECHO Schema and the A+D Materials Pledge Climate Health Impact Area. We look forward to continued increases in embodied carbon reporting pushing us towards a net zero emissions future.
Best,
David Arkin & Jesse Walton
2030 Working Group co-chairs, 2024