CARBON NEUTRAL (LET'S GO!)

The Advocacy committee are working on assisting members who are committed to making their businesses Carbon Neutral.  We are seeking a process that leverages collective involvement, is verifiable and defensible (and informative, hopefully easy, kind-of fun, interesting…)

Our friends at Architect’s Declare have encouraged Architects to create positive change and many of us have signed on with a promise to act. Across social media - hundreds of Architects (many who are ArchiTeam members) committed to this initial process:

1. 100% GreenPower by 30 January 2020
2. Carbon Audit by 30 June 2020
3. Carbon Neutral by 30 December 2020

Opting into GreenPower is as simple as requesting it from your supplier.  If you are in a shared space and others are responsible for the electricity account (who might be resistant) then let them know that suppliers allow customers to select the percentage of GreenPower to be used so you can request to only cover your share.

Undertaking a carbon audit (determining the carbon footprint), purchasing offsets (buying the credits) and any process of verification is where we are investigating how best to assist.

Full self evaluation is problematic for a whole range of reasons. Best practice involves the only Government supported pathway, Climate Active Certification, but this process and consultants who are Climate Active Registered are geared to businesses bigger than the typical ArchiTeam member and are expensive (especially undertaken annually).

As the first step, Foomann (our practice) has engaged a Climate Active Registered Consultant to complete an audit. This is being approached as a pilot exercise to see how it can best be offered to members who opt in.  At this stage, we intend on determining a baseline involvement with the additional option of full Climate Active Certification. We are confident that efficiencies in doing this together will save us time and dough to make a bigger difference.

 Stay tuned,
Jamie Sormann

Director, Advocacy Portfolio