“One of the critically important things is that we’re finally seeing real discussion about embodied carbon, materiality and supply chains,” Deradoorian-Beaudoin says. “We recognize the severity of the impact the AEC industry can have and already has had on the global climate crisis. We’re now viewing ourselves as climate stewards via the built environment.”
“We are seeing improvements in existing buildings via changes and renovations, not just in new construction anymore,” Schlegel says. “These range from tremendously ambitious renovation projects that dramatically reduce energy-use intensity, maximize onsite strategies for water and energy, and increase the reuse of materials to simple changes in commissioning existing building systems. There is always room for improvement, but we have a good start. For example, as of 2022, more than 300,000 buildings in the U.S. were benchmarking their energy and water performance using ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager.”
The Bad
There are things to celebrate; thinking about where the industry is today compared with 30 years ago would indicate an incredible amount of progress. The trouble is that it doesn’t line up with the magnitude of the problem and where things need to be.
“We are just not fast enough,” Hollwich admits. “Existing buildings are a big part of the problem. We need a new attitude toward sustainability that uses minimal technology; optimizes materials; and prioritizes things, like longevity. We should make sure new buildings last ‘forever,’ and design buildings that convert between different building programs over time.”
“We’ve ignored the concept of adaptive reuse for a long time and we, as designers, have ignored supply chains and materiality,” Deradoorian-Beaudoin adds. “As an industry, we need to return to some broader concepts of resourcefulness and circularity. Building and construction is one of the oldest industries in the world, and when we look back to how things were constructed centuries ago, there are so many similarities about utilization of local materials and utilizing energy-efficiency practices that we try to replicate in green-building frameworks today. Moving forward, we need to look at the entire life cycle of a building instead of just focusing on its operational timeframe. All these principles should be weighed when considering either a new-construction or an adaptive-reuse project.”
“While designers and builders have figured out how to build, operate and renovate buildings to very high levels of performance, in many cases at no higher cost and yielding good financial performance, our financial and regulatory systems haven’t caught up yet,” Schlegel says. “To move money at scale to high-performance building construction and renovation, we need to focus on shifting these systems. For example, we can provide favorable mortgage-lending terms for people when they do a major renovation since climate-focused renovations can save money and prevent losses in extreme weather. Better buildings accrue benefits not only to the building owners and occupants, but also to the wider community by being resilient and reducing the energy drain on the grid.”
The Path Ahead
As the climate continues to change and sustainable design techniques improve, the industry also faces the usual challenges of use, budgets, schedules and materials. Things are always changing. Tackling all of this in a way that gets us to the climate-mitigation goals everyone agrees are necessary requires an entire new way of thinking about buildings, their impacts, value and stories.
“Trends have really changed in the post-COVID environment. We can look at beautiful new buildings that were constructed in 2019 and now are vacant,” Deradoorian-Beaudoin says. “We need to start having conversations about highest and best use as opposed to simple ROI. Whether vacant land or an existing building, we need to look at assets holistically. One of my favorite projects I’ve worked on is the adaptive reuse of Michigan Central Station in Corktown, Mich. It was retrofitted to be part of the Ford portfolio of offices. When you think about the heritage of this more-than-100-year-old train station that will now be used for imagining future mobility, it tells a beautiful story that would not have been told if someone hadn’t taken the risk to go with an adaptive reuse instead of new construction.”
“We have seen success in nearly every area of the built environment,” Schlegel says. “There is tremendous innovation happening everywhere in the supply chain, in every discipline. The challenge is scaling these approaches and making sure the benefits are accessible to everyone, rather than just an elite few who can afford to focus on sustainability. In 10 years, I hope the industry looks quite a bit different than it does today, and that we have alignment in our daily design, construction, operations and renovation practices, as well as in our financial and regulatory systems. Over the past decade we’ve been able to hold our energy consumption flat, and in some cities, like Washington, D.C., reduce our energy consumption even with economic and population growth. If all businesses and governments set targets and work to meet them, I believe we will see global change.”
“I have rather ambitious goals,” Hollwich admits. “Let’s reward companies that go past the set targets and goals. The AI revolution should be utilized immediately to aim higher. Let’s try to create even higher targets with the joined intelligence between humans and AI. We have to turn sustainability into a fun experience. And something people demand.”