HED has pledged to continue its support of The 2030 Challenge and now the Carbon Positive Reset, a full day live educational webcast led by Ed Mazria, intended to educate, inspire, and mobilize our colleagues and allied professionals worldwide to embark on a course of action which can rapidly change our world. The global teach-in will showcase the most effective building materials, construction methods, design tools, architecture and planning strategies, practices and policies for dramatically and rapidly reducing the embodied and operational carbon emissions as we RESET our targets and actions to meet the Paris Agreement.
As Carbon Positive states: "It’s clear we can grow our economies, create and support livable communities, and phase-out fossil fuels to solve the climate crisis. Now is the time to collectively accelerate our motivation and actions – designing buildings with no on-site fossil fuels; innovating and shifting to carbon positive buildings, materials, construction and infrastructure; creating building decarbonization and clean energy jobs; integrating passive design strategies and renewable energy in projects; and addressing the root causes of increasing and projected climate catastrophes and pandemics. The world will certainly be better equipped to confront potential disasters if we readily and immediately share resources, expertise, and information.
As it now stands, we can still retain a high probability of meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target and avert the most dangerous aspects of climate change by reducing annual CO2 emissions 50% to 65% in the built environment by 2030, and completely phasing-out of fossil fuel CO2 emissions by 2040."
With buildings and infrastructure responsible for well over half of all annual global emissions, the international architecture, engineering, construction, planning, and building community must play a key role in meeting the 1.5°C target. Actions and support from leaders in A/E/C are crucial. As economies emerge from the global pandemic and building and infrastructure construction recover, sector actions will send a strong market signal and give governments the confidence to act in line with the remaining global carbon budget.
We have affirmed our commitment and pledged financial support for this cause, and we hope that other firms will join in the effort!