Firmwide Carbon Reporting - Best Practices

Hi John, There used to be a repository online at AIA that contained all firms’ Sustainability Action Plans, that was an interesting insight into specific goals and practices. I spent 20m and can’t find it now. LMN’s from 2018 is here and you can find many other firms with a simple google search. https://lmnarchitects.com/lmn-research/2030-sustainability-action-plan Our Path To Zero Carbon series explores carbon neutrality from a variety of perspectives, post 02 shows our projects are perhaps 600x our firms’ calculated carbon footprint. We don’t believe we are anywhere near carbon neutral, but research for this is helping us understand where we need to focus. The new AIA Climate Action Business Playbook could be useful. I haven’t read it…yet. For us, several milestones and best practices stand out, and what really helped us is moving from ‘this happened on a few projects where the client wanted it’ to ‘firm requirements for all major projects.’ Early 2000s – first LEED project (Seattle Central Library) 2007 – first carbon footprint and purchase 2010 – first reporting for AIA 2030 Commitment 2011 – first Sustainable Action Plan 2014 – no vinyl policy (we still use some where we can’t avoid it) and materials library labeling using our own system and later mindful materials 2016 – all projects required to use early energy modeling 2018 – updated Sustainable Action Plan 2019 – all major projects required to use WBLCA/embodied carbon reductions 2020 – project sustainability minimums checklist (many items) That’s a very short version. Before each of these stages were efforts to use and understand tools and process to ensure that we can consistently apply an aggressive floor of sustainability effort on each project. We also have a Project Sustainability Coordinator on each project to bring this to the fore, and research teams to bring best practices to each project. -Kjell From: John Peterson

Kjell, Thank you for this. I was just revisiting that Action plan repository link. It was a Dropbox location that should be able to be accessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cq0g3s5f3ua3scj/AACfREITsLk5GKhHgUga5fAda?dl=0 Mark Mark A. Maddalina , AIA, LEED AP BD+C Principal | Sustainable Design Director SWBR Rochester | Syracuse | Troy

Thank you all for your input and shared information on this topic. I am in the process of writing our firm's minimums checklists (as you mentioned, Kjell, for 2020). Do you have any tips in how those checklists became useful for project teams? Or what resources you found to be helpful in narrowing these lists down? I'm finding that these lists are long, mimic a lot of what certifications require, and may be too cumbersome for teams to use. 

Our checklist is intentionally a single page (no tldr allowed), broken down by project phase (including marketing/winning work), and includes required minimums: whole building embodied carbon analysis and reductions, material + health refresher, early goals conversations, an internal and external sustainability workshop/kickoff, and early energy modeling among other things. It’s meant to be part of just the way we do business whether a client asks for it or not. A few of us check in with project teams to make sure these are on the radar, getting done, and supported as needed. Obviously, it sounds easier than it is or has been. Basically, I bug people a lot, and some are now just doing it. Others want me to continue bugging them. We also have a great team that includes Justin our embodied carbon lead and Chris our building performance lead, so it’s easy to provide support for project teams that need it. I’m interested in hearing how other firms are approaching this. -Kjell From:

John, NBBJ is a CarbonNeutral certified company. We decided to take that step about 2-1/2 years ago and certify through Climate Impact Partners and their CarbonNeutral firm certification program. Several of our major clients also use the same program and GHG reporting protocol, which was an attraction to their system. We really wanted the rigor that comes with a clear protocol and independent assessment of our GHG emissions.  The certification and emissions tracking is just about our operations and does not include our work - as Kjell noted, the carbon emissions of our product is much much larger than our firm footprint. But it a very useful step for us and commnicates to our clients and staff the firm's level of commitment. We have also committed to Amazon's Climate Pledge as a signatory and report our emissions through CDP.  As part of those commitments we are also developng a carbon reduction plan to map out the path to meeting our reduction goals that come with both our certification and Climate Pledge commitments. We are aligning reasonably well with SBTi but have not (yet) certified our carbon reduction plan - that might come next year.  This is, of course, in addition to our project work. But I feel we have to walk the talk in our own business along with decarbonizing our project work. We are learning a lot and that is helping us with our work as well. It's been a good experience and getting data out there always sparks conversations.  Happy to chat more if you want to learn more about our journey.