Andrew Horning discusses how the pandemic will affect post-COVID environmental consciousness.
The year 2020 has presented catastrophic world challenges on multiple fronts simultaneously. Since the start of the year, the daily news has been filled with alarming stories and predictions about the COVID-19 global pandemic, climate change, and social equity and consciousness. A central theme among these topics is sustainability and resilience. That is, how do we sustain our people, businesses, and the economy? How do we make buildings safe for occupants? And, how do we advance social consciousness through diversity, equity, and inclusion to sustain all people? The common thread in all three questions is: sustaining people.
Prior to this tumultuous year, sustainability was often a stand-alone issue within climate change discussions. Scientists have been issuing dire warnings for years about the human impact on the environment and the need for action. We started to respond slowly in the 1970’s and have gained momentum in the 21st century. Throughout these decades, the building industry has been at the core of those discussions. Buildings themselves are a major source of operational and embedded carbon, and the largest energy users and the largest greenhouse gas emitters.
In the late 1990’s and early years of this century, design professionals generally endeavored to be kinder to the environment. Beginning with the advent of the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Certification (LEED) program in 1993, design and construction professionals focused on building performance through energy savings and sustainable materials. That was a fine first step. Over the last 10 years we have seen the emergence of broader sustainability programs such as Well, Fitwell, the Living Building Challenge, and Net Zero that have shifted focus to how the physical environment influences and affects people — a “healthy building” approach.
The global shutdown caused by the pandemic provided indisputable physical and visual evidence to illustrate how much the human species impacts the environment. In short order we saw:
• Himalayan mountain ranges that had not been visible for more than a century
• cleaner water in cities across the globe; and,
• record-breaking clean air quality levels in Los Angeles and other major cities.
These undeniable impacts have awakened many climate change deniers.
In addition to 2020’s global pandemic impacts, we have also seen the most active Atlantic storm season on record, the largest wildfire season in California’s history, and testimony from some leading environmental stewards such as Sir David Attenborough and former NASA scientist James Hansen. Attenborough’s recent film “Life on this Planet” illustrates the negative impact humanity has had on Planet Earth over the last 70 years of his life.
Specifically:
• Our tripling population
• A 20% increase in atmospheric carbon
• A 1 degree C increase in atmospheric mean temperature which hadn’t happened in 10,000 years
• Destruction of half the undeveloped wilderness
In the 1980’s, former NASA scientist and father of climate change science, James Hansen, investigated carbon’s impact on the climate and accurately predicted the temperature and carbon level increases we are experiencing in 2020. The physical evidence revealed by these experts coupled with the COVID-19 accelerant now serve as a rallying point for global sustainability.
This year has shown that sustainability and resilience are critical to our long-term future on the planet. Sustainability and social consciousness can no longer be the sole responsibilities of the stereotypical “tree hugging” community. These ideas are interdependent. They demand and deserve global attention and a universal call to action. Climate change is not a political statement and Social equity is a human right. Neither can be ignored and both are interrelated.
Market Forces
Even prior to COVID-19, sustainability market research firm Shelton Group recently found that consumers were already starting to change their buying behaviors to align purchases with their own sustainability and social responsibility values. Additionally, 67% of consumers believe companies should take responsibility for the end of life disposal of the products they manufacture to advance the concept of a circular economy. 82% of Millennials are already anxious about how climate change will affect their children’s quality of life. As evidenced by this year’s protests and demonstrations, Millennials are, on multiple levels, concerned for their future and their children’s futures, regarding sustainability, responsibility, and global social equity.
Research from Shelton group also concluded when government is dysfunctional at addressing an urgent issue, consumers look to the private sector to drive the change they need. As we saw with the advent of LEED, the sustainability market must adapt to become consumer and business driven, rather than mandated by the government. LEED was started by a joint team of industry experts in collaboration with concerned manufacturers to spur momentum. To large extent, it fueled the growth of the sustainability movement.
Sustainability is transforming from a value system based in dollars measured by performance and energy efficiency to a system measured by its ability to sustain people. The values in this new market will be based on human health impact, such as indoor air quality, environmental impact through embodied and operational carbon, and energy resilience measured by a project’s ability to create, use and/or give back energy. The building industry must migrate to a circular economy in lieu of the current recycle model. Projects must no longer be judged based upon placemaking, but rather on ‘peacemaking’ with the planet.
The sustainability transformation will broadly affect the A/E/C industry. A/E/C professionals must become thought leaders as it does. It is our responsibility as design professionals and trusted client advisors to drive the conversation at every project start to ensure setting and tracking sustainability goals.
The A/E/C industry will be held to higher standards because of our direct ties to the built environment: we design and build buildings — the largest users of embodied carbon.
Carbon will be the currency of transformation for our industry.
Embodied carbon management, carbon planning and reduction, carbon sequestration technologies, life cycle assessment and carbon factor attribution metrics will be move to the forefront of design and construction.
Over the past 10-15 years, some predicted that project carbon levels would drive project decision making and lead to decarbonization, but the market wasn’t developed enough to support those results. Those predictions are now finally becoming reality as the tools for measuring embodied carbon and operational carbon are becoming viable resources. (Embodied carbon is carbon expended from raw materials to building component to the end of lifecycle disposal or recycling. Operational carbon is carbon that is created in powering and operating buildings over their lifecycles.) Embodied and operational carbon make up nearly an even split of the total carbon on a project.
Current carbon accounting has focused primarily on building structure components (e.g. structural steel, and concrete, which constitute almost 80% of the embedded carbon in a building), envelope (glass and skin), framing systems, and finishes. But, to fully account for our actions, we need to include all materials and systems, including mechanical, electrical and plumbing equipment. To date, carbon accounting has been challenging to measure due to manufactured components. To advance this transformation, manufacturers must step up and produce Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for their products. For example, Trane has offered a line of chillers with published EPDs since 2011, but they are the exception, not the rule. The market must drive manufacturers to follow their example.
Carbon sequestration technology and carbon accounting continue to advance, enabling the leap in carbon-based market decision making that has been predicted for years. Strategies such as carbon positive aggregate, CO2 concrete injection, and the use of biomaterials and landscape solutions at all scales through carbon capture and burial are being deployed at ever-increasing rates.
Another significant carbon reduction influencer is renewable energy. Buildings account for 40% of national energy consumption. In 2020 the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported major advancements in renewable solar and wind energy with projected construction of nearly 40 GigaWatts (GW). The previous renewable energy high was only 17GW. This increase was spurred by the pandemic, but also by the reduction in solar energy cost to be on par with traditional fossil fuel energy. Concurrent advancements in power storage also helped level peaks and valleys of renewable production. For the first time in history the United States is on track to produce more electricity in 2020 from renewable power than from coal. The A/E/C community must continue to drive projects towards renewable energy sources.
Community will also become a key sustainability transformation component — on many levels. A project’s value will be measured by how it contributes to the local community by such metrics as providing shelter or employment, improving the local air or water quality, or becoming part of the local power microgrid to provide power equity to the area. Projects will also provide opportunities for community inclusion and create coalition.
For instance, Salesforce.com, the world’s leading customer relationship management software company, recently pledged to own and occupy only buildings that are net-zero carbon in operation by 2030. They demonstrated their commitment to net zero by putting together a coalition of tenants in a multi-tenant building to make net zero building upgrades when the landlord was resistant to commit upgrade dollars. This is an excellent example of how community coalition building can drive sustainable solutions for the community and the companies involved.
Sustainable rating systems, such as WELL, FitWell, Living Building Challenge, Passive House and Net Zero Project will continue to grow as the conversation transitions to “healthier buildings” in the post pandemic market. Each program will need to layer in the decarbonization concepts described above to be able to provide the full picture of a healthier, environmentally friendly project. Projects will be accountable for how they reduce their carbon footprint, provide a healthier occupant experience and lastly how much their project can give back to the environment. Energy reduction will no longer be the elephant in the room for carbon reduction. Projects that provide power back to the grid through local microgrids, or by sequestering carbon will become the norm.
Prior to the COVID Pandemic and the global shutdown, building owners and tenants began holding the A/E industry to a higher standard. They required firms, in Request for Proposal and Qualification (RFP/RFQ) processes, to provide their Sustainability and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Programs for consideration. COVID-19 has accelerated the importance of sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion and these characteristics will become a key future differentiator for A/E firms.
We believe the shift to the above approaches will influence future codes and policies to continue to drive the market to a better place. Equally important will be the public policy changes needed to help drive this carbon transition by implementing Low to Zero Carbon Codes. With market momentum and proven science, policy makers will no longer be able to ignore sustainability as a climate change driver.
Opportunities
Moving beyond 2020’s challenges, we face an amazing opportunity to reset our expectations as a culture. As Richard Palmer stated at the Design Futures Council’s 2020 Leadership Summit on the Future of Sustainability:
“What a time to be alive. To be born in this time and place is very rare. What a privilege to have the chance to change the path.”
We are at a tipping point to change the global view of sustainability. UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, stated in his September United in Science 2020 report:
“Never before has it been so clear that we need long-term, inclusive, clean transitions to tackle the climate crisis and achieve sustainable development. We must turn the recovery from the pandemic into a real opportunity to build a better future. In order to do that, governments need consistent and solid science, backed by the strong collaboration of scientific institutions and academia, to underpin policy decisions that can tackle the greatest challenges of our time.”
Green Swans
The market shift toward sustainability is described in John Elkington’s 2020 book “Green Swans.” He defines a Green Swan event as “a profound market shift generally catalyzed by some combination of Black or Gray Swan challenges and changing paradigms, values, mindsets, politics, policies, technologies, business models and other key factors.” He outlines a Black Swan event as ‘an unpredicted negative event that leaves a wake in which nothing is the same’, an apt description of the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Gray Swan is an event that could have been predicted but when ignored for too long erupts in a much larger event, a fitting description of the social justice movement.
A Green Swan delivers exponential progress in the form of economic, social, and environmental creation. The design and building industry must create a Green Swan event from COVID-19 by connecting owners, developers, and tenants with architects and engineers to demonstrate how sustainably designed and healthy buildings directly counter climate change effects. Those connections, backed by clearly directed actions, will shift us all back to living sustainably. That is: “of the planet,” rather than “on the planet.”
Andrew Horning, M.S., LEED AP BD+C is Vice President – Sustainability Leader with Bala Consulting Engineers. With over 30 years of experience in the engineering, real estate, and construction industries, Andy brings a passion for sustainability to all his projects. He leads Bala’s internal sustainability team driving Bala to evaluate and innovate sustainable solutions for clients. Under his leadership Bala’s sustainability team has expanded their knowledge on topics such as carbon emissions, net zero design, passive house, and renewable energy. Andy holds a Masters in Sustainability from Villanova University.
In 2020 Andy led Bala’s COVID-19 Task Force to direct and research the impacts of COVID-19 on facilities and sustainability. He has authored numerous publications and presentations identifying strategies to increase the health, safety and wellness of facilities. He directs Bala’s Corporate Office Sector projects and has led Bala’s design team on prominent corporate headquarters projects throughout the Northeast region and beyond.