There is a gap between the net zero promises of the organizations and the reality of their building stock. Since the construction industry is responsible for 39% of global energy -related carbon emissions, many companies and government agencies have set goals in order to reduce the climate effects of their buildings.
Until recently, the focus was on reducing the surgical carbon by upgrading HLK and lighting with, for example, more energy-efficient technologies. In order to achieve net zero goals, many organizations shift their attention to embodied carbon-like emissions that are released during the raw material function, product production, transport to construction sites and demolition.
Pioneer has received such efforts that has received the seven top ten Awards for sustainable design excellence of the AIA Committee of the AIA Committee of the AIA Committee of the AIA Committee of the AIA Committee of the AIA Committee for the Environment. Since the signing of the AIA 2030 obligation to achieve net zero emissions in the built environment in 2011, the company has increased the energy efficiency of its built projects by 27 percent and reduces total energy consumption by 58 percent.
Two of Perkins & Wills Studios are now concentrating on the renovation work in the interiors, a large, but often overlooked contribution to the life cycle -carbon emissions of a building.
Targeting embodied carbon
Before a building is opened, embodied carbon can make up to 50 percent of its lifelong emissions.
Then the renovation work over its lifespan can add as much embodied carbon as the original build every 5 to 10 years. As a result, sustainability managers are left to work with construction companies in order to waste less, to reuse and to make considerations about products and materials.
“Commercial renovation work that achieves net zero performance are not only good-sie for the planet,” said Carrie Szarzynski, Senior Managing Director and head of management services at the HIFFMATION National Real Estate company. “Lower energy consumption lowers long -term operating costs, while reuse of materials and the selection of carbon products with a low coded carbon can further reduce the environmental impact and reduce construction costs.”
“There are many different ways towards Net Zero and they can be survived or combined yourself,” said Jon Penndorf, Associate Principal and Studio Director of Renerative Design at Perkins & Wills Washington, DC, Studio. “In some projects, adaptive reuse is much more sense than to build everything from scratch and to look at the global warming potential of every product.”
Net-zero interior
Different context, restrictions and opportunities mean to develop flexible strategies and focus on long-term goals-even if the market is not completely ready.
In 2020, the London studio from Perkins & wants to promise the Net -Null carbon promise that interiors throughout Europe can reduce a embodied and operational carbon for customers. The goal was that half of the studio projects by the end of 2021 and by the end of 2025 the rest of the goods and all reached by 2030 carbon. The Washington, DC, soon followed his own promise.
“I think it was a bit like a lunar shot,” said Adam Strudwick, Perkins and Will's director for the workplace. “I don't think we had ever expected that we would achieve all the destinations. We wanted to measure ourselves against changing the change of industry.”
Three steps to success
Perkins & Will's process to work with customers to make progress at Net Zero Interiors follows three steps:
1. Educate and work together
All internal and delivery teams from Perkins and must understand that “we basically have to design an architecture that contains several uses and reduces the need to extract virgin materials,” said Strudwick.
The aim of the company is to help customers reconcile sustainability with their values, budgets and long -term goals. This includes the evaluation of whether you should move or renovate how to reuse furniture, where you can invest for maximum health for people and the planets, and so on.
In the case of Greenpeace, for example, the non -profit organization wanted his new DC headquarters in Washington, DC, his mission to reverse the negative effects of climate change. “We had to continue the story, be pioneers and innovators,” said Haiba Bakar, director of Greenpeace.
Greenpeace worked with Perkins & wants to turn the headquarters into a prototype for the air -conditionable interior. This was broken off by the choice of the recent use of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) in the Franklin Square Office Building in the northwest DC during and after the pandemic was broken off the mill work, blankets and the inner glass of the APTA conference center in an almost perfect condition.
2. Show rooms as a material bank
Companies may only remember to empty the space they want to refresh, but Strudwick encourages them to consider it as a source of materials that are waiting for a different life.
“Waste is only a material without identity,” said Strudwick. This requires a reinterpretation of materiality – reused furniture, the repetition of parts, the renovation instead of buying new ones. “Recycling is not the answer,” he added.
Many components have a value in terms of reducing the embodied carbon, the lifespan of existing materials and the cost reduction. For the Greenpeace project, the onboarding of the general entrepreneur and the subcontractor at the beginning of the draft process enabled the team to maximize the materials on site, to maximize the materials outside the location and the design for disassembly.
“We used components that you would not expect to be reused,” said Penndorf – including metal tunnels, plasterboard, ceiling tiles and grids as well as wooden doors, blocks and features.
3. Celebrate success
The last step is to tell end users, customers and visitors a meaningful story. This is a two -track story in which “the environmental advantage is emphasized not to throw everything in the trash, and the cost advantage not to have to build everything again,” said Penndorf.
Greenpeace achieved a reduction in the embodied carbon by 54 percent from its basic life cycle analysis. The Ripple effects of the project continue. When Bakar spoke to other customers and potential customers and said: “What I constantly hear, we want the same room as Greenpeace.”
Build the market
When reducing the embodied carbon during the renovation, two major challenges occur. First, when choosing new products, companies should select those with low -embodied carbon and global heating potential.
Second, they are aware that the market is still developing. “It is still easier for us to go to Canada, chop a tree, put it into a table and bring it to London to find materials that are two miles away,” said Strudwick.
It imagines a matchmaking location for requirements and materials – taking into account factors such as building regulations, guarantee, costs, transport and of course carbon. For now, the search for a “donor” with material that would be valuable in a new project hangs on chance.
To support design professionals, Perkins & Will created the free open source “Circular Design Primer for Interiors”, which is also intended to help customers buy themselves in philosophy.
All of this aims to build a design culture that does better to do better and not just to do less damage.
In order to switch from sustainable to regenerative design, we have to surpass the code minimum and even the low levels of current certification programs, “said Penndorf.” We probably need a way of thinking as a industry if we really want to drive it forward. “