The 2030 Progress Report for the American Institute of Architects (AIA)'s 2030 Commitment - a voluntary program for architects who want to commit their practice to advancing the AIA's goal of carbon neutral buildings by the year 2030 - has found a significant increase in the number of projects that meet its current targets for a 60% reduction in carbon emissions, with over 400 buildings in the program meeting the goal. "There is some very encouraging data in this report that shows how architects are making measurable progress towards reducing the carbon emissions in their design projects," said AIA Chief Executive Officer, Robert Ivy, FAIA. Read on after the break for more results of the report.
The report shows that 401 buildings involved in the program have met the 60% reduction target, an increase of 200% from the 2012 progress report. The total number of projects in the scheme in 2013 also rose significantly, with a 150% increase to 2,464 projects. However, the total amount of gross floor area represented by these buildings only rose 9% to 1.6 billion gross square feet, suggesting that the average size of projects included in the program in 2013 was much smaller than in 2012.
This may be due to the fact that larger buildings seem much more prone to miss the 60% carbon reduction target: despite the 200% increase in projects meeting the goal, the amount of gross floor area that met the goal was actually lower than in 2012, suggesting that although there are more projects hitting their target, these projects must generally be significantly smaller.
The report also found that there was a 10% decrease in the number of firms submitting their projects to the 2030 Commitment program, which it attributes to the time and effort involved in tracking the data to submit to the program. To combat this, the AIA has partnered with the Department of Energy to create the 2030 Design Data Exchange to provide a more user-friendly interface and allow users to anonymously compare their projects to others in the database.
The 2030 Design Data Exchange is due to be launched either later this year or early next year. To see a preview of the AIA's newest tool, watch the video below, and click here for the full 2013 Progress Report for the 2030 Commitment.
