sustainability action plan
Table of Contents
Introduction
Design
Operations
Process
Office Culture
Operational Energy
Education and Development
Embodied Carbon
Reduce Resource Consumption and Improve Health Infrastructure
Materials Interior and Exterior Environment
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Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Introduction This Sustainability Action Plan is the latest step in FXCollaborative’s deep commitment to sustainability. From our founding we have championed environmental design and helped lead the industry toward more efficient buildings, healthier interiors and responsible urban planning. In 2021, we moved into our new office at 1 Willoughby Square in Brooklyn NY. Designed for LEED-CI v4 Platinum certification, the project exemplifies our continued dedication to sustainable design and operations. It is also a great point of departure as we look ahead to face lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the daunting challenges posed by our shared climate crisis. While we have had some success, it is clear that we must do more, and do it fast, if we are to play our part in mitigating the worst effects of global heating and in creating a truly healthy and sustainable world. This plan is divided into two main sections: Design, and Operations. Each section is organized into main goals, and actions to achieve those goals. Due to variability across topics, actions are specific when possible and general where necessary. We intend to update this plan annually.
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For context, a high-level summary of FXC’s current sustainability program is outlined below: • Organized hierarchy and support from leadership to enable success. • Carbon-neutral office operations through offsets. • New LEED-CI v4 Platinum office. • AIA 2030 Challenge participant. • Requirement and support for all staff to gain a sustainability certification. • Clear sustainable design processes in place to support projects. • Baseline minimum green specifications. • Active internal Team Green. • Internal expertise on environmental analysis, certification systems, efficiency measures, materials, and other sustainability topics. • Active advocacy through industry groups, public speaking and legislation endorsements. • Internal sustainability education program. • Ongoing efforts to improve sustainability operations.
Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Design
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Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Design
Process At FXC, we have robust internal resources and processes that instigate and support sustainability in design. However, there are many ways we can improve. The following goals and actions target opportunities throughout the life of each project.
Design Process Goal 1:
Design Process Goal 2:
Design Process Goal 3:
Strengthen management structures to enable sustainable design.
Adjust design processes to be more integrated and to result in more sustainable outcomes.
Continue to support project teams with resources and expertise.
Business Development: Step up business development toward clients with high sustainability goals, and educate clients who have lower sustainability aspirations.
Scheduling: Add an internal Sustainability Opportunity Meeting and a Client Sustainability Goal-Setting session to basic project start-ups.
Environmental Analysis Support: Increase our internal analysis capabilities and capacity through training, best practice education, and typology studies. Enable analysts to be more available to assist project teams.
Accountability: Assign a leadership level team member (Design Director by default) to be accountable for project sustainability across all phases from RFPs to completion. Budgets: Include time for a minimum level of sustainability activity in all project budgets. Staffing: Staff projects strategically to help teams have embedded sustainability expertise and to enable team members to develop sustainability skill sets.
Goal Setting and Tracking: Require project teams to use the AIA Framework for Design Excellence to identify at least one major and one minor goal for each category early in the design process and update the goals at each phase. Major Metrics: Consider if there are major metrics in addition to the AIA 2030 Challenge, that should be tracked on projects to support FXC’s sustainability goals. Environmental Analysis: Utilize environmental analysis as applicable to each project to explore options related to identified goals. Design Reviews: At office design reviews, require project teams to mention sustainability goals, approaches, and progress on metrics. Aesthetics: Collaborate across internal groups to align design and aesthetic approaches with sustainability goals.
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Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Materials Research: Continue to develop internal materials resources to help project teams make more sustainable choices. (See Materials section below) Changing Context: Maintain leading-edge expertise by being engaged in emerging legislation, expanding knowledge of sustainability certification systems, and staying up to date with the quickly changing landscape of sustainability. QAQC: Develop greater internal capacity to perform sustainability QAQCs and perform them more regularly on all projects. Post-Occupancy: Encourage clients to share post-occupancy data and develop a plan to execute post-occupancy studies.
Design
Operational Energy Due to the threat of our climate crisis, reducing energy use is of the utmost importance. While we implement energy conservation strategies on all projects, the goals and actions below will help us do so more thoroughly and consistently.
Operational Energy Goal 1:
Operational Energy Goal 2:
Operational Energy Goal 3:
Meet FXC’s 2030 Challenge pEUI goals by 2025.
Support FXC’s 2030 Challenge goals by advancing passive architectural strategies.
Design for electrification and renewable energy generation.
AIA 2030 Challenge: Foreground FXC’s 2030 pEUI goals internally, and by sharing 2030 Goal Memos with clients to advocate pursuit more forcefully. (Target: Meet the 2030 Challenge by 2025.)
Envelope: Create standard enclosure details and assemblies from Passive House and Zone Green examples, and NYC Energy Code filing formats for easy adoption on all projects.
Electrification: Design all projects to be allelectric or all-electric ready.
Urban Planning: Establish sustainability standards for Planning to reduce energy use. Energy Modeling: Strongly encourage all projects to use iterative performance path energy code compliance to reveal performance, predict LL97 outcomes, enable decision-making, and improve 2030 reporting. Embed in fees when possible. Energy Modeling Expertise: Consider if we should develop in-house energy modeling expertise or close partnership with an energy modeling company to perform energy modeling more nimbly, more consistently, and less expensively. Commissioning: Discuss the benefits of MEP system commissioning with clients. Gain a better understanding of Envelope commissioning.
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Zone Green & Planning: Advise owners to pursue Zone Green envelope performance as a minimum on all NYC projects. Use Zone Green minimum wall thicknesses as default in planning, zoning, and other early-project phases. Thermal Analysis: Perform THERM analyses for each project to improve performance and to build skills and knowledge ahead of expected code requirements. Daylight: Help designers and clients understand optimal balances between the amount of glazing for daylight and other health, comfort and efficiency measures. Passive Strategies: Utilize passive design strategies such as natural ventilation, external shading devices, and local project-specific opportunities more often.
Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Renewable Energy: Maximize renewable energy generation for all projects. Offsets: Actively advocate for clients to purchase green power offsets for nonrenewable energy use.
Design
Embodied Carbon In recent years, it has become clear that embodied carbon is a near-term climate crisis priority. We must fast-track our understanding of embodied carbon issues and solutions to rapidly limit the impact of our projects.
Embodied Carbon Goal 1:
Embodied Carbon Goal 2:
Strive to meet the 2030 Challenge for Embodied Carbon.
Perform Life Cycle Analyses Participate in industry efforts on our projects. to find lower embodied carbon solutions.
2030 Challenge for Embodied Carbon: Assess the feasibility of meeting the 2030 Challenge for Embodied Carbon targets, and if its targets are not feasible, set other aspirational targets.
Project LCAs: Discuss the importance of embodied carbon with clients and advocate for inclusion of LCA scopes of work.
Circular Economy: Require each project team to articulate and implement at least one circular economy strategy such as take-back programs, planning for disassembly, etc. Best Practices: Use best practices described in the LFRT Countdown on Carbon and other resources to find alternates for high embodied carbon products.
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In-House LCAs: Develop in-house LCA capabilities. Analyze common interior and exterior materials and assemblies to inform best practices. Target the ability to estimate LCAs in one year, and to perform full project LCAs in two years.
Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Embodied Carbon Goal 3:
Environmental Product Declarations: Signal the importance of embodied carbon to manufacturers by demanding transparency through EPDs. Encourage Structural Engineers: Advocate that structural engineers join the SE2050 Commitment, discuss solutions with them, and consider updating standard structural engineering service contracts to include embodied carbon reduction activities. Maintain a list of structural engineers who have signed the Commitment and hire them when possible.
Design
Materials Materials involve many aspects of sustainability at many stages of their creation and use. FXC has recently focused on understanding the current landscape of materials and improving selections on leading projects. We are poised to apply new knowledge across many projects and to continue research.
Materials Goal 1:
Materials Goal 2:
Materials Goal 3:
Elevate our standards for materials and join efforts to improve the industry.
Design with materials that achieve high sustainability goals.
Discover the social impacts of our materials choices and improve our impacts.
Baseline Sustainability Specifications: Maintain up to date baseline sustainability specifications incorporating the latest industry best practices.
Optimize through EPDs: Use EPDs and tools such as EC3 to find low embodied carbon material options that have reduced impacts in other reported environmental categories. (Target: 40 EPDs or 30% per project.)
Research: Research manufacturers’ Environmental and Social Governance efforts and social impacts of their products.
FXC Materials Manifesto: Implement our Materials Manifesto to ‘green’ the materials library, instigate manufacturer improvement, and assist with just, sustainable & healthy material specification. Industry Participation: Sign the AIA Materials Pledge and participate in other joint efforts to push the materials industry, such as through ingredient transparency and other disclosures.
Optimize for Interior Health: Use HPDs, Declare Labels, the Red-List and other documentation to find healthier material options. (Target: 40 declarations or 30% per project, and no Red-List chemicals.) Sustainably Sourced Wood: Prioritize using reclaimed, local, and certified wood. Avoid tropical wood, especially hardwood. (Target: 100% sustainable new wood.) Air Quality: Update baseline sustainability specifications to include VOC content and emissions limits. (Target: LEED v4.1 limits for all projects.) Product Database: Maintain and expand our sustainable materials research database.
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Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Reduce Social Impacts: Utilize manufacturers with strong social and environmental efforts. Raise Awareness: Raise awareness of the social aspects of material specification.
Design
Interior and Exterior Environment A comprehensive sustainability approach involves all aspects of design. The following goals and actions cover a variety of topics to round out a thorough design process.
Environment Goal 1:
Environment Goal 2:
Environment Goal 3:
Improve the impact of our projects and the environment outside of the building envelope.
Improve the health, experiences, and ecological impact of interior environments.
Create resilient and socially just places.
AIA Framework for Design Excellence: Utilize the AIA Framework’s Design for Ecology section to articulate a major and minor ecological focus for each project.
Comfort: Develop a general guideline for project teams to help provide thermal, visual, and acoustic comfort. Require design teams to identify at least one priority and utilize analysis tools to study it throughout the project.
Future weather: Use future weather files in energy models to understand how building designs will perform considering climate change impacts.
Bird-Friendly Buildings: Leverage FXC’s extensive bird collision mitigation experience to make all of our building designs more bird friendly. Sustainable Urban Planning: In addition to the inherent benefits of urbanity, density and transitoriented design, develop a more comprehensive knowledge base and around sustainable urban design and improve sustainability characteristics of our common planning activities, such as zoning & massing studies.
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Experiences: Develop and utilize visual and experiential design strategies that embody and convey sustainability such as the use of natural materials, circadian lighting, and biophilia. Post-Occupancy: Develop post-occupancy survey tools and advocate that owners conduct post-occupancy comfort surveys.
Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Resiliency: Prepare for more extreme future weather by design buildings to withstand natural disasters, and to enable passive survivability. Climate Justice: Undertake outreach and conduct research and to better understand how design perpetuates environmental and social injustice, and take steps to improve those aspects of our work. Social Sustainability: Prioritize accessibility, gender-neutral facilities, programming such as Mother’s Rooms, and other aspects of design related to equality.
Operations
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Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Operations
Office Culture FXC has a healthy office culture of inclusion and collaboration with flexibility and support. There are opportunities to raise awareness around the urgency of our climate crisis, to galvanize commitments to related issues, and to formalize our response.
Office Culture Goal:
Increase the feeling of urgency through the office and engage colleagues on initiatives. Climate Urgency: Infuse design discussions with greater concern for the climate crisis and other environmental issues through continued engagement with Design Core and other venues. Team Green: Continue to utilize TG as a forum for staff to think about, share, and participate in sustainability initiatives. Develop Team Green members into leaders in their studios and within the office. PinUp: Use PinUp more effectively to reach staff with sustainability news, updates and messages.
Advocacy & Engagement: Continue to participate in industry groups to share knowledge, advance sustainability, and advocate for legislation. Office Policies: Coordinate across internal groups on social sustainability measures such as flexible work and other policies. Sustainability Expertise: Reinforce the importance of sustainability credentialing, knowledge of environmental analysis tools, and specific areas of expertise such as green roofs or efficient enclosures.
Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Coordinate across internal groups regarding JEDI initiatives and consider a certification like JUST to verify progress.
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Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Operations
Education and Development The landscape of sustainable design is constantly evolving with shifting priorities, advancements in knowledge, new tools, and other developments. A robust educational program is necessary to keep staff up to date.
Education & Development Goal:
Continue to provide quality internal sustainability education. Basic Education: Develop a basic sustainability education and onboarding program. Leadership Education: Develop education specifically tailored to leadership. Internal Events: Continue to organize robust schedules of internal events, lectures, lunchand-learns, and other activities.
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Certification Support: Promote certification in systems for which we have few or no certified staff such as the Living Building Challenge, FITWEL, WEDG, and others Environmental Analysis: Expand staff education on environmental analysis tools through partnership with the Digital Technology group.
Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Operations
Reduce Resource Consumption and Improve Health Infrastructure Daily internal operations have a large and visible impact on sustainability performance. Our move to a new office is a fitting occasion to revisit and improve on carbon, waste and health measures put in place over the years.
Resources Goal 1:
Resources Goal 2:
Reduce the carbon intensity of our operations.
Strive for Zero Waste. Enhance Healthy Office Infrastructure.
Carbon Neutral Office: Continue to calculate operational carbon emissions and purchase offsets. Research new calculation systems and offset quality issues.
Waste & Recycling: Perform a waste and recycling audit at the new office, compare results with those of the old office, and seek opportunities for improvement. (Target: Annual audits.)
Air Quality: Review post-construction air quality testing results to understand air quality, utilize the new office CO2 monitoring system to maintain good air quality, and consider a more robust monitoring system to optimize air quality.
Compost: Utilize the new office’s improved compost infrastructure, research compost removal options, and consider composting additional items such as paper towels for handdrying in rest rooms.
Food Options: Research local restaurants and food service operations to identify those with healthy food options for catering and general office use.
New FXC Office: As we move in to our new office, become familiar with new operations, track carbon, and make adjustments to reduce our impact. Reinforce Travel Policies: Reinforce our travel policy, which discourages unnecessary travel through an approval process, makes hybrid/ electric car rentals default, and encourages use of public transportation within cities. Bike Share: Consider an office bike-share program.
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Catering: Review office policy and local catering options to reduce waste from food deliveries. Paperless Aspiration: Reinforce paperless office policies with print tracking, digital drawing mark-up procedures, digital meetings, etc. And, consider new measures such as a ban on printed agendas and digital alternatives to printed business cards.
Sustainability Action Plan | FXCollaborative Architects | 2021
Resources Goal 3:
Indoor Plants: Finalize our strategy for indoor plants at the new office. Terrace: Collaborate internally on plans for making our new outdoor terrace an inviting and safe natural environment. Monitor for bird-glass collisions.
FXCollaborative Architects 1 Willoughby Square, 7th Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.fxcollaborative.com
main +1 212 627 1700 fax +1 212 463 8716 info@fxcollaborative.com