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President’s message Peter Exley, FAIA
President’s message: Climate action and climate justice are key to an equitable world
Since our membership voted overwhelmingly in 2019 to make climate action our top priority, we’ve marshaled our resources toward this essential fight.
AIA is focused on climate action and climate justice in concert, not in isolation. Together, they are the keys to dismantling systemic racism and marginalization.
As Stacey Abrams stated in her keynote address to AIA’s Grassroots Leadership Conference this year, “The families who grow up in the shadow of chemical plants, refineries, landfills — they understand what it means to be in the midst of environmental injustice. It is in those spaces, in those moments, that you become so valuable. Because your capacity to imagine more, imagine better, imagine different — it extends across this country, and it deepens our capacity for who we can be.” Our focus on climate action and climate justice is essential to building a just and equitable world, and I think the AIA is doing some things now that give us perhaps the strongest chance to achieve real change.
Early in 2020, AIA released a new Climate Action Plan to mitigate planet-warming sources and own the significant impact the building industry’s footprint has on climate, to adapt to that impact by transforming our practices, and to catalyze every architect to act.
Additionally, the Framework for Design Excellence has been recently updated — a veritable playbook for architects to pursue a built environment that is zero-carbon, equitable, resilient, and healthy. The framework defines design strategies across 10 measures inspired by the COTE Top Ten Awards, including equitable communities. It provides best practices, case studies, and high-impact strategies to guide architects at all points of their careers.
Why is that important? I often speak about adaptation being a chief value that architects embody, but adaptation is so much more productive when you’re not starting from scratch. Adaptation is possible when you can find efficiencies in what
you’re doing so you may reach your goals sooner. Climate action presents the most urgent reason to meet those goals, so let’s give ourselves an advantage and heed this framework. For more inspiration, check out the recent Emerging Professionals Exhibit. Unveiled in December 2020, the latest crop of projects shows young architects in action — illustrating how sustainability and resilience can bring social, economic, and ecological value to the built environment. Projects this year include installations, built projects, and games encompassing the theme of environmental excellence.
Another key initiative is the 2030 Commitment, our platform for architects, engineers, and owners to work together toward achieving a carbon-neutral built environment by the year 2030. We released our highest ever numbers in 2019. Signatories recorded a 49 percent reduction in predicted energy use intensity. That’s the greatest reduction in the program’s history. It’s equivalent to avoiding 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions relative to 2030 baseline-equivalent buildings. That figure represents the same level of carbon that is sequestered by 26 million acres of forest in one year.
We have a long way to go, of course. But results like these show that we really can make a difference and that we must push forward to continuously meet our responsibilities as architects, as citizens, and as stewards of our planet.
Peter J. Exley, FAIA
Exley is the 2021 AIA President and cofounder of Architecture Is Fun, a Chicagobased architecture, design, and consulting firm. He is an adjunct professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
