Following the release of the latest IPCC climate report, Joe Giddings of Architects Climate Action Network shares some practical advice for what architects and designers can do to help prevent catastrophic climate change.

Doom-laden headlines and apocalyptic imagery abound as dramatic wildfires in Southern Europe follow swiftly on the heels of the clearest and most alarming warning yet from the IPCC about the state of our climate.
The IPCC is the global authority on climate change and its latest report has been called a "code red" warning. It projects that we will pass 1.5 degrees Celcius of warming within the next decade or two and draws a clear link between human activity and the increasingly extreme weather events we?re experiencing. All of this is enough to provoke understandable fear and anxiety over the future of our planet. But there is a lot somebody working in the built environment can do to make a difference.
New buildings often account for a tonne of embodied carbon emissions per square meter of construction and the message from the IPCC was clear: every tonne counts.
So here are some practical steps you can take as an architect, engineer or designer if you are worried about the climate following the IPCC publication.
1. Support the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) campaign for the regulation of embodied carbon emissions
As building designers, we always work to the standards set out in regulations and codes, but amazingly these emissions are ...