Dezeen promotion: the intelligence and technologies that architects need to decarbonise the built environment are accessible now and must be utilised, according to engineering consultancy Buro Happold.
Buro Happold said that designers of the built environment must urgently "decarbonise our buildings, infrastructure and energy supply" in order to help alleviate climate change.
The built environment is currently one of the biggest contributors to the changing climate, responsible for approximately 40 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
"This past year has made apparent how communities globally are being deeply harmed by climate change, at a rapidly increasing rate," Buro Happold said.
"We have the intelligence and the technologies necessary to correct this now," the consultancy continued. "As designers of the built environment, we have significant potential to impact climate change, and it is our responsibility to fully utilise that potential."
22 Gordon Street won the CIBSE Building Performance Award with 60 per cent energy use reduction per square metre. Photo by Jack Hobhouse
Architects must tackle whole-life carbon
Decarbonisation is the process of reducing or removing the carbon dioxide emissions from a particular output, such as a building or country.
According to the consultancy, in the built environment, this requires minimising the "whole-life carbon" of buildings ? meaning both their embodied energy and operat...