Climate Emergency Response - Embodied Carbon
The Vancouver City Council recently approved the Climate Emergency report which recommends the city adopt six "big moves" that lead to a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 relative to 2007, in line with the IPCC scenario for limiting global warming to 1.5C. That's an average of 92,000 tonnes of emission reductions per year over the next decade - a five-fold increase from the past decade.
One of these six big moves sets an embodied carbon reduction target that is likely the most ambitious in North America. It states that by 2030, the embodied emissions in new buildings and construction projects will be reduced by 40% compared to a 2018 baseline.
While our buildings industry places great focus on reducing operational carbon emissions, we have mostly ignore embodied carbon - the emissions associated with construction materials from cradle to grave. With our city's strong focus on embodied carbon, our local industry is well positioned to become leaders in North America in addressing this long neglected aspect of sustainable building design.
Embodied Carbon Catalyst
We have recently started a new group that organizes regular events that empower industry professionals to become champions for embodied carbon on their projects and within their firms. Through our events, we aim to build up local industry capacity to address embodied carbon, by connecting with each other, sharing best practices, and tackling topics/initiatives that we think will accelerate widespread focus on embodied carbon within the industry.
We invite architects, structural engineers, environmental consultants, developers, product manufacturers, policymakers, and anyone else interested in embodied carbon to join our events!
This Event
Join us for an engaging discussion around this new embodied carbon target within our city. We are excited to have Patrick Enright from the City of Vancouver join us to give a short presentation about this embodied carbon target in the Climate Emergency Plan.
Afterward, you will be an active participant sitting in small groups to brainstorm and discuss ideas on how we can all work to fulfill this ambitious target through our projects and within our firms.
We are very grateful to have Michael Green Architecture sponsor this event. They have graciously offered to host this event in their beautiful office and are also providing snacks and refreshments.
Please share this event with your colleagues and through your network. We anticipate this will be a popular event and have space for 60 attendees. We hope to see you there!
Event Timeline
6:00 - Mingle
6:30 - Intro Presentation
6:50 - Quick Intros from Attendees
7:10 - Patrick Enright CoV Presentation and Q&A
7:35 - Group Discussion Round 1
8:10 - Group Discussion Round 2
8:40 - Whole Group Discussion
9:00 - End of Event