Architects, engineers, landscape architects and urban planners all have a role to play and should be acting now.

Hundreds of cities and towns all over the world, and more and more high levels of government have declared a “Climate Emergency”. While the term isn’t consistently defined, The Climate Mobilization Website has a few draft laws and the key items in this draft for cities include:

North American cities declaring climate emergencies/ The Climate Mobilization/Screen capture

That’s a pretty tall order, but that’s pretty much what has to be done. According to the Architects Journal, British architects Steve Tompkins and Michael Pawlyn are demanding that the profession itself should be declaring an emergency. They ask:

But if cities and states and provinces and national governments are calling for it, don’t the professions have an obligation? They want the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to:

  • Declare a climate emergency, stating what the IPCC Special Report has predicted for the 1.5°C and 2°C scenariosState that the RIBA requires the government to immediately reinstate zero carbon as a standard for all new buildings and major refurbishmentsName a target date for when the UK needs to achieve zero carbon and confirm the profession’s willingness to work towards thisImmediately establish a working group to identify the detailed actions that we as a profession need to take and, very importantly, who else we need to bring into the discussions (clients, funders, etc) to deliver on what is required

Looking at this, I wondered about what North American professional associations could or should do. I’m a (retired) member of the Ontario Association of Architects, which both regulates and promotes the profession. They say they are “dedicated to promoting and increasing the knowledge, skill and proficiency of its members, and administering the Architects Act, in order that the public interest may be served and protected.” Surely the public interest is served most by going beyond local politics, acknowledging the crisis and taking climate action.

In the USA I understand that the regulators in each state are separate from the promoters, the American Institute of Architects. The AIA has it right there in its values statements:

They have taken a stance:

The RIBA or AIA are not regulatory organizations and cannot compel their members to design every building to Net Zero, Passivhaus or some standard that addresses the climate crisis. But they could be publicly declaring their own climate emergencies, that include recommendations that their members dramatically reduce the carbon footprints of their buildings.

Similarly, engineers, landscape architects and urban planners could all declare emergencies, setting out guidelines and goals to reduce carbon emissions, plant more carbon-eating landscapes, and plan for fewer cars, or whatever other measures are required to address the crisis.

It’s likely that not much will happen because the clients won’t pay for it, and it seems the regulating governments across most of North America love their fossil fuels and SUVs, their sprawl and glassy office buildings. It would probably be no more meaningful than all those cities declaring emergencies that don’t bind anyone to anything.

But it’s a start.