THE 2030 CHALLENGES
To meet the 1.5°C carbon budget, all new buildings and major renovations must be designed to be zero carbon today.
Architecture 2030 is accelerating the 2030 Challenge to today
In 2005, Architecture 2030 issued the 2030 Challenge. The initiative comprised incremental carbon reduction goals over a 25-year timeline that were consistent with those called for by the global scientific community at the time. Meeting the targets would mean that all new buildings and major renovations would be zero carbon by 2030.
However, current data from the scientific community has made it clear that 2030 is too late. To meet the 1.5°C carbon budget, all new buildings and major renovations must be designed to be zero carbon today.
Achieving zero emissions from new construction will require energy efficient buildings that use no on-site fossil fuels and are 100% powered by on-site and/or off-site renewable energy.
The Challenges
The 2030 Challenge: To provide a structure for tracking progress and helping meet the 2030 Challenge targets, AIA created the 2030 Commitment, a national framework with simple metrics and a standardized reporting format. Over 800 A/E/P firms have adopted the 2030 Commitment with over 3.3 billion sq ft of project work reported in 2019 alone. Architecture 2030 encourages all firms interested in achieving the 2030 Challenge targets to become 2030 Commitment signatories.
The 2030 Challenge for Planning: This Challenge is the goal set for the 2030 Districts Network, a membership of 23 private-sector-led, high performance urban building districts across North America. 2030 Districts are led by the private sector, with local building industry leaders, community groups, and government to achieve significant energy, water, and emissions reductions.
The 2030 Challenge for Embodied Carbon: This Challenge, originally the 2030 Challenge for Products, spawned the Carbon Leadership Community (previously the Embodied Carbon Network), which now has over 5,400 members from 2,650 companies and organizations worldwide, spanning the construction industry from both the private and public sectors. Architecture 2030 and the Carbon Leadership Community collaborated to create the Carbon Smart Materials Palette – an attribute-based approach to embodied carbon emissions reductions for major building elements that will guide building design and construction, and government procurement policies.
