VOICES | ANDY STANTON Preparing the road to zero carbon buildings Atkins has signed up to the Architects Declare commitment to reduce impact on the climate and the natural environment. Andy Stanton explains what the multidisciplinary consultancy is doing to put sustainable design into practice T ANDY STANTON is sustainability associate director at Atkins his year, there have been many developments in sustainability from local, regional and national governments, as well as NGOs, scientific bodies and professional organisations. Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared how stark the situation is and what we need to do to avert a climate crisis, a wave of reports and commitments has hit newsstands and policy-makers desks. It has shaken all industries and none more so than the built environment. Behind the big news, we have an even bigger contingent of people pushing us to do more; the public young and old mobilised by the words and drive of people such as Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, demanding we change our ways and pave the way for a more sustainable future. As an industry, we have overwhelming evidence that our traditional compliance approach is, at best, failing to address the performance gap between design intent and operational reality. It is also costing building operators in terms of energy and carbon impact. With the UK having led the world in embedding carbon targets into national law through the Climate Change Act and, more recently, signing into legislation the zero carbon target for 2050 we need to follow up commitment with real action. Local authorities have raised the bar further, with 10% declaring a climate emergency and 42 setting targets of zero carbon by 2030, matched by some private sector companies. The UK built environment profession is rightly recognised as world class when it comes to architecture, engineering and design. To keep this status, we must meet the challenge of the paradigm shift needed to deliver zero carbon buildings and infrastructure. We must turn headline news into action and demonstrable results. So, what can we do? Atkins is putting sustainable design into practice in a number of ways. On World Environment Day, we joined more than 500 UK architecture practices in the Architects Declare movement, followed by the Structural Engineers Declare and, now, the Building Services Engineers Declare movements. Its a major commitment for Atkins and all the signatories, and will force important conversations internally, with clients and project funders. If we are to have any chance of meeting zero carbon targets, we need data and we need to share it across the industry Trusted Design Partner Beata Blachut, Head of Strategic Business Development - Technical www.sav-systems.com 20 August 2019 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Aug19 pp20-21 Andy Stanton.indd 20 19/07/2019 13:24