Climate Action Plan
AIA’s Climate Action Plan provides architects with actionable steps, tools, and resources to achieve climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and decarbonization in the built environment.
Climate change imperative
Humanity is faced with a challenge unlike any we have previously encountered: We must take urgent action to reverse the impacts of our greenhouse gas emissions, protect our planet, and preserve life as we know it.
Climate change affects every person, every project, and every client. The impacts are all-inclusive, with no respect for borders or boundaries—and are felt first and hardest by our most vulnerable populations. Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and the degradation of natural resources are a direct result of increased carbon levels, threatening national security, global economies, and the health, safety, and welfare of local communities. Because more than 40% of U.S. greenhouse gases can be attributed to the building industry—during construction, embodied in concrete, metals, and polymers, and through everyday processes such as heating, cooling, and lighting—architects can lead the change our planet needs. We must take action.
As we launch into the new decade, AIA is prioritizing and supporting urgent climate action to exponentially accelerate the decarbonization of buildings, the building industry, and the built environment by:
- Declaring an urgent climate imperative for carbon reduction.
- Transforming the day-to-day practice of architects to achieve a zero carbon, equitable, resilient, and healthy built environment.
- Leveraging support of all potential partners, including peers, clients, policymakers, and the public.
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New in 2024! Access the AIA Materials Pledge By the Numbers report—tracking firm signatory progress on positive material specification.
