Events

The construction industry requires true climate leadership by a government that embraces far-reaching system changes and implements them.

This special event - in-person in London with a parallel discussion hosted in Edinburgh -marked the latest stage of our journey to create a national policy framework for the UK that faces the reality of the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency and creates a regenerative built environment, enabling society and nature to thrive.

With practical, impactful and implementable policies, our Building Blocks to Transform the Built Environment are about creating jobs, improving health, and restoring the natural world. Underpinned by a foundation of systemic change, the building blocks of resource Efficiency, Circular Economy and Social & Natural Infrastructures play to the strengths of professions across the sector. We shared the draft policy document with participants, showing how these building blocks need solid foundations of systemic economic and political change: an economy aligned within human well-being and planetary limits; UK laws to safeguard future generations; climate literacy embedded at all levels of society; and climate leadership fostered through reform of the political system.

Speakers:

• Kate Raworth (the renegade economist making economics fit for 21st-century realities & co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab): set the context for how we influence policy and make a real change. 
• Michael Pawlyn (AD co-founder + Steering Group member & Founder, Exploration Architecture): Establishing the Foundations.
• Tim den Dekker (Part Z & Associate Architect, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios) + Julia Barfield (AD Steering Group & Managing Director, Marks Barfield Architects): Whole Life Carbon. 
• Duncan Baker-Brown (AD Steering Group & Founder, BakerBrown): Circular Economy.
• Dr Elli Cosgrave & Binki Taylor (Director of Research & CIC Chair respectively, Publica): Social Infrastructure & Social Justice.
• Kevin Logan (AD Steering Group & Director, Maccreanor Lavington): Natural Infrastrucure.
• Zoe Watson (AD Steering Group & Head of Sustainability, Allies and Morrison): Next Steps and How You Can Be Involved.
  

How do we change the UK trajectory to allow for a just transition that supports the built environment and our planet? Amidst all the current political climate chaos, we are proposing an alternative positive vision for a regenerative future. As a profession, we have the solutions but lack the policy framework to enact meaningful change.

This online event for signatories to UK Architects Declare and other UK Built Environment Declares groups offered insights into an emerging Five Point Plan developed by key industry leaders, and helped us establish policy priorities and crystallise the vision. The plan - which became our Building Block to Transform the Built Environment policy manifesto - emphasises critical areas such as resource efficiency, circular economy practices, and nature enhancement, all of which can lead to substantial cost savings and environmental advantages. It introduces policies promoting health and wellbeing, social justice, and community engagement - aligning perfectly with the growing demand for high-quality, sustainable development.

Speakers:

• Julia Barfield - Managing Director, Marks Barfield Architects + UK Architects Declare Steering Group
• Will Arnold - Head of Climate Action at The Institution of Structural Engineers
• Anna Woodeson - Director, PUNL Power Up North London
• Zoe Watson - Head of Sustainability, Allies and Morrison + UK Architects Declare Steering Group

Please see our Resources (Changing the goals of the system) page for the video.

Organised by Architects Climate Action Network as part of the AD & ACAN collaboration on the Practice Action series, in partnership with the RIBA, this special event was the series finale - and a chance to connect with a host of incredible organisations. Participants were able to join in-person in either Edinburgh or London or to join online.

Speakers included:

• James York - Architect, PassivHaus designer & Net Zero Carbon building consultant at Collective Architecture
• Laura Baron - Head of Sustainability at Purcell
• Rachael Owens - Head of Sustainability & Buckley Gray Yeoman

And the event showcased positive transformations through a ‘World Cafe,’ with tables and online sessions hosted by diverse organisations and groups around a theme, provocation or offer of advice. An opportunity for participants to get involved and practise their skills in engaging with topics outside of their everyday. 

You can watch the video on ACAN’s YouTube channel.

This special in-person and live-streamed evening event, focused on the Energy Crisis as a live example of wider climate injustice: one aspect of the planetary emergency resulting from the failing systems that govern our built environment and economies.

We held this event as world leaders gathered for the COP27 global talks, and as households, businesses, communities and professions seek to navigate the ongoing energy crisis.

Our excellent panel of guest speakers shares a lively discussion on how our systems are failing to address the crisis, and how our profession can help bring to the forefront solutions and practices to advance justice in the energy crisis and support a just transition:

• Daze Aghaji - a Youth Climate Justice Activist who centres on Regenerative Cultures, Intersectionality, Radical Social Justice and Youth Political Engagement in her work. Daze is a Creative Director at Earthrise Studio, a creative agency dedicated to communicating the climate crisis and an Artist in Residence at Phytology, the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve.
• Sara Edmonds - a retrofit advocate and campaigner, director at Studio seARCH, coordinator at Architects Climate Action Network, co-founder of Home Energy Action Lab and co-host of the Zero Ambitions Podcast.
• Rosie Murphy - ACAN's Diversity & Solidarity Coordinator, and Co-Coordinator of their Education Group. She is an Advocate for the Black Females in Architecture network, a mentor for Homegrown Plus, and a recent Part 2 graduate from the Sustainable MArch at The Centre For Alternative Technology. Rosie now works at the social enterprise Matt+Fiona, where young people are asked how their built environment might be improved.
• Michael Pawlyn - an architect, systems thinker and expert in regenerative design and biomimicry. He established Exploration Architecture in 2007 to focus on high-performance buildings and solutions for the circular economy. He is a co-founder of Architects Declare and a member of the AD Steering Group.
  
  We are very grateful to Levitt Bernstein for hosting this event for us at their offices in north London. Please see our Resources (Changing the goals of the system) page for the video.

UK Architects Declare joined the Climate Strike, assembling outside the Building Centre in London and marching to Parliament Square for the Fridays for the Future gathering there. AD signatories join us to demand action on the emergency and demonstrate that we have solutions for the built environment.

FFF Climate Strike meetings also took place in other parts of the UK, including Doncaster, Edinburgh, Leeds, Lincoln, Liverpool & Oxford. We invited signatories who couldn't join one of the gatherings - or co-ordinate one in their area - to consider making time that day for colleagues to discuss actions within their own practice to address the Climate & Biodiversity Emergency.

The Practice Action series of Masterclasses & Conversations was developed jointly by Architects Declare and ACAN in partnership with RIBA. Designed to assist small and medium practices and those within the practice who are looking to effect change, the series built on themes from our Practice Guide to provide architecture professionals with the practical skills and confidence to pursue more sustainable and regenerative practice models.

We brought together experts from across the industry for informative, interactive and fun sessions that ran from May to September 2022. Architects Declare provided the series of 5 Masterclasses below, with ACAN providing a series of 5 Conversations to complement these. 

1. 6th May: Climate Literacy
2. 10th June: Understanding Impact 
3. 8th July: Working with the Client Brief 
4. 5th August: Collaboration and Learning within Practice 
5. 16th September: Closing the Loop

We ended the series in December 2022 with a special event with ACAN, in London, Edinburgh and online. You can watch the ‘Practice Action - Assembly!’ video, with videos from ACAN’s Conversation series complementing our Masterclasses, on ACAN’s YouTube channel.

Please see our Resources (Supporting our signatories) page for further details and the videos and template Miro Boards for the workshops.

Declared a Climate & Biodiversity Emergency? What next? Building on our successful Practice Guide, this special online event provided an expert panel of speakers to share lessons learned and help others on their journey. 

With opportunities for participants to network and discuss where their practice is now and where they want it to be, break-out discussions focused on opportunities to get there and how to overcome barriers to action.

Please see our Resources (Supporting our signatories) page for the video.

An opportunity for practices to learn more about our new Practice Guide, which we launched at the RIBA & UK Architects Declare Built Environment Summit on 29th October 2021, ahead of the start of COP26. We created the guide to help our signatories convert their declaration of climate and biodiversity emergency into meaningful action and build momentum within their practice. Part 1 is a Practice Roadmap that provides 5 simple steps to transform your business. Part 2 is the Project Design Guide focused on the fundamentals of truly sustainable design and demonstrated through exemplars.

This one-hour online event provided an overview of the guide’s purpose and intent and summaries of each of the chapters, followed by a Q&A session. Please see our Resources (Supporting our signatories) page for the video.

In partnership, UK Architects Declare & the RIBA presented this global event on 28 and 29 October, following the publication of our joint Built for the Environment report and ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, which started on 1 November.

Today 38% of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the built environment. The summit was a call to action, bringing together professionals from across the international built environment sector to address the urgent need to drive changes in behaviour to reduce carbon emissions.

We cannot meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature rise limit above pre-industrial levels without transforming the way we plan, design, build, operate and adapt our built environment.

Over two days, speakers from across the globe led topical discussions, explored and shared innovative practice, and encouraged interdisciplinary thinking to tackle the crisis and provide inspiration to drive significant change in behaviour.

In the lead-up to COP26 the summit demonstrated the importance of cross-industry collaboration to harness political support and embolden governments to work with the sector to decarbonise construction and that the time for change is now.

Held over two consecutive afternoons, this online conference focused on how to translate the bold ideas needed to tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis into action.

Day one involved bold ideas, with a series of inspiring talks interspersed with break-out sessions: 

• Roman Krznaric on how to be a good ancestor
• Dr Gabrielle Walker on carbon targets in the build-up to COP26
• Farhana Yamin on the vital connection between construction and climate justice
• Jojo Mehta on the building momentum for a law of ecocide.  

The first afternoon concludes with a presentation on the Architects Declare Strategy for Change, with opportunities to help shape this proposal.

Day two opened with three short talks from companies - Expedition, Interface and British Land - who have all undergone transformative change, sharing some of the successes and challenges in how they have risen to the planetary emergency. These were followed by a series of PechaKucha style presentations about emerging and provocative ideas. 

The second day ended with a plenary session to discuss the inputs that participants fed into the Strategy for Change. 

Please see our Resources (Supporting our signatories) page for the videos.