In today’s Fridays for Future global climate strike, architects are among those demonstrating their commitment to action on the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency. A focus of this year's action is Fridays for Future's call for 'intersectional climate justice' - meaning that "the climate crisis does not exist in a vacuum. Other socio-economic crises such as racism, sexism, ableism, class inequality, and more amplify the climate crisis and vice versa."
The climate emergency is not a single issue. Different people, communities and regions experience its impacts differently. Architects Declare - a network of architectural practices committed to addressing the climate and biodiversity emergency through an 11-point declaration - is seeking signatories’ views on a proposed twelfth point to highlight this:
Declaration on climate justice
"We will seek to - Support those who are working for climate justice and strive to ensure equity and an improved quality of life for all.”
Architects Declare launched in May 2019 with a commitment to promote and build momentum around our original 11 declaration points, and since then over 1,100 architectural practices across the UK have declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. Over time, however, it has become clear that the issue of climate justice is not sufficiently prominent and many have raised this imbalance. The increasing attention to the injustices of impacts globally - including within the UK - suggests that our declaration should redress this.
Today, while some Architects Declare signatories are supporting their employees in gathering for public events around the UK, others are making time 'in-house' to discuss and research the actions that their practices are best placed to take on our urgent priorities. We welcome whatever support practices are able to show, including to the call for climate justice as part of our response to the emergency.
Our consultation with signatories ends on 8th October and the result will be reflected in the new Architects Declare Practice Guide that we have developed to support all signatories in their actions. This will be released at the RIBA and Architects Declare Built Environment Summit on 28th & 29th October.
24 September 2021