Urbanism
Environment
Design

info@urbed.coop

As a coop we have been undecided about whether to sign the “Architects Declare” commitment; a call to the construction industry to start seriously addressing the twin crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss in its work. We share many of the concerns thoughtfully and eloquently articulated by John Gilbert Architects in their recent blog post on the subject.

We fear that the commitments set out in the declaration are not strong or specific enough. We fear that they will wobble too easily when exposed to the inevitable compromises that come with working in a commercial practice. We fear that the values expressed in the declaration will be directly undermined by the actions of some signatories.

And yet, we signed.

Ultimately, we decided that if “Architects Declare” is not enough, then we will add to it. We are using our signature as a starting point, a means of expressing our intentions and a way to support those who are trying to make a positive change. The next step is to find stronger, more specific and more measurable ways to deliver those intentions in our work.

We have turned the Climate Emergency into a live and ongoing project. At our initial meeting we set out the following commitments as a first step, and we will be adding to, expanding and refining these as we learn more and develop our thinking:

• We will carry out internal research and development to develop an evidence base for how to better address climate issues in our work.
• We will become better at articulating climate issues to our clients so that they can see the value for their projects.
• We will develop and add climate related questions to our ‘bid/no bid’ criteria to help inform discussions about which projects we take on.
• We will continue with advocacy work around changes to local and national government policy, so that ‘doing the right thing’ is incentivised among our clients.
• We will continue to monitor our direct impacts (e.g. travel and office energy use) and keep targets under review. We will publish this information and share it with our peers.