Earth Day 2021

To celebrate Earth day this year we asked our team what they are doing to support the environment and encourage behaviour change, whether that be a small change to your daily routine for example walking instead of driving to the shops or taking part in a large scale inititiave.

Some team members have thought about how their mode of transport is impacting the environment….

“I’ve been using the bicycle as the primary mode of transportation for getting anywhere and instead of flights to holiday destinations which have a huge impact on our carbon footprint , we are going on cycle/walking holidays in the UK .”

‘From an exercise to calculate our own carbon footprints at astudio, it became clear that travel was responsible for a large proportion of emissions. For Earth Day, my resolution is to fully consider reasons for travel for both work, home life and the alternatives e.g do I need to drive into town for an errand when I could walk, or could I attend a meeting virtually rather than being there in person?... This kind of behaviour change also has the potential for financial added benefit, with any savings going into the electric car fund!’

Try calculating your footprint for yourself!

 Another team member offered a number of ways for us all to be both more sustainable and help in our local communities….

“I spend so much time talking to people about what they do to improve their sustainability it’s easy to overlook the part I have to play myself. For Earth Day, I’m going to do two things. Firstly take stock; find more ways to use less plastic, save more energy, conserve more water, give a little more of my garden over to ‘rewilding’ and grow more plants from seed to reduce peat consumption. And secondly I’m going to take a rubbish bag and my thickest gloves and clear plastic and rubbish from a mile of my local roads as part of the Surfers Against Sewage campaign to clean up the plastic from streets and beaches.”

 A couple of our team turned their attention to large scale initiaves such as ‘Half-Earth’…

The Half-Earth Project is probably the most ambitious initiative to conserve the world’s habitats ever made. Conceived of by E.O. Wilson with his book of the same name, the idea originally came from Harvey Locke’s Nature Needs Half 2013. It boldly proposes to protect half of the world’s ecoregions as one joined-up conservation reserve. Calculating that with 50% of the world’s surface conserved, 85% of the current species on Earth will be protected, this will bring us into a ‘safe zone’ of environmental projection for our long-term future.

 The proposition raises all kinds of questions and challenges not yet laid out by the initiative. The problem of consumption not being tackled at source; if the man-made landscape is restricted, will the emissions and pollutants be reduced or just densified? Then there are the obvious challenges of reaching cross border consensus, negotiating trade-offs and supply of resources.

 What would a half-earth proposal like this look like in reality? Presumably, it would also depend on cities becoming greener, with local forms of production and agriculture. What would the protected areas look like, which regions would be out of bounds and to whom?

 The project has begun building a global map showing all ecosystems and protected species. This impressive mapping tool makes for fascinating viewing and is available on Half-Earth Project’s website. Despite the huge challenges that this monumental project entails, as a striking and easy to grasp idea it has the potential to generate global momentum and crucially governmental cooperation.'

Whilst others took the time to reflect about the impact we have on the environment as designers…

’Recent years have shown an increased research activity around changing the behaviour of individuals and organizations to reduce their impacts on the natural environment. The topic of behaviour change has become increasingly important especially during the pandemic; we are witnessing an epochal change where more and more organizations / groups of people are developing sustainability strategies to lead a changing behaviour starting from their workspaces.

 As an Architectural practice we are conscious that the environmental awareness is fundamental to lead to a change to the individual’s beliefs and environmental attitudes. This process involves a multitude of aspects among which cultural background, organisational factors, policy & economic context and many other…

Individual’s beliefs and attitudes affect the organization’s actions towards environmental sustainability in the long run, while I have not found any further evidence showing consistent changes in behaviour without changes in people’s attitudes.

 I strongly believe that Architecture is the higher expression of the society and the greater “carrier of change” in people’s attitudes, and it is important for Architects to deeply understand the responsibilities connected to it.

 My idea of change, that I constantly try to pursue as a designer, to help the planet is to rethink the role of the contemporary Architect. A figure which must be able to raise environmental awareness through its work, inviting everybody to reflect on the complex social dynamics of living and working in the cities, making clear that each individual has an impact on the society.’