Summer 2024 / quarterly
Overview
The new demands
I’ve spent most of my work life immersed in the design community, its programs, events, and practices. And for nearly as long, I’ve been committed to a carbon community practice — reforestation. From early on, as a designer, I loved being involved in environmental stewardship and became aware of reforestation’s impact as a nature-based solution to climate change.
But despite this longstanding commitment, I’ve learned, as we all have, that climate change is too prevalent and complex a problem to expect one solution, field of study, or industry to solve it alone.
Our climate crisis demands a more diversified portfolio of solutions, the integration of sound perspectives, and collaboration across different communities of practice. So, in recent years, I’ve intentionally moved between the design and carbon communities to braid their know-how together.
Though each field may occasionally struggle to understand the other’s industry jargon and practices, I’ve found that when these communities collaborate on challenging problems, especially in times of need, the outcomes are more thorough, innovative, and promising for our future. And by integrating complementary skillsets and mindsets, we can meet the new demands faster.
Mix and master
Members of the carbon community are turning CO2 waste streams into value streams that are creating new materials for consumer, commercial, and industrial products and packaging. Some of these CO2-made materials impact the building construction industry. Others apply to the fields of landscape architecture and agriculture, whereby carbon is sequestered in soils to improve soil health and increase plant yields, both vital for communities everywhere. Yet other examples include CO2 removal technologies that are necessary to meet crucial climate targets, according to the IPCC. These solutions run the gamut from small-scale consumer appliance concepts to those attached to a building’s existing HVAC system and are available today. Still others include modular, large-scale facilities now demonstrating the ability to increase their carbon-removing capacity, decrease their energy consumption, and lower the cost per tonne of CO2 removed. These measures of success take years to achieve and are trending right, with Climeworks as one example. And as new materials and scalable forms of carbon solutions are mixed, mastered, and multiplied, growth opportunities across the design community will follow.
An essential balance
While the examples cited may address technical feasibility and business viability, none would be complete without human desirability. This balance was essential when I led a multi-year integration project for Steelcase in collaboration with IDEO in the early ‘00s. The three factors were described in IDEO’s seminal framework back then, and its principles remain just as relevant today.
Desirability stems from a thorough understanding of human-centered design and encompasses all facets of the human condition and our senses. So, when desirability is missing, feasibility and viability can’t fill the void because a successful balance relies on all three.
Today, our response to climate change demands this balance. We need comprehensive and desirable solutions that reinforce climate resilience, redouble carbon reduction, and gradually but surely remove gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere. These projects not only call for but thrive on the expertise of the carbon community—its scientists, engineers, policymakers, educators, and innovative entrepreneurs. But they will be manifested through the combination of ingenuity and rigor that distinguish the role of design in virtually everything we inhabit and use in our lives.
Demand the new
No one solution, field of study, or industry can solve the climate crisis alone. The ever-growing scale of climate change drives the new demand, which, in turn, demands a new, more integrated approach to generating solutions. As the design and carbon communities unite, we can collaborate on climate solutions for and throughout the built environment. Then, our common ground will literally build more fertile ground for advancing climate action faster.
With you, we can do a lot more.
Lew Epstein
Founder / CEO
How to Participate
We’re all on a climate journey, each moving at our own chosen pace. When we are ready to participate, having easy access to resources will speed the way and help us all advance our work faster.
If you’re interested in meeting carbon community members, consider following these organizations and their events:
— Carbon Direct
— Carbon Forward
— Carbon Unbound
If you’re ready to sample carbon community perspectives, consider beginning with these resources:
— Carbon180
— Carbon Future
— Carbon Business Council
If you want to hear what carbon community leaders are talking about, consider listening to these Podcasts:
— Zero
— My Climate Journey
— Reversing Climate Change
We hope these recommendations help you discover new ways to engage across communities.
Projects
Collected works at the forefront of climate action
Living Breakwaters / SCAPE
According to the Obel Award jury, this 2023 award-winning visionary project tackles the full task of adaptation and has the capacity to inspire and positively impact vulnerable shorelines worldwide.
This benchmark for adaptation in the built environment operates on several scales — increasing physical, ecological, and social resilience, and activating both human and non-human life in the design process.
Vestre / The Plus / Bjarke Ingels Group
The Plus is set to become the first project of its kind in the world to achieve the highest environmental BREEAM rating.
All materials are carefully chosen by their environmental impact, with the facade constructed from local timber, low-carbon concrete and recycled reinforcement steel.
Through this project, Vestre aims to prove that industrial projects can also be global innovators in the environmental field.
CO2Made® Polyurethane Foam / Twelve
Twelve turns CO2 into essential products.
CO2Made® materials encompass a broad range of polymers that are chemically identical to conventional fossil-based products and possess the same characteristics. Such polymers are essential materials for making products like polyurethane foam, used in the built environment today.
Now, carbon transformation is producing climate-positive solutions made from air, not oil.
Resources
Materials and tools to help decarbonize the world
Dyes and their finishing processes are among the most polluting manufacturing processes on the planet. By employing low-embodied carbon dyes, the carbon footprint associated with traditional dyeing techniques is substantially mitigated.
Explore these examples and many other sources in our materials directory.
AirDye® enables a technology to print and dye textiles without using any water, providing a quick, simple, environmentally friendly, and economically viable way to color and print materials with a lower carbon footprint than conventional dyeing processes.
Living Ink is a biomaterials company creating and delivering carbon negative pigment and ink products made from algae for the packaging and textile industry.
OurCarbon uses an energy neutral pyrolysis process to turn organic wastes into a material additive and black pigment that can be used to color everything from textiles to bioplastics.
Sages creates non-toxic dyes that are made using color extracted from food waste and a unique circular process.
Climate trends & strategies include various tools that keep us informed about changing conditions, new choices, and ways to respond while on our respective climate journeys.
Dive deeper and discover far more in our growing tools directory.
Systems Change Lab aims to spur action at the pace and scale needed to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges: limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), halting biodiversity loss and building a just and equitable economy.
Climate Infrastructure focuses on strategies to help shrink the carbon footprint of the built environment and help communities adapt to the effects of climate change.
NCEI National Centers for Environmental Innovation has developed a climate monitoring tool providing historic trends and current data sets.
The Centers for Environmental Information offers climate trends affecting ecosystems and for developing adaptation and mitigation strategies.
Policy
Advancing climate action through legislation
Our National policy directory includes a selection of measures in all 50 states that support decarbonization. Searching by state is easy with our alphabetical finder and every measure is tagged — Proposed (or) Passed — to quickly learn its status.
Below are just two examples of passed measures from the state of Maine.
Compare states — leading or needing climate legislation now.
The design community can help decarbonize commercial and industrial facilities through An Act To Provide Climate Change Transition Assistance for Maine’s Energy-intensive Businesses. This Trust provides funding to reduce electricity consumption and increase energy efficiency by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lowering energy costs.
Maine is the first state to pass a law divesting public funds from oil, gas, and coal companies. This signifies a determined shift away from an infrastructure reliant on fossil fuels and a growing opportunity to design for decarbonization.
Our International directory connects designers to each country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), industry advocacy groups, and how to participate. The NDCs make it easy to compare each country’s global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and gain a more comprehensive view of global climate action.
Explore the countries — NDCs, and GHGs listed under the letter I.
Iceland NDCs / 2021 / global GHG emissions: 0.01%
India NDCs / 2022 / global GHG emissions: 6.67%
Indonesia NDCs / 2022 / global GHG emissions: 3.11%
Iraq NDCs / 2022 / global GHG emissions: 0.55%
Ireland NDCs / 2020 / global GHG emissions: 0.14%
Israel NDCs / 2021 / global GHG emissions: 0.18%
Italy NDCs / 2020 / global GHG emissions: 0.71%
All the countries can be easily found in our alphabetical directory here.
Lots
New initiatives to help decarbonize the world
SCALING AN INDUSTRY
TO RESTORE THE CLIMATE
Carbon Business Council
Ben Rubin is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Carbon Business Council, a nonprofit trade association representing more than 100 carbon management companies working together to responsibly restore the climate and make a gigaton-scale climate impact. In addition, Ben also serves on the Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of Commerce, among his other key roles.
CLIMATE POSITIVE
REGENERATIVE FUTURE
New Frameworks
Jacob Racusin is Co-Founder and Director of Building Science and Sustainability with New Frameworks, a Vermont-based worker-owned cooperative.
As a consultant, designer, and educator, Jacob merges his passions for ecological stewardship, relationship to place, and social justice. He is a Lead Embodied Carbon Researcher and BEAM Trainer and Co-Developer with Builders For Climate Action.
A NEW APPROACH
USING EXISTING HVAC
Carbon Reform
Jo Norris is the CEO and Co-founder of Carbon Reform. The company has developed a modular carbon capture appliance that cleans indoor air and scrubs CO2, turning it into a useful mineral. This technology makes indoor air safer and healthier for occupants while it saves energy for building owners.
Their engineers, scientists, and creatives are dedicated to democratizing access to carbon removal solutions for the built environment.
Listening & Reading Suggestions
Zero:Making Sense of "Compounding" Climate Impacts
My Climate Journey:Reclaimed Lumber With Urban Machine
A Matter Of Degrees:The Case Of The Killer Heat
Carbon Business Council:A New Industry Scales To Reverse Climate Change
Carbon Direct:2024 Criteria for High-Quality Carbon Dioxide Removal
