What if we managed carbon impact with the same rigor as construction costs?

👀 Picture every cost-saving meeting would also be about reducing carbon footprint! Isn’t it about time that every project had a carbon budget?

In the past two decades in architecture, I've walked into countless cost-saving meetings with a knot in my stomach. I stood there, advocating for coherent designs, fully aware of the countless hours that the team would be revising, remodelling, and documenting changes.

But after many years in the industry, I’ve come to terms with the necessity of these meetings. After all, a budget is a budget.

𝐒𝐨, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐨𝐫?

Imagine there was a guardian of the carbon budget in every project, much like the role played by cost consultants.
What if the person pulling out the Bill of Quantities also tracked carbon, treating Life Cycle Assessments as integral as financial estimates?

Picture designers scrutinizing every line item not just for cost savings but for carbon reduction, too.

And in those tense moments when budgets overrun, imagine all parties – from envelope to structure to building systems – going through every detail in their scopes for carbon cuts before the meeting.

We might still experience stomach aches before these crisis meetings, but wouldn’t that be for a far better reason?

To me, this would finally put some sense in the much hated term value engineering...

Do you think this approach would work?
Does your project have a carbon budget?
Would you like to know what that budget should be?