LPA on How to Achieve the 2030 Challenge Targets Toward Carbon Neutrality

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On paper, the incremental targets of the AIA 2030 Commitment, premised on the Architecture 2030 Challenge, look straightforward. Starting in 2006, the design community was to reduce the predicted energy use intensity (pEUI) of all new buildings and significant renovations by 50%. By 2010, the required reduction would increase to 60%; by 2015, to 70%; and so on, all the ways to 2030, when projects would achieve a 100% pEUI reduction—and carbon neutrality.

In reality, achieving the incremental targets has proven not to be easy. In 2018, the year for which data was most recently available, only 16 firms of the 252 firms that reported portfolio performance information on AIA’s 2030 Design Data Exchange met the 70% pEUI reduction goal, according to AIA’s report “2018 by the Numbers.” That’s just 3% of the then-549 total signatories.

Of those 16 firms reaching the target, LPA is the largest, with more than 430 architects, planners, engineers, interior designers, landscape architects, and researchers across six offices in California and Texas. In this podcast episode, Irvine, Calif.–based principal and design director Keith Hempel, AIA, details the approach, process, and tools used by LPA to achieve the momentous accomplishment—and whether his firm is ready to take on the 2030 Commitment’s uptick to an 80% pEUI reduction this year.

Episode 48: LPA on How to Achieve the 2030 Challenge Targets Toward Carbon Neutrality, featuring LPA principal and design director Keith Hempel, AIA, is also available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and GooglePlay.

This podcast episode was produced by Wanda Lau and Rob Grauert. To learn how three other firms of vastly different sizes are pursuing carbon neutrality, read ARCHITECT’s January 2020 article “Aim Higher: How to Transition Your Firm to Zero Net Carbon.”