By Pablo La Roche, Director of Sustainable Design

We are all aware of the importance of reducing our building’s carbon footprint to limit our impact on climate change. Architecture 2030, a non-profit independent organization, developed the 2030 Challenge which asks the architecture and building community to design all new buildings to meet a GHG-emitting performance standard of 60% below the regional (or country) average for that building type. This reduction will increase to 70% in 2015, 80% in 2020, and 90% in 2025, until we achieve carbon neutrality in 2030. Architecture 2030 proposes that these targets be accomplished by implementing sustainable design strategies, generating on-site renewable power and/or purchasing (20% maximum) renewable energy.

CSU Monterey Bay’s Academic Building II, designed by HMC Architects, is one of several of our projects that is on track to meet the AIA 2030 Commitment’s GHG-emitting performance standard of 60% below the regional average for that building type.

The 2030 Challenge has been adopted by many organizations including the American Institute of Architects which has implemented its own version of the Challenge, called the AIA 2030 Commitment, to provide a consistent, national framework with simple metrics and a standardized reporting format to help firms evaluate the impact that design decisions have on an individual project’s energy performance.

This year, as signatories of the 2030 Challenge and the 2030 Commitment, HMC Architects reported its performance goals to the AIA. Our overall average firm wide reported Predicted Energy Use Intensity (pEUI) reduction is 42.2% below the average for each building type and weighed by building square footage. This number is better than the average reduction published by the AIA for 2012 reporting firms which is 34.6%.

HMC’s average reduction in lighting power density (LPD) reported for our interiors projects is 24.5%, which is extremely close to the 25% target and better than the average reduction of 21% reported by all firms to the AIA.  We modeled 100% of our reported projects compared to reported average of 57%. Additionally, we expect to collect operational data from 57% of our projects after they are built, which surpasses the reporting firms average of 45%.

This is an important milestone for HMC—we are proud to have reported our data and even more excited to publish our results. We expect to continue making progress and contributing towards a better, more sustainable, low carbon environment for all.

Read the AIA 2030 Commitment Annual Report.