Participation Grows in AIA’s 2030 Commitment

The Oakland University Human Health Building, designed by SmithGroupJJR in 2011, has a predicted energy use intensity reduction of 68.3%.

By Nadav Malin

At its annual convention in Washington, D.C., the American Institute of Architects (AIA) released its second annual report documenting progress toward AIA’s 2030 Commitment. Developed to support Architecture 2030’s 2030 Challenge, the program promotes greening of firm operations and documenting of predicted energy performance of projects in design, with the goal of helping the industry monitor progress toward the 2030 Challenge goals—currently pegged at 60% fossil fuel reduction compared with average buildings.

The good news from the new report documenting 2011 activities is that the number of firms that have signed onto the commitment continues to grow. At 212, it still represents only a tiny fraction of AIA members, but it is up significantly from 2011. Of those who were eligible, 53% submitted reports as required by the program, including 656 million square feet of projects. That’s up from 48% in 2010 but shows that there are still a significant number of firms, especially the very small ones, that signed onto the Commitment but didn’t manage to report.

The reported results changed little from 2010 to 2011:

• Average reduction in predicted energy use intensity went from 35% to 34.6%.

• A respectable 12.8% of projects (by floor area) are on track to hit the 2030 Challenge 60% reduction target, up slightly from 12.1% in 2010.

• Energy modeling was done for 57% of the whole-building projects, down from 58% in 2010.

• Firms intend to collect actual energy use data after the project is occupied on 45% of projects (up from 37% in 2010).

Greg Mella, AIA, vice president at SmithGroupJJR, has been instrumental in supporting this program. He feels that it’s too early to expect trends in relation to achievement of the 2030 Challenge goals. “The transformations required to shift the momentum of our practice will take several years,” he said, adding, “But for firms, an awareness of energy performance across a practice is the first step.”

For more information:

The American Institute of Architects’ 2030 Commitment
www.aia.org