Judge Not: A Lesson from Climate Week NYC

Climate Week NYC 2021 debuted Monday with a panel of corporate officers discussing sustainability. At first blush this seemed to me an odd way to kick-off what is arguably the nation’s most important annual climate summit. I wondered, are we witnessing the co-option of the climate agenda by the same business and industry forces that got us into this mess? More importantly, is that a bad thing?

The answer, I realized, is no it's not a bad thing. Having companies take the lead on climate action instead of waiting for governments is what we’ve always wanted to achieve. Seeing it finally happen, though, can be as disorienting as it is refreshing.

In my role as Sustainable Design Leader at HOK, I’ve seen firsthand how our corporate clients have come to embrace sustainability in recent years. These businesses are rapidly pursuing carbon and well-being initiatives that dovetail with aggressive Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals. Many companies that had existing plans in place are now resetting their goals to be even more aggressive. Most hopeful of all has been the change in attitude toward ESG. It’s gone from a box-checking exercise to a realization that sustainability can be a value creator.

I recently witnessed this evolution with a digital marketing client. On previous projects the company’s leaders were ambivalent about pursuing LEED certification and openly questioned the value of another plaque on the wall. In our most recent project, however, they unveiled a refreshed set of corporate sustainability goals headlined by a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality within the decade beginning with our project.

At HOK, we too are redoubling our commitments to health and the environment. Our approach to design now incorporates a consideration of embodied carbon to accompany our operational carbon focus. Internally we have expanded on our goal to design to carbon neutrality by 2030 with the AIA2030 Commitment by signing on to SE2050 – a commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate embodied carbon in our structural systems. We have committed to conduct whole building life cycle assessments on every new construction project so that our design decisions are informed by carbon impact. And we challenge each of our offices to deliver at least one net zero energy project per year.

Going forward, it’s likely more companies will soon get serious about sustainability, especially as impact investing and consumer consciousness continue to grow. Who knows? Perhaps some of the latecomers may even find themselves on a future stage at Climate Week NYC. The lesson I learned watching Monday’s kickoff is not to judge how or why businesses are embracing sustainability. What matters is that they’ve arrived.