The Imperative to Make Equity More of Sustainability Strategy

As COVID-19 spread across the United States last year, the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities of color and communities with low incomes (often one in the same) raised significant questions about healthcare equity and access.

Less discussed was location and community design. Studies like one from American University found that communities where pollution is prevalent had the highest COVID-19 infection rates as well as mortality rates, 40 and 19 percent respectively in the American University study. Largely, those communities are populated by people of color, largely Black and Latine.

In fact, 60 percent of the total U.S. population lives in areas adversely affected by pollution and lack of green space or an urban canopy. Not only did these communities prove to be highly susceptible to infectious disease, they are also most at risk from the effects of climate change and global warming.

It was the intersection of community, health, equity, and design that three advocates in these arenas gathered during the annual recognition to Earth Day to discuss the sustainability movement and its role in building communities that are equitable and healthy, especially for groups who often are not represented where the decisions are being made about where they live.

“Equity is the serious question of who we’re designing for, where we’re designing for. Sustainability can be so many things. It’s not just green roofs and solar panels…Equity is a real honest, sincere look at who is affected, and then make decisions based on that.”

James Nutt, AIA, LEED AP

“It’s not too long ago that all men and women weren’t created equal in the written law. Our communities still suffer the damage of segregation and inequitable laws and practices, like discriminatory lending, redlining, gerrymandering, toxic waste zones. All these things, they still happen,” said Steph Leonard, associate director of market transformation and development at the U.S. Green Building Council’s office in Minneapolis. “They are practices that our communities were built on… and deprogramming that, becoming aware of that, acknowledging that, dismantling that, and accepting one’s role in that, and working to change that, needs to be an active and daily intentional practice in all walks of life.”

Leonard was joined by BWBR’s James Nutt, AIA, LEED AP, who serves on the firm’s equity task force, and Sara Goenner Curlee, AIA, LEED AP, who is the firm’s key manager for performance design focused on developing and coordinating BWBR’s existing sustainability design program as well as leading efforts to improve the sustainability standards of projects across all industry types. The three, all white, recognized their background in the discussion, but they said they joined it to talk about their journey towards equity and anti-racism and how it is influencing their perspective on the sustainability movement.  

While many of the design elements like highway placement, rail corridors, and industrial zoning that have contributed to significantly lower life expectancies for many people of color are outside the realm of architecture, Nutt said the practice is not absolved of the role it plays in the quality of life of the people who interact with it.

“There’s what we are going to do for and to that community and also what has been done in the past, as a lot of these communities have had good things done, and a lot of them have had a series of micro-aggressions against the neighborhood. And there’s a lot of times of just unintended consequences,” Nutt said.

“We’ve all done projects where the goal is to maximize the property that we have, for the most profit, you know, get as many offices as you can into a space, and we’ve all done projects where the owner was really invested in community and they wanted to create pocket parks or say something to and about the urban fabric. So, we should come into these projects with just open curiosity, learning who we’re designing for. How does it feel? Does it feel safe? Who does it feel safe for? Are we protecting for something or against something?”

Hennepin Healthcare Clinic and Specialty Center

Curlee noted many of the failures in developing communities through architecture can be traced to a lack of engagement with the community, not developing the necessary relationships with those who would be impacted, or not learning and listening to their needs. 

“That’s the history of architecture in some ways,” she said. “Some of the large affordable housing developments you think of over the years, it was some great idea to make these high rises that had them all together, and then they just didn’t work out so well.”

The three noted, it’s not just about the execution, but it’s also about the process and how those working for building owners, in community development, and in the sustainability arena engage populations who are not white and middle or upper class. They noted this can be when community engagement meetings are scheduled and how they are structured to bring their voices to the process.

“In some communities, they are comfortable with being in a public forum and getting up and complaining about something or asking a question. In some communities and some cultures, that is not acceptable,” Nutt said. “You need to understand a way to pull out those questions, whether it’s considered polite, or that it’s not acceptable. Not everybody thinks the way we do.”

“I think [the engagement process] is a lot more people-centered,” Leonard said. “I think the conversation around what we’re designing for or who we’re designing for is really changing and why we’re designing that way and what good design is and if it’s not considering the intersectionality of sustainability, resiliency, equity, health, and wellness, is it really good design?”

“There’s this thought of privilege, privilege around thinking that our actions to the planet don’t matter. But they do. We are part of this planet, and I just feel like some of that privilege, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, is also being used to maintain these inequitable systems to society.”

Sara Goenner Curlee, AIA, LEED AP

“One thing that has become more prevalent, I think, in the sustainability movement is an emphasis on beauty and delight of the project and what it can mean to people in that sense of what it brings to our culture, what it brings to our everyday experiences,” Curlee said. “It has to be that, too, so that people will value it and treasure it and feel comfortable in it and safe in these buildings.”

Curlee admitted striking that balance needs to come with perspective about our actions and choices and the impact both have on those around us, not just ourselves in the moment.

“I just think sustainability… I can’t get away from the idea that there’s this privilege. There’s this thought of privilege, privilege around thinking that our actions to the planet don’t matter. But they do. We are part of this planet, and I just feel like some of that privilege, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, is also being used to maintain these inequitable systems to society,” she said.

“It’s really easy to focus on what we need right now to get past right now, and I feel like our job as architects and designers is to think about that decision in context of the larger and longer timeframe,” Nutt added.

“The language around sustainability is really more about sustaining human life now and really focusing on how to keep people healthy in buildings and keep people healthy in their communities, and more people-centered,” Leonard said.

The three recognized there has been movement to evolve sustainability beyond the lenses of energy efficiency, carbon neutrality, and water conservation, such as the 2019 adoption of the Framework for Design Excellence by the American Institute of Architects, but they also noted that a concerted focus on equity can bring about sustainability.

“Equity is the serious question of who we’re designing for, where we’re designing for,” Nutt said. “Sustainability can be so many things. It’s not just green roofs and solar panels. But certain aspects would be important to one project and in a way that it might be inappropriate in some projects. Equity is a real honest, sincere look at who is affected, and then make decisions based on that.”

“I do think that there’s a marriage between the two. If you think about a staff at a school district that changes their practices to ensure energy efficiency, and better building performance, and that in turn saves them money that they can put towards the learning and instruction budget, and that in turn gives the students a better experience at that school, is that equity or is that sustainability?” Leonard said. “If we’re truly thinking about health and wellbeing, the resiliency and sustainability of all people, then we are going to build stronger communities that sustain us as a society and as individuals. You can’t go wrong focusing on equity. They hold hands.”

“They can go hand-in-hand and we can solve both, because we need a planet to be here that’s livable for us,” Curlee said. “Like how it relates to climate justice, it’s those people that are living in those areas that are also going to be the most affected by climate change. By solving for climate change, we are then also inherently working towards a more equitable solution to the way we live.”

Raising the Baseline for Building Performance, Sustainability

In 2020, NASA reported the year as tying 2016 for the hottest on record. The five hottest years on record are ones that have occurred since 2015.

From prolonged fire seasons to stronger hurricanes, longer droughts, and more flash floods, the impacts that both a warming planet and changing climate are having on lives and infrastructure can no longer be dismissed. With buildings generating 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, and the global building supply predicted to grow another 2.5 trillion square feet by 2060, it’s placed the architecture, engineering, and construction professions in a central role mitigating those impacts if not reversing some of those temperature gains.

“We can continue to be part of the problem, or we can be part of the solution,” said Jesse Turck, AIA, LEED AP, a noted sustainability advocate who was the lone architect to attend COP24 in Katowice, Poland, in 2018. “I think BWBR has made a commitment to be the part of the solution, and we’re working really hard on that on all of our projects.”

Turck joined Tom Hanley, AIA, LEED AP, managing principal of BWBR’s Madison, Wis., office, on the Side of Design podcast to discuss the evolving landscape for sustainable design and how the recently established AIA Framework for Design Excellence is influencing the thinking on and designs for modern spaces.

Adopted in 2019, the Framework for Design Excellence is a set of 10 principles that firms of any size can use to evaluate project performance. While other initiatives in the profession have focused on energy performance and trying to achieve net-zero energy use by 2030, the Framework brings forward a more holistic approach to address people, infrastructure, the environment as well as buildings.

“We need to recognize that we’re designing buildings to serve the communities for the next 50, 100, or more years. And it’s a huge responsibility, not just in terms of sustainability, but how we want to function as a society.”

Jesse Turk, AIA, LEED AP

In early 2020, BWBR announced it would incorporate the Framework principles into the evaluation of the projects on which it works. Additionally, the firm would raise its performance baseline to push projects further in energy efficiency or energy neutrality, a commitment it made through the Architecture 2030 Challenge. Already, Turck said the firm has achieved facility designs that operate 70% more efficient than buildings designed in 2000. At the moment, though, the target is 80%.

“The 80%, I think everyone that I’ve talked to agrees, is a whole other level of achievement,” he said. “But as we start to incorporate more renewables into projects, it is becoming more of a reality. The building industry has a long way to go, and we need to work together as a design teams and contractors and owners and everyone in the supply chain to really improve our game.”

Hanley said what the Framework adds to the baseline is a holistic lens to evaluate both energy performance as well as resource consumption and the facility’s relationship to the area in which the facility is sited.

Exterior view of Rankin Hall and bioretention ponds.

“The energy performance is always something that’s out there in front, and the carbon footprint is right there with it,” Hanley said. “Of course, these are aspects that address the biggest threats to our civilization, but sustainable design really encompasses so much more than that.

“We’re fortunate that the American Institute of Architects has come out with the Framework, which is a great tool for us to use as architects. It broadens out to include things like social equity and wellbeing and our surrounding ecology and how we address that and how we use resources, which is so much more encompassing.”

“We need to recognize that we’re designing buildings to serve the communities for the next 50, 100, or more years. And it’s a huge responsibility, not just in terms of sustainability, but how we want to function as a society,” Turck said.

“[I]t’s not just about energy, but it’s about creating meaning in these buildings for people, that alone, I think, will help us to allow that building to serve us for many more generations than they’re serving us now. And that will be a big step in sustainable design.”

Tom Hanley, AIA, LEED AP

“What’s important about this are these questions that are brought forward in the Framework are meant to be brought to projects at the very onset, very early in the project before the budget’s defined, before the vision is established, so that the outcome of these questions can be baked right into the project vision, the project goals, and the project budget,” Hanley said.

For BWBR, Turck explained the Framework provides a foundation for the development of the firm’s own performance baseline that is used to set high performance goals for its project and push those projects to meet more than just code minimums. Beyond the Framework, the baseline is informed by engineers, contractors, and owners to define what standard practice should be that go far above those minimums.

“We’ve used it several times on initial project kickoff workshops, where it really is helpful to engage the client and other stakeholders in the dialogue. Even if they’re not familiar with the design process, it starts off with questions like, ‘What’s the big idea for the project?’” he said. “You can really set the goals, and then use that as your sort of North Star as you go through the design process.”

Hanley said this is important as it gives the owner a greater opportunity to elevate the project’s performance, rather than being limited by an pre-established budget that doesn’t accommodate the appropriate costs.

“All too often we run into a project where we’re midstream in design and somebody suggests adding some strategies to improve energy performance, but they will have some first-cost associated with them,” he said. “If we have the conversation early on with the client about what the advantages are, long term, over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years and demonstrate a return on investment, that more than covers that initial cost in a short amount of time. The decision to incorporate that’s going to be different than if you tried to squeeze it into a budget that isn’t accounting for that cost.”

Hennepin Healthcare Clinic and Specialty Center

“One of the things that I really enjoy about the AIA’s Framework for Design Excellence is that it covers so many broad topics, and it doesn’t explicitly mention sustainability,” Turck said. “If sustainability isn’t the highest priority for the project, at least going in, you can still use the same tool and have the discussion.

“Every project uses energy. Every project uses water. It’s just a matter of discussing and deciding where your project wants to set its goals. Having those discussions are just inherently a way to have the dialogue and hopefully set higher goals than people normally would without having the conscious discussion of, you know, what’s in the project and what’s not.”

Hanley said he thinks these type of conservations will only become more integral to project design as stakeholders such as patients, students, and office workers inquire more about how healthy is the facility and how equitable does it treat the community with its presence.

“One of the very first questions in the Framework for Design Excellence is something to the effect of, ‘What makes the project one that people will fight to preserve?’ And I think, if we can start looking at buildings that way, and it’s not just about energy but it’s about creating meaning in these buildings for people, that alone, I think, will help us to allow that building to serve us for many more generations than they’re serving us now. And that will be a big step in sustainable design,” he said.