The argument for and against an Earthshot category for the built environment

Created in 2020, The Earthshot Prize was founded by The Prince of Wales and the Royal Foundation to search for, highlight and scale solutions that can help repair and regenerate the planet this decade. The prize focuses on five categories: protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate.

So far, its winners have made an impact – the latest update from Feb 2023 indicated that the 2021 finalists have already protected or restored more than two million hectares of ocean and 7,000 hectares of forest and avoided, removed or upcycled more than 40,000 tonnes of waste.

The prize seeks to add some impetus to the net zero journey, one that many countries have pledged to reach by 2050 at successive COP conferences. While these categories are important, is there room for another in the form of the built environment?

The argument for a built environment category

I am William Poole-Wilson, founder and managing director of architecture practice WILL+Partners. I recently discussed the issue with friend and peer Mitakshi Sirsi, director of sustainability at Broadway Malyan. In this article, we will outline our positions, starting with why I believe there should be an Earthshot category for the built environment.

I start with asking that we consider this: for the past 25 or 30 years working in practice, architects and engineers have made major contributions towards sustainability and ESG in the built environment. A small consequence is that we finally have developers and occupiers on the stage talking about it, and not just the architects and engineers. In my view, and as Prince William said, “we do not have another 30 years to try to get more of the world on board” – now is the time to support the work we do on sustainability in the built environment in practice.

What I mean by ‘practice’ is industry investment and contribution from developers, investors, insurers – funding beyond research and into making a difference in the real world, just as bodies like Earthshot are doing with their mission to find and grow innovators.

As a sector, we have had good technological research from the likes of Innovate UK, but I sometimes question if that has translated into practice, and if not, where the shortfalls are into making things work. In my mind, at present there just isn’t enough investment in practice to help us dig deep, innovate and improve processes that will ultimately support the decarbonisation of building stocks both in the UK and worldwide.

A lot of the progress we are making is down to volunteering our own time. The AEC community are excellent at it, often working pro bono with industry bodies and educating clients to bring people together. All too often we help clients ensure they have their ESG strategies on the right path to align with investor expectations, only for the financiers to swoop in and take all the credit.

If we are to get serious better sustainble outcomes in our sector, this status quo needs to change, and I believe an Earthshot built environment category could help to get things moving.

The argument against (by Mitakshi Sirsi)

First off, I must say I wouldn’t disapprove of any initiative that fights the good fight! I am merely questioning if this one, with all its hype, goes far enough. Does it provide enough wide-ranging investment to address the complex, cross-industry issues facing us?

After having this engaging conversation with Will, I would say I agree with him on a lot of his points.  Firstly, building stock decarbonisation – this is, in many ways, the elephant in the room regarding built environment emissions reduction. With 80% of 2050’s buildings already standing we are in a race against time. We must scale retrofit, upgrade and optimise solutions uber-rapidly.

There are also issues beyond carbon that figure here – materials & biodiversity or project processes and contracts. For instance, I find it comical that timber is thought of as an “innovative material” when it has been a building material for thousands of years. Why isn’t cross-laminated timber (CLT) use being scaled up? Perhaps it’s time we call on the insurance industry to ask why CLT construction is difficult to insure despite clear evidence that it is more fire resistant than was earlier assumed? And while we’re at it, ask why models such as the Integrated Project Insurance (IPI) model are not being adopted more rapidly.

Will and I also talked of our research on health and wellness, in offices especially. It was very detailed, but we did not have the investment, time or resources to put it into practice. I can only imagine what leaps we would make if our industry did have these opportunities as a matter of course, even if it covered as little as the long hours of volunteering our free time to improve outcomes.

Sure, it can be argued that Earthshot needs a construction category. I can also accept that the pomp and hype have a purpose, but I do believe that we need much more than an innovation award. We need investment in a whole range of other areas to overcome the far more systemic issues of skill, resource and structural changes – answers to which have long since been innovated, but not welcome in a world where the status quo is king.