The National Fenestration Rating Council welcomed Architecture 2030 founder Edward Mazria as its keynote speaker on the first day of its Fall Membership Virtual Meeting, Monday, Oct. 19. The meeting runs through Oct. 21.
Mazria, an architect, educator and author, shared his research on how buildings can be designed and built to reduce carbon emissions including energy-efficient windows, doors and skylights. During his address, Mazria discussed embodied carbon in buildings and life cycle assessments to reduce the environmental impact of buildings. Unlike operational carbon emissions, which can be reduced over time with building energy efficiency renovations and the use of renewable energy, embodied carbon emissions are locked in place as soon as a building is built.
Under Mazria’s leadership, Architecture 2030 has become a prominent think tank working to transform the global built environment from being the major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions to a central part of the solution to the climate crisis. Over the past decade, his research into the sustainability, resilience, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of the built environment has redefined the role of architecture, planning, design, and building in reshaping the world.
In 2014, Mazria presented the Roadmap to Zero Emissions at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change calling for zero emissions in the built environment by 2050. He also drafted the 2050 Imperative, endorsed by professional organizations representing over 1.3 million architects in 124 countries worldwide.
The building industry plays an essential role in curbing emissions and addressing the climate crisis, Mazria said during the keynote. To meet emissions targets and not exceed global carbon budgets, the building industry must address new buildings, existing building and embodied carbon of building materials, construction and infrastructure.
“Everything is in place to do this,” Mazria says. “And it is up to our community—the design, planning and material production community.”
The focus on whole-building and fenestration-system performance continued across the first day of programing at the Fall Membership Virtual Meeting. Attendees discussed proposed changes in the industry, updates to NFRC’s energy-performance ratings and aspects of fenestration that affect the comfort and energy use in homes and offices nationwide.
