The Misuse of Sustainability: Rethinking Architecture’s Climate Commitments
Examining how 'sustainability' lost its way in architecture and the urgent reforms needed to reclaim its meaning for the climate emergency.
The Hijacking of ‘Sustainable’: Architecture’s Defining Crisis
Once a visionary concept, sustainability is increasingly viewed as a hollow marketing term in the built environment. Industry groups and leading architects now warn that its core principles have been diluted, misinterpreted, and—more troublingly—co-opted by powerful interests lacking serious commitment to climate action. The consequences are global: as architecture faces the twin crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss, re-establishing what sustainability means is crucial for the profession’s credibility and for planetary survival.
How ‘Sustainable’ Lost Its Meaning
Over the past three decades, ‘sustainable’ transitioned from a precise description of environmental, social, and economic harmony to a diluted label attached to nearly any new building. Critics argue that vague definitions allow even resource-intensive, high-carbon projects to claim the ‘sustainable’ badge, so long as minimal box-ticking (e.g. energy ratings, LED lighting, or endorsing generic corporate strategies) is performed. As a result, the term risks conveying comfort and progress where there is little meaningful climate benefit.
- Vague criteria and varied standards make ‘sustainable’ easy to misuse.
- Greenwash is rampant—‘eco’, ‘net zero’, and ‘regenerative’ are similarly at risk.
- Lack of regulatory clarity allows the proliferation of token measures and industry PR.
Architects Declare: A Response to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency
The Architects Declare movement, launched in 2019, signaled the architecture profession’s formal recognition of a climate and biodiversity emergency. Over a thousand practices signed pledges to transform the industry and to push beyond traditional notions of green building. The group’s founding statement called for a paradigm shift: “Meeting the needs of society without breaching the earth’s ecological boundaries will demand a transformation in our thinking and approach.”
- Focus on low embodied carbon materials, adaptive reuse, and life cycle cost.
- Collaboration across professions to reduce carbon, waste, and energy use.
- A commitment to evaluating all new projects against planetary boundaries, not just financial or aesthetic goals.
Importantly, Architects Declare urged the industry to abandon incrementalism in favor of rapid, systemic change. But from its outset, the group faced doubts: Could a voluntary, consensus-driven movement deliver tangible impact?
‘Sustainability’ in Practice: The Ongoing Challenge
Despite robust declarations, critics contend that the architecture profession and its major clients—property developers, financial groups, and even some government bodies—continue to focus on optics over substance. Reports reveal that many industry players are performing sustainability for public relations purposes rather than to generate measurable climate solutions.
Common symptoms of this disconnect include:
- Prominent firms maintain two faces: one for awards entries touting green bona fides and another for delivering high-carbon megaprojects.
- New developments often prioritize asset value and short-term returns over meaningful environmental performance.
- Lack of industry-wide consensus on defining and tracking sustainable outcomes beyond energy efficiency or materials sourcing.
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Architecture’s method for measuring success is at the center of ongoing debate: should awards and honors recognize projects with surface-level green credentials, or should the profession move toward rigorous, transparent standards for sustainability?
The Manifesto for Change: From Policy to Practice
Seeking to push the conversation from rhetoric to results, the UK Architects Declare group released a comprehensive ‘Building Blocks’ manifesto in 2024. Developed with input from 1,300+ firms, major industry bodies, and climate experts, the manifesto urges policymakers and practitioners alike to embrace a holistic approach that crosses project boundaries, funding silos, and political divides.
Its proposals are grouped into three core ‘building blocks’, each with urgent policy and industry implications:
- Resource Efficiency: Nationwide retrofit strategies to cut energy waste, legal limits on up-front carbon emissions, and reforms to property taxation.
- Circular Economy: Mandatory materials passports (detailed digital product records), incentives for reuse, and stronger drivers for full-life-cycle design.
- Restoring Natural & Social Infrastructure: Strengthening biodiversity standards and embedding wellbeing as a cornerstone of planning policy, including a proposed National Wellbeing Measure.
The manifesto’s ultimate aim is to “add a sense of urgency to the debate, and to ensure the UK benefits from a just transition.” The urgency is justified by enormous potential gains, from NHS savings through home retrofits to green job creation.
Greenwashing and the Crisis of Trust
For all their promise, green declarations too often collide with commercial and cultural realities. The risk of greenwashing—where companies use sustainability for image management, not action—remains high. High-profile construction projects may tout energy savings or rooftop gardens while leaving the bulk of emissions unaddressed in materials, demolition waste, or poor transport planning.
- Rather than deepen public understanding, buzzwords like ‘sustainable’, ‘eco’, and increasingly even ‘net zero’ are used to obscure.
- Certification systems such as BREEAM, LEED, or WELL are frequently gamed to deliver awards while sidestepping core climate responsibilities.
- Architectural marketing often spotlights symbolic gestures—solar panels, living walls, or water features—without comprehensive climate impact assessments.
This erosion of trust has driven calls for industry regulation, credible third-party auditing, and legally binding definitions for sustainability claims. As prominent campaigners note, unless the profession can “show its work”—through transparent data, mandatory measurement, and accountability—progress will stall.
Beyond the Building: The Political & Economic Context
Experts increasingly argue that the conversation must expand beyond buildings’ physical attributes to scrutinize the systems that produce them. Sociologist Saskia Sassen highlights how real estate’s transformation into a vehicle for capital growth—not social or environmental needs—is at the core of the sustainability crisis. As long as housing and city making are treated as speculative assets, architects may be limited in their power to drive true sustainability.
| Element | Conventional Approach | Regenerative Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Goal | Profit, compliance | Ecological health, community value |
| Leadership | Clients, shareholders | Shared with stakeholders and ecosystems |
| Indicators | Energy use, cost | Total carbon, wellbeing, biodiversity |
| Design Process | Isolated by discipline | Collaborative, iterative, cross-cutting |
This table underscores the widening gap between sustainability as currently practiced and as envisioned by its leading advocates.
Accountability: Overcoming the Hollow Promise
In practice, too few architecture firms have fully integrated their climate commitments into how they deliver projects. Reports from insiders stress that a significant proportion of practices who signed up for climate declarations do not demonstrably follow through. The failure is attributed to several factors:
- Lack of realistic goal-setting and tracking—no consequence for falling short.
- Market pressures: clients with profit-over-planet priorities often dominate project briefings.
- Industry-wide reluctance to challenge unsustainable client demands, fearing loss of business.
As one critic wrote, “Sustainability commitments slowly die, so do our chances of decarbonizing our economies.” Genuine progress demands measurable goals, external auditing, and an industry culture shift from awards to real outcomes.
The Path Forward: Strategies for Reclaiming Sustainability
To restore trust, industry leaders and campaigners advocate for several immediate reforms:
- Establish clear, enforceable definitions for key sustainability terms, aligned with planetary boundaries.
- Shift prizes and recognition to projects with verified, holistic net-positive impacts (carbon, water, material, social value).
- Mandate open data sharing and transparent project performance metrics instead of voluntary reporting.
- Embed climate and biodiversity principles in project procurement, so clients must compete on transformative outcomes.
- Invest in retrofit and reuse over demolition and new construction wherever possible.
- Expand design processes to include community interests, long-term operational impacts, and full supply chain audits.
Most critically, restoring the meaning of ‘sustainable’ requires profound cultural and political shifts—not just technical fixes or new labels.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: What does ‘sustainable’ mean in architecture today?
A: The term was intended to describe buildings and systems that meet present needs without compromising those of future generations. Today, due to overuse and lack of strict standards, it is often applied to projects with limited or surface-level environmental benefit.
Q: What is the main aim of Architects Declare?
A: Architects Declare advocates for a fundamental transformation of the built environment sector to address the climate and biodiversity emergency, setting ambitious design, material, and operational targets that align with ecological boundaries.
Q: Why is greenwashing such a concern in architecture?
A: Greenwashing undermines trust and progress by allowing companies to present an environmentally responsible image without making substantial climate-positive changes. It often distracts from true innovation and can delay necessary regulatory reform.
Q: What are examples of true sustainable practice?
A: Genuine sustainable architecture includes retrofitting existing buildings, genuinely reducing operational and embodied carbon, using regenerative materials, and prioritizing people and planet over profit in decision-making.
Q: How can clients and the public demand more of architecture?
A: By insisting on independent verification of climate claims, supporting policies for retrofit and reuse, and rewarding design teams that deliver transparent, holistic environmental and social value.
References
- https://www.ribaj.com/intelligence/intelligence-architects-declare-buildings-blocks-policy-sustainability-just-transition
- https://failedarchitecture.com/architects-declare-a-climate-emergency-but-can-they-avoid-real-estates-greenwashing-tendencies/
- https://uk.architectsdeclare.com/practice-guide
- https://www.dezeen.com/2023/04/26/architects-declare-sustainability-chris-hocknell-opinion/
- https://www.architecture.com.au/archives/reading-architecture/architects-declare-and-sustainability-performance
- https://archleague.org/article/architects-declare/
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