Meet our sustainability champions and find out how we are working to achieve net zero

As we all rightly focus on mitigating climate change, we are very aware that our practice can play a significant role in helping to reduce carbon emissions. We need to embrace the conscious planning, design, construction, and careful thinking of the operation and maintenance of our buildings. We have the know-how and collectively need to realise our global net zero goal, the question is how can this be achieved?

We need to embrace and restore, and to produce high quality, sustainable and responsible designs. Our approach is one that is rounded and collaborative as we believe it will propel us with greater expedience to targets such as those in the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge. These cover operational energy, embodied carbon, potable water use and health and wellbeing. A focus on these key areas will coincidentally improve quality of life, promote biodiversity and create long-term value for society.

Our design approach has sustainability integrated from the very earliest concepts, through all design stages into construction and post occupancy evaluation. We understand the dynamic balance of building, site, climate, and social context, we listen to our clients and provide highly considered and tested designs. The re-use and transformation of an existing building is our preference, giving a new lease of life to something that is there already rather than to demolish and re-build.

“We focus on a ‘fabric first’ approach to building design, maximising the performance of the components and materials that form the building fabric, before considering the use of active services. This approach can reduce capital and operational costs, improving the energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.”
Marion Baeli, Partner

As a practice we have pledged support for Architects Declare Climate and Biodiversity Emergency, Heritage Declares and RetroFirst. This demonstrates our commitment to the shift that is needed, including going beyond net zero to regenerative design principles. We also engage and contribute to research with industry bodies and specialist organisations. We are contributors to the LETI (London Energy Transformation Initiative) working groups for embodied carbon and retrofit subjects. We use their invaluable information resource to guide our designs.

Our sustainability champions are Marion Baeli, Anke Weerasinha, Ben Blackledge, Emer Loraine, Farah El-Hakim, Iain McLellan, Jokin Asiain, Luke Richardson-Brown, Michelle Sanchez, Navin Veeroo, Rebecca Campbell, Wayne Mannings and Will Notley.

Our sustainability team is integrated with our technical team so they can work hand in hand with our staff, clients and consultants. We continually develop our in-house knowledge and expertise and we collaborate with our peers and those who are specialists in monitoring and measuring. We use specialist building physics modelling software to assess the environmental performance of design proposals and BIM tools to assess the life cycle of specified materials. We also have staff who are trained in Sustainable Architecture, Passivhaus, Retrofit and Conservation Architecture. We regularly work with BREEAM, LEED, Passivhaus and Home Quality Mark and are developing Well Certification experience.

Our retrofit project at 100 Princedale Road was the first Victorian house to be Passivhaus Certified. It achieved an 80% reduction in carbon emissions for operational energy use, remarkably, it completed over ten years ago. In the intervening years, the progress made with new skills and technologies means that highly sustainable existing homes like Princedale Road will become increasingly common.

We are currently working on a project that will be benchmarked against the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge campaign which helps architects design within a climate conscious trajectory towards reaching net zero. We look forward to sharing further information as we progress.

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