Four years ago over dinner in San Francisco during a materials focused Buildwell event over a dozen people came together to strategize about how to grow embodied carbon awareness and action. Prompted by Vincent Martinez of Architecture 2030 and inspired by the book Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact, we were looking to scale embodied carbon action beyond the materials/embodied carbon ‘geek squad’.

A year later the Carbon Leadership Forum convened the Embodied Carbon Network, now known as the Carbon Leadership Forum Network. This community has grown to include thousands of people – architects, engineers, contractors, material suppliers, building owners, policymakers, and associations – through its robust online Community platform, active Focus Groups, burgeoning Regional Hubs, and NGO Roundtable. It is thrilling to see the power of individuals coming together to enable collective action.

Do you have an interest in volunteering to help? We have a range of roles that could use your help and we welcome you. Please send an email to [email protected] if you’d like to be connected. And don’t miss that we’re hiring (see below) for dynamic leaders looking for new opportunities.

Can attitude help save the planet?

A frightened climate reporter meets an ex-basketball player with a serious game plan.

Teammates surrounded Mazria in Los Angeles…bumping elbows instead of shaking hands as they gathered at the Intercontinental Hotel during the early days of the US coronavirus outbreak, pre-quarantines. Three of his childhood friends, men who’d played Brookyn street ball with “Mazz” back when a twenty-three-foot jumper was still only two points, came out for his opening keynote. His two sisters were there. His daughter Demetra and her boyfriend showed up, as did one of Mazria’s most influential allies, Farhana Yamin, the UK environmental lawyer who’d represented small island nations in the years leading up to the Paris Climate Accord of 2016.

Apart from his inner circle, more than 400 architects, urban planners, contractors, and building material manufacturers had gathered at CarbonPositive’20 to collaborate on “net zero carbon” building codes, lower-carbon materials, and a faster rate of change throughout the industry. And there had been some movement, even in the previous six months.

A building materials-focused group called the Carbon Leadership Forum helped launch an open-access online calculator in November that allowed architects to gather emissions data during the design process and make better choices.

The AIA passed a strongly worded resolution at its annual conference committing to mitigating climate impacts in all new projects. And a Chicago-based architect, Tom Jacobs, had rallied colleagues around the world to take a more activist role in their communities, including participating in youth-led Global Climate Strikes.

New Platform for Conversation, Collaboration, Action

In April the Carbon Leadership Forum announced a new online community where CLF Members are invited to share ideas, best practices, new tools, and initiatives to radically reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. Over 1200 participants from 24 different countries have signed up in just a few weeks, joining a variety of discussion and action groups focused on a variety of topics, including construction, LCA data and tools, materials, education, buildings, structure, policy, renewals, and reuse.

The Community is built on Discourse, an open-source platform that enables secure, moderated conversations with a host of features to encourage communication and resource-sharing. Users can post topics for discussion, upload documents, images, and videos, and send messages to individuals and groups. Preview the Community.

To join the Community, you must be a Member of the CLF and ask for an invitation to set up your user account and password. Once you've done so, you'll be able to join Focus Groups and Regional or Local Hubs, post and comment on topics, configure your notifications, and subscribe to a regular email digest of the topics posted by others.