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June 4, 2020

Gli ingegneri strutturali si sono sfidati ad eliminare il carbonio incorporato entro il 2050

Nel 2019, il Carbon Leadership Forum ha pubblicato la SE 2050 Challenge:

"Tutti gli ingegneri strutturisti devono comprendere, ridurre e infine eliminare il carbonio incorporato nei loro progetti entro il 2050".

Riconoscendo che i materiali strutturali rappresentano almeno 50% del carbonio emesso nella produzione, consegna e installazione di materiali per nuove costruzioni e gli ultimi rapporti dell'IPCC ci dicono che il settore edile ha solo fino al 2050 per raggiungere la neutralità del carbonio, ora più che mai, i membri degli ingegneri strutturali hanno l'opportunità di cambiare la traiettoria del settore edile.

Conceived of and developed by members of the Carbon Leadership Forum — including Duncan Cox (Thornton Tomasetti), Catherine De Wolf (MIT/EPFL), Amy Hattan (Thornton Tomasetti), Erin McDade (Architecture 2030), Kate Simonen (Carbon Leadership Forum/UW), Wil Srubar (U Colorado Boulder), and Frances Yang (Arup) — the SE 2050 Challenge was designed to ignite structural engineers and their firms to meet embodied carbon benchmarks and ambitious reduction goals, and be recognized for the significant role they can play towards these targets.

Un posto in prima fila per lo sviluppo della sfida

di Frances Yang
Associate and Sustainability Consultant presso Arup a San Francisco

The journey of the SE 2050 Initiative began four years ago, catalyzed by several streams of activity heading in the same direction. The seven individuals who started the initiative had two primary motivations: we wanted to inspire and engage structural engineers to drive down embodied carbon in their designs, and to contribute data to establish benchmarks and targets. The Carbon Leadership Forum had just completed a studio completo di benchmarking che ha identificato la necessità di raccogliere più dati in modo molto più sistematico e organizzato al fine di fissare obiettivi di carbonio incorporati per Architecture 2030.

Arup was invited to join due to multiple touch points. Our own history included an internal effort starting in 2009 to obtain embodied carbon benchmarks by compiling data from over 80 projects from publicly available case studies plus our own. This also formed the start of an internal project tracking effort. When the CLF needed data for Architecture 2030 targets we were able to offer more than 400 data points for the bench-marking study. In parallel, Arup had also helped to create the UK WRAP (now RICS) Embodied Carbon Database, and assisted the development of the MIT material quantities database. These activities reflect Arup’s decades-long commitment to sustainability and the firm’s belief that addressing total carbon in the built environment is essential to its mission to “shape a better world.”

While the seven of us were advancing our organizations in our own ways, we realized that by coming together we could jump start a program to reach the entire structural engineering community. Inspired by the Impegno AIA 2030, we saw that a program to motivate, equip, and keep firms accountable — while also providing useful data to scientific and policy communities — would be essential for any hopes of reaching net zero embodied carbon by 2050. The CLF provided the incubation space for us to initiate SE 2050.

Sotto gli auspici del CLF, abbiamo pubblicato il SE 2050 Challenge. Siamo stati in grado di sfruttare la rete CLF per raccogliere 140 firme da ingegneri strutturali e sostenitori in sole 4 settimane, chiedendo al Istituto di ingegneria strutturale (SEI) to commit to “understand, reduce and ultimately eliminate embodied carbon in their projects by 2050.” We reached out directly to the SEI Sustainability Committee, and were elated to see the committee quickly form the SE 2050 Working Group. In short order, the Working Group secured an all-day meeting with members of SEI’s Board of Governors, created an astounding website, and officially launched the beta-phase of the SE 2050 Commitment Program. The CLF was also critical at the face-to-face meeting with SEI leadership. Alongside its longtime partners from the AIA, Architecture 2030, and USGBC, the CLF brought both urgency and invitation never before directed to our national structural engineering organization on matters of our climate crisis. SEI endorsed the SE 2050 Challenge a few months later.

As someone who was in the SE 2050 incubation group, and is now on the SEI SE 2050 committee, I am excited about the commitment and prospects of SE 2050, and how it will accelerate efforts of the seven founding members towards those two original goals. We are still at the start of the road, as there is a lot of work to do. So join us! While SEI’s committee now leads the way, there is plenty of room for all on this straighter and broader path that the CLF has paved.

Frances Yang

Frances Yang, Associate and Sustainability Consultant presso Arup a San Francisco

Gli ingegneri strutturali rispondono alla sfida

di Michael Gryniuk
Associate and Project Manager presso LeMessurier a Boston

When the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) approached the Sustainability Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) in late 2017 with the concept of SE 2050 I had been on the committee for mere months but was immediately hooked. I was fascinated with the possibility of designing structural systems in a way that would result in net-zero embodied carbon emissions! The timing was also perfect.

Avevo iniziato a chiedermi quale impatto avesse la mia carriera sull'ambiente. Trascorrendo gran parte del mio tempo libero nei boschi in bicicletta o a piedi ho sviluppato un apprezzamento per la natura e l'importanza fondamentale di proteggerla. Dotato di una comprensione della scienza alla base del riscaldamento globale e dell'urgente necessità di limitare le nostre emissioni di gas a effetto serra ulteriormente enfatizzato con l'accordo di Parigi sul clima, cerco di trovare modi per limitare i gas a effetto serra a livello personale. Ma stavo facendo abbastanza in tutti gli aspetti della mia vita? Che impatto hanno avuto realmente gli edifici che ho progettato? Il mondo è terribilmente grande, dopotutto.

About 4 months earlier I was 3 years into a 5-year process of managing the design and construction administration of a large mixed-use development project in Boston that was entering the early stages of construction. The large excavation was complete, subgrade prepped, bars tied, and forms set for a 3,500 cubic yard mat concrete placement. My inner nerd was rather excited. A few days later I found myself doing some basic calculations (probably instead of reviewing the steel shop’s drawings as I was supposed to) on the mat’s embodied carbon. “This can’t be right” I remember thinking. “Really?”. It was. I would have to drive my car from Boston to the White Mountains of New Hampshire and back again over 8,000 times to match the equivalent carbon dioxide. I got to work.

Dall'introduzione di SE 2050 ad oggi mi sono trovato concentrato quasi esclusivamente sulla realizzazione di un programma di impegno SE 2050 formalmente approvato dalla SEI. E ho avuto il piacere assoluto di farlo con un gruppo di volontari estremamente talentuosi e dedicati. Fare amicizia e aiutare l'ambiente. Due per due! Il nostro gruppo ha lavorato instancabilmente negli ultimi due anni affrontando i vari successi e sfide con determinazione e intelligenza. Il 19 dicembre 2019 il Consiglio dei governatori SEI ha votato per sostenere la Sfida SE 2050 del CLF e l'8 aprile 2020 ha votato per istituire formalmente il Programma di impegno SE 2050 e il nostro Comitato SE 2050 per il quale sono onorato di servire come attuale Sedia. Abbiamo in programma di lanciare il programma a novembre presso Greenbuild.

My engagement with the SEI Sustainability Committee and involvement with SE 2050 and the CLF has translated directly to my career as a structural engineer at LeMessurier where I now direct our firm’s sustainability group developing new and unique sustainability best practices. We now have a dedicated staff able to provide project support to the firm on all items related to sustainability, and I’m proud to say LeMessurier has been a sponsor of the CLF since 2018. We were also one of the first firms to sign on to the CLF’s SE 2050 Challenge and were an early adopter and sponsor of the EC3 tool.

Non prenderai lo stesso impegno e ci aiuterai a fare progressi insieme?

Mike Gryniuk

Michael Gryniuk, Associate e Project Manager presso LeMessurier a Boston

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