Kelly Alvarez Doran, Co-Founder of Ha/f Climate Design, focused on the regulatory and economic systems that determine what gets built, arguing that carbon and cost are often driven by the same underlying decisions.

Changing the rules

“The first thing we need to do is just establish broad literacy to enable action,” says Kelly Alavarez Doran. That includes understanding the effect of planning rules, building codes, supply chains and procurement on the carbon intensity of development.

Crucially, those rules should not be treated as fixed. “Accepting current rules as given, they’re not,” Alvarez Doran said.

He also argued that the industry needs to communicate beyond its own professional language. “We need to find ways to bring our conversation to the public, and speak to them in terms that they can understand.” The case for change, he suggested, often becomes stronger when environmental performance is connected to issues people experience directly, from construction cost to the vitality of local high streets.