BEEnow

The 2030 Palette is a free online platform that puts the principles and actions behind low-carbon and resilient built environments at the fingertips of design professionals worldwide.

Since planning and designing the built environment is primarily a visual activity, the 2030 Palette is structured as a visual network of interrelated elements called Swatches. Swatches present highly complex and multi-dimensional information in a readily accessible format organized by category – Region, City/Town, District, Site and Building. Each Swatch contains a written recommendation, rule-of-thumb, images and graphics representing the physical application of the recommendation, as well as more detailed information for its successful application.

 Climate Change in the U.S. -  Benefits of Global Action:

The Earth’s changing climate is affecting human health and the environment in many ways. Across the United States (U.S.), temperatures are rising, snow and rainfall patterns are shifting, and extreme climate events are becoming more common. Scientists are confident that many of the observed changes in the climate are caused by the increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. As GHG emissions from human activities increase, many climate change impacts are expected to increase in both magnitude and frequency over the coming decades, with risks to human health, the economy, and the environment.

In the heart of Washington, D.C., the Catholic University of America (CUA) is the proving ground for a new approach to multidisciplinary education. Since the university has no designated sustainability office or officer, faculty developed a course which would provide the platform for environmental literacy among all university parties. It was a necessary transformation; a bottom-up-approach where students became the catalysts for change, proliferated by faculty and staff as a new approach to integrative learning, empowered by a desire to employ creative methods of education while promulgating a greater awareness of energy, water conservation and other sustainability measures on campus.

The Carbon Neutral Curriculum Materials Project is a joint research effort between members of the Society of Building Science Educators (www.sbse.org), the American Institute of Architects (www.aia.org), and a private donor, the purpose of which is to provide practitioners, faculty and students with the means to meet the 2030 Challenge (www.architecture2030.org), that is, to be able to design and construct buildings to a state of carbon neutrality by the year 2030.

Laudato si' (On Care For Our Common Home):

The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. The Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. Here I want to recognize, encourage and thank all those striving in countless ways to guarantee the protection of the home which we share. Particular appreciation is owed to those who tirelessly seek to resolve the tragic effects of environmental degradation on the lives of the world’s poorest. Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.

The Carbon Neutral Curriculum Materials Project is a joint research effort between members of the Society of Building Science Educators (www.sbse.org), the American Institute of Architects (www.aia.org), and a private donor, the purpose of which is to provide practitioners, faculty and students with the means to meet the 2030 Challenge (www.architecture2030.org)- that is, to be able to design and construct buildings to a state of carbon neutrality by the year 2030.