ACTION!
ACAN! Australia’s Own
Working Groups
ACAN Australia is growing! Our fortnightly meetings are joined by regular and new members across all sectors of the built environment. More members mean more working groups, and more action – we always welcome those who want to advocate and activate positive climate change in their practice and region.
International chapters of ACAN! form ‘working groups’, each designated to work a carefully considered theme. These themes were selected on the basis of relevancy towards helping our three overarching aims being met. Each group’s purpose is to explore their selected theme, and use it as a platform for research, to learn, to start a conversation, build a community, and most importantly, find meaningful ways to take action.
If you’re interested in activating a particular group or have another idea, we’d love to see you at our next meeting!
1.
Circular Economy
The circular economy group is working to push for a radical shift in the construction industry so that all buildings in the UK are designed and built in line with circular economy principles. It is our mission to reimagine current building practices to enable regenerative design at all scales and stages of a project, and for the construction industry to have a positive impact on human and planetary health.
2.
Education
Architectural education is well-respected as an academic, vocational and regulated series of courses. However, few, if any, schools are equipping students with the tools and technical knowledge they will need to address the climate emergency. The increasing commodification of education, reflected by rising fees, does not tally up with schools failing to provide an education fit for purpose.
Taking action on climate change requires new approaches informed by knowledge exchange between universities and built environment professionals. We aim to understand curricula, systemic barriers, and engagement with climate change in architecture education. We cannot continue to teach in a way that avoids the reality of climate change.
3.
Embodied Carbon
ACAN’s first over-arching aim of ‘Decarbonise Now’ means, among other things, reducing whole life carbon of buildings to zero, as soon as possible. ACAN therefore has a thematic group looking at embodied carbon, working to drive down carbon emissions from the construction sector by calling for new regulations and policies to control embodied carbon.
4.
Existing Buildings
80% of buildings that will exist in 2050 have already been built. Right now, almost 30 million dwellings and 2 million commercial and public buildings account for around 20% of the UK’s CO2e emissions. Our purpose is to increase awareness of this responsibility by developing and supporting campaigns that will bring about change in policy and practice. Our existing building stock must be retrofitted in order to meet Australia’s climate change commitment.
5.
Carbon Literacy
We are collaborating with the experts and industry bodies to build and share knowledge for those working in construction – of all career type and level of experience. We are hoping to increase understanding of the science behind the climate and ecological emergency and our industry’s accountability in that. We intend to increase awareness, consideration and ultimately alter behaviour through better comprehension.
6.
Urbanism + Policy
The UK Planning Policy group has focussed their conversation around climate action plans and declarations. It aims to write a template letter, which can be circulated around the ACAN network and beyond, for individuals to send to their local authorities that have not yet declared. In addition, we are researching exemplar action plans, and identify action plan consultations across the country that we can build template responses and encourage participation.
7.
Professional Standards
This thematic group is interested in the professional culture of architecture and particularly the tone set by codes and regulations. We are campaigning to recalibrate standards set by the professional bodies in light of the climate and biodiversity crisis, to ensure they become fit-for-purpose in a fast changing world and are consistently upheld.
We are also interested to raise public expectation of built environment professionals in relation to the climate emergency. Professional standards are a key way that the public can call us into account and through which we are made accountable to each other.
8.
Custodianship & Ecology
We are focused on the challenges facing “wild things” in a time of critical biodiversity decline and habitat loss. We are working to raise awareness of the impacts of the architectural profession and construction industry on nature, and to support the vital shift towards a new form of professionalism dedicated to ecological regeneration.
Towards these aims, we promote multidisciplinary knowledge sharing by collaborating with experts and professionals with a greater understanding and appreciation of natural systems. From these collaborations, we campaign for the betterment of wildlife and ecosystems, and seek to move away from Anthropocentric practices.
9.
Natural Materials
The use of natural building materials is well established as beneficial for the planet and for people. The Natural Materials group is working to support an industry-wide transition to mass use of natural building materials, bringing many benefits including lower embodied carbon and sequestration, ecological regeneration, and improved effect on health & wellbeing.
Our current focus is on creating resources for architects & specifiers; builders & contractors; and clients & homeowners; to build and share knowledge.
10.
Community Resilience
Community resilience focuses on enhancing the day-to-day health and wellbeing of communities to reduce, adapt and recover from disaster-related risks arising from climate change, globalisation, and increased urbanisation. We need to engage our communities to become more active participants in built environment issues, advocate for strong ethical positions and take collective action on justice, equity, and ecological regeneration issues.
We propose strategies to build resilient communities and empower individuals through participatory processes supported by RCA practitioners. Community knowledge diffusion and social connectedness are key to challenging the status quo to overcome barriers to change.
11.
Inclusivity, Health & Well-being
Extreme weather events related to global warming will mean more disruptions to our physical and mental health. How people behave and how their mood changes in different spaces are directly linked to built environments’ architectural and urban qualities, which is generally not considered by practitioners and users.
This group aims to provide cross-disciplinary guidelines and frameworks for architects and urban planners to understand the impacts of climate change and built environments on our emotions, behaviour, decision-making, and mental health. Join us to help architects and urban planners design resilient and healthy spaces worth living in!
12.
ACAN! Australia Int.
We strive to enable communication, collective knowledge sharing, and coordinated action sharing across international ACAN groups and partner organisations to confront climate change locally and globally. We aim to engage in discussions on lessons learned from the thematic groups of different countries, align on issues of interregional and global importance, and broadcast significant events and achievements of each region.
In addition, this group promotes conversations between regional and local groups around Australia to learn together on how to advocate for resilient strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
More information about each of these groups will follow soon – including how to join them. In the meantime, you can take the following actions….
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