It is 2019, and right around the corner is 2020. Climate change due to unchecked fossil carbon emissions and its consequential threat to life as we know it on our planet is proven, accepted and looming large, notwithstanding the naysayers. According to the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction 2018 Global Status Report, building construction and operations account for nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions. Clearly, as a bulk contributor to the resulting climate change, the construction industry has the onus of initiating the process of redressal for this damage as well. And, even more clearly, it is in the design and the technology of building, in how and with what we build that needs to revolutionise in order to effect any real redressal or change. The problem having thus been brought to the doorstep of the designers, the architects and engineers, the fraternity has been recently intensely invested in research for innovative solutions to it. The resultant breaking news comes from the UK firm Foster + Partners, one of the leading architectural practices worldwide, who have pledged to go completely carbon neutral in all their new buildings by 2030, and even in their existing projects by 2050.
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