色多多视频Design Professional will present a live webinar, “ESG and Carbon 101: Navigating Risks and Opportunities,” on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. () The presenters will be Colette Crouse and Kelly Hagarty of Stok. Stok provides integrated sustainability, ESG, and high-performance building consulting services to real estate owners and occupants. Fast Fast Forward presents a webinar preview:
In recent years, Stok has seen a marked increase in discussions with corporate clients about their ESG responsibilities. Two years ago, Stok formed an ESG consulting arm to help clients navigate this new landscape and prepare for compliance with potential regulatory requirements. Design firms have also approached Stok to tap into their expertise so they can offer ESG strategies to their clients.
Stok’s webinar will introduce the broad concept of ESG and answer questions such as:
- Why is ESG on everyone’s minds right now?
- Why is it important in the market?
- What are its key drivers?
- What are the trends?
- What are the most relevant regulations and reporting frameworks that companies must think about when operating in this space or when designing and constructing buildings for clients?
- What's going on in the area of corporate climate action?
- Which climate-impact and carbon-use disclosures is a company required to make?
- How does a company make sure it’s accurately reporting the required information?
What is ESG?
Stok’s discussions with clients typically encompass some of the following ESG issues and concerns:
- Environmental: How a company embeds sustainability, such as reducing energy use, water waste, and embodied carbon.
- Social: How a company views and treats stakeholders, from employees to customers and tenants. This involves diversity, equity, and inclusion; employee engagement; and tenant and employee health and safety.
- Governance: How a company reports environmental and social information and manages its internal processes and procedures, including business continuity, risk, resilience, compensation, and the like. This might also include examining its supply chain to make sure it’s free of modern slavery and child labor.
Regulations and new technology have made it easier to design energy-efficient buildings and incorporate the "environmental" of ESG into project strategy. Architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) folks have long considered environmental components in design; however, social and governance are less familiar concepts. The “social” of ESG requires thinking about the tenant or building occupants and what their needs for the space will be. How will they interact with the building and how can spaces be designed to support tenant safety, health, and well-being? When designing with social in mind, one might consider daylighting, indoor air quality, amenities to support physical activity (e.g., gyms, yoga rooms, walking trails), areas to rest and congregate (e.g., outdoor patio seating), accessibility (e.g., ADA, mothers' rooms), and biophilic design.
DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is also a very important part of the "S." Many owners and developers have begun to evaluate their supply chain and vendors with the goal of working with more diverse suppliers. AEC companies will likely feel pressure to report ESG metrics—especially DEI strategy and metrics—to owners and developers.
Project example
Let’s take an office park design as an example. When designing and building an office park with ESG in mind, it's best to establish ESG goals and ensure all parties are aware of and prepared to meet these goals. This may require bringing in additional expertise to the project team. Once the team has established its project goals, they need to figure out how to meet them. Some questions the team might consider:
- What’s driving the team to include ESG initiatives? Is it to meet regulations like Title 24 in California or Local Law 97 in New York City?
- Does an investor require specific ESG metrics?
- Are tenants requesting certain features?
Answering these questions can help the team develop an ESG strategy for design and construction.
Legislation and regulations
The webinar will also include a discussion of the increase in legislation requiring new buildings to be designed and constructed to meet net zero standards and to operate as net zero buildings. This movement has prompted design professionals to deepen their understanding of how to design more efficient, less carbon-intensive buildings. For example, because concrete has a very heavy carbon footprint, a firm might consider using timber instead. With supply chain delays still plaguing the industry, firms also have to figure out how to obtain more eco-friendly products and materials and whether the project budget can afford them.
Kelly Hagarty and Colette Crouse will also preview the upcoming U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, likely to take effect sometime in 2024, that will require public companies to report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. While many design firms are privately held, there is widespread concern that such a requirement might be imposed on private companies by state and local governments.
Stok’s webinar, “ESG and Carbon 101: Navigating Risks and Opportunities,” will be presented live on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. (.) A recording of the webinar will be posted later to our learning management system, the .
