The RIBA becomes first construction body to sign up to global carbon emissions scheme

The RIBA has become the first construction industry body to take on board a tough global initiative on climate change.

The institute voted last week to adopt the Contraction & Convergence scheme, which will be used to guide its targets for reducing carbon emissions. The scheme was proposed by president elect Sunand Prasad.

C&C is already endorsed by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, the Greater London Authority, Scottish Parliament and the Corporation of London.

The programme requires a global agreement on the levels of annual worldwide emissions that would keep the atmosphere within safe levels of greenhouse gases. Each country is allocated a level of emissions, converging to a common level of per capita emissions in a target year.

The targets are more comprehensive than those in the Kyoto Protocol and many experts claim this will help the global community deal with the climate change crisis in a much more effective way.

RIBA’s climate change policy will be discussed further at the next RIBA council meeting in December.