In 2023, the SIA Assembly of Delegates approved the request of the Architecture Professional Group (BGA) to develop a Climate, Energy and Resources Action Plan. The objective of this project, which is of strategic importance for the association, is to strengthen the role and influence of the SIA in these areas. The challenge: to more quickly reduce the environmental impact of the design, planning and construction sector and adapt outdoor structures and spaces to the effects of climate change. The project team is therefore working on compiling measures involving the entire SIA (its members, commissions and bodies) and which will be submitted to delegates for approval in May 2025.
Standards, regulations and laws – an essential framework
The project kicked off with an overview of all the activities already carried out within the SIA in terms of climate, energy and resources – such as standardization work, lobbying, training continuous or other events and publications. An inventory carried out in close collaboration with a group of experts, who worked to analyze the activities and classify them by priority according to their potential to achieve the objectives targeted by the action plan. Among the measures with high potential, let us cite, for example, the SIA 390/1 standard “The climate path – Assessment of greenhouse gases over the life cycle of buildings”, the publication of which is planned for the first quarter of 2025 ; SIA regulations 142, 143 and 144; the definition of threshold values for greenhouse gas emissions at the federal, cantonal and municipal levels; or even practical tools and aids for simple and experimental construction.
Building the future with the SIA action plan
On the basis of this inventory, new measures have been defined to systematically give sustainability a place in the processes of developing and revising SIA standards and regulations. The group of experts also determined the tools that the SIA must make available to the sector in order, on the one hand, to promote the circular economy and, on the other hand, to quantify greenhouse gas emissions. throughout the life cycle of the works. It also looked at the means to be implemented to encourage adherence to these measures and their implementation in practice. The result of these analyzes and reflections constitutes the heart of the SIA Climate, Energy and Resources Action Plan, which will be submitted for approval to the 2025 Assembly of Delegates and then deployed. To do this, the SIA will make available to its members and any interested person an online platform presenting all the activities and measures underway or planned as part of the action plan. It hopes to join forces with the sector and take a big step forward towards net zero emissions.
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