RIBA launches climate change guide

The Royal Institute of British Architects is launching a suite of climate change guides for architects and the public today.

The move is in contrast to the stance of its counterparts within the design community, who have shied away from issuing official recommendations on sustainability and climate change issues.

Known as the RIBA Climate Change Toolkit, the guides will be aimed primarily at the construction industry, where there is a wealth of waste, energy and sustainability regulations, although subsequent guides in the series are intended to have a broader, more public-facing appeal.

The toolkit claims to examine the relationship between buildings and climate change, focusing on ‘the range of fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions associated with new and existing UK buildings of different types, and with different servicing systems, identifying key factors that affect carbon dioxide emissions’.

There is also a guide to low-carbon performance and assessment methods, as well as a guide to low-carbon design tools.

For more information, visit www.architecture.com/climatechange