Our Melbourne Studio is Carbon Neutral

Sustainable / Studio News 7 September 2021 Share

As of the 2019–20 financial year, our Melbourne studio has been entirely carbon neutral in our operations.

In January 2020, DesignInc became a signatory to the Australian Architects Declare Climate and Biodiversity Emergency and committed to becoming a carbon neutral business.

Our first step to reducing our carbon footprint was to switch to 100% accredited GreenPower. Next, we undertook a carbon audit in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. We followed comprehensive international standardised frameworks that measure and manage greenhouse gas emissions from private and public sector operations. Every person who works at our Melbourne studio was involved and took part by sharing details of their commute to help us calculate our annual CO₂ emissions.

We continue to work on reducing our carbon emissions. To offset our 2019–20 financial year carbon emissions, we purchased Verified Carbon Standard and Gold Standard carbon credits, which are transparent and reputable credits. Our carbon offsets supported windpower electricity generation in India and improved cooking stoves in Rwanda. We chose these two schemes with input from our team.

Becoming carbon neutral is just one part of DesignInc’s efforts to reduce harm to the earth and all its inhabitants. We continue to focus on being a leading centre of excellence for ecologically sustainable design and regenerative design principles. Integrating sustainability into all our projects is fundamental to the DesignInc approach. We are guided by our commitment to quality design that addresses human wellbeing, the continuity of the natural environment, and the sphere of economic forces within which construction and architecture operate.

Working alone, our shift to carbon neutrality would mean little. To reduce greenhouse gases and protect our planet from climate change, we must work together. The Architects Declare movement now counts over 1,000 Australian architects as signatories. DesignInc is proud to stand with them.
Directors’ joint statement, DesignInc Melbourne