Design Behavior: How to Save Our Planet and Influence People

Human actions have, and continue to, cause changes to our climate. The built environment sector is disproportionately responsible for present greenhouse gas emissions, and thus structural engineers have a unique opportunity to reduce the quantity of future greenhouse gas emissions. Emission reductions can be realized through building less, refurbishing more, appropriate lean design, completing life cycle assessments at early stages, designing with low-carbon materials, and applying circular economy principles to new designs and material life cycles. However, the construction industry is risk-averse, and engineers often defer to previous familiar historic design methods, which do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This paper proposes applying knowledge from the field of Behavioral Economics to the structural engineers’ quotidian design workflow to allow engineers to realize emission reductions. Recently implemented changes to the workflow at Schlaich Bergermann Partner (sbp) are discussed, in addition to planned actions within sbp and the industry at large.