We are on a journey.  We are in a crises. 

The responsibility for reducing our impact on the environment and fighting climate change rests solely with our generation. What we don’t fix now will cause irreparable damage for ours and our future generations. There is no time left to wait or do nothing. 

Every individual, organisation and business has to act, has to understand and reduce. 

Our approach at JHD has been to break down our working practices, what we do, how we do it, why we do it to understand and measure our impact on the environment. We are moving away from conventional practices as these are no longer adequate as just doing enough won’t solve the problem.  Using our abilities as thinkers, doers, problem solvers we are looking at our impact holistically, circularly and developing reduction strategies that we can and will apply across every project. 

At the very core of our approach is the principle that the next generation is well-equipped with the resources they require for a good quality of life - one that exceeds that of the generation that preceded it. 

We have set out our path for impact reduction with our Manifesto of five pledges, Process, Measure, Build, Materials and Options.

We are working not just across the industry but looking outside to find partnerships and like minded individuals that can help us to achieve our impact goals. We are embracing technology and developing our own tools to measure and calculate not just our impact but the impact of any projects and providing clear pathways to carbon tracking, budgeting and routes to carbon reduction strategies. We want to have an impact on how much carbon is actually used, not just what is measured. 

The objective is huge, the biggest global crises we have and will face, we aren’t going to get there on our own! We are are aligning ourselves with UK government reduction targets and with the leading bodies instigating change such as the UKGBC, RICS, ISTRUCTE, LETI and the GLA through working groups building on the incredible work already produced. We need to work together, we need to go further. 

To find out more about JHD’s position on impact, keep an eye out for our blogs which will provide more information on what we’re doing to drive positive change.