A Renewed Commitment to Sustainability: AIA 2030 Challenge Accepted!

Tuesday, January 27, 2026
By Melinda Scalfaro, Partner - Sustainability Leader | Hannah Ayala, Project Architect
In Sustainability, Design

SōL, Latin for Sun, represents light and life. When we adopted this into the name of our firm, it was to represent our commitment to sustainability and to highlight the “soul” of our design process, the people who inhabit the spaces we design. In 2025 we decided to ramp up our continued tradition of sustainable design by signing the AIA 2030 Commitment. The Commitment, which corresponds to the AIA 2030 Challenge, was created as a way to charge the Architecture industry with achieving carbon neutrality for new buildings by the year 2030. To achieve that goal, firms are encouraged to set up incremental targets for improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. The first step is to establish a firm wide Sustainability Action Plan (SAP).

Over the course of the past 6 months, the SōL Harris/Day Sustainability Committee developed firmwide goals which resulted in our action plan. We presented the plan to the office and have taken steps to implement it! This started with firm-wide education and will carry over to our clients.

What can our clients expect from the new and improved “SōL experience”? The answer… much of the same, with renewed commitment! Our mission continues to be enhancing the human experience, reducing energy and water consumption, and minimizing carbon footprint, all without sacrificing our client’s vision, budget, or the planet. We plan to be proactive in our Client Education with each project having a conversation about sustainable design goals. So much of sustainable design happens behind the scenes and is coded into every decision being made on the project, our clients can choose their desired level of involvement and still come away reaping the benefits, which is the best part!

Our specifications for building materials and interior finishes are an area of continued research and improvement. The building industry accounts for approximately 39% of the world’s carbon emissions. This is made up of both operational activities (around 28%) and materials in construction (7-11%). Taking the time to specify materials with low-to-negative carbon emission, as well as utilizing recycling programs, and looking at the wholistic life of products can help our firm and our clients reduce carbon emissions. We are able to measure and report embodied carbon by performing Life Cycle Assessments and operational carbon by performing Energy Modeling and reporting Energy Use Intensity and Lighting Power Density. Through this tracking we will be able to understand the quantifiable outcomes of decisions made on a project and use this to help SōL Harris/Day push the needle for our clients and the planet.

For access to our Sustainable Action Plan (SAP), check out the link on our website here!

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