Cracking the Code - New Buildings Institute

Published by Architect Magazine: Building codes and regulations shape our cities in countless ways, distilling generations of development experience, best practices for safety, technological know-how, and, especially in the case of zoning laws, society’s harmful, retrograde views on equity and equality. But as many climate advocates argue, they’re also a vital, if underappreciated, tool to drive innovation and fight climate change. Despite the size of modern building codes, there’s still much work to be done to sync them with today’s urgent climate goals.

RMI recently launched the Codes for Climate Initiative with New Buildings Institute to provide a toolkit for local lawmakers to center carbon mitigation into new regulatory updates. California’s update to its own code in 2022 might mandate electrification statewide for all new buildings.