Climate and Sustainability Commitments
Committed & Transparent
We have a fundamental responsibility to be good stewards of the environment and the world’s resources.
As an established international design firm, we acknowledge the global impact of both our operations and our work. While we continue to strive to minimize our impact on the environment, we must also implement state-of-the-art strategies that promote adaptability and resilience, all while embracing innovation – as a means of managing and mitigating the rapidly evolving impacts of climate change.
At Corgan, that means walking the walk with our corporate commitments and empowering our designers to advocate for sustainable options in their projects. Our goal is to move beyond an approach of simply “using less” to create buildings that also “do more.”
Corgan’s Sustainability Commitments
Buildings create about 40% of the world’s carbon emissions. The goal of AIA's 2030 commitment is for all new buildings, developments, and major renovations to be carbon-neutral by 2030. As a firm that’s joined the 2030 Commitment, Corgan has submitted more than 200 projects with energy conservation and lighting power-density percentages that neutralize more carbon than our peers.
As part of the Climate Group, Corgan is now part of a coalition of 120 energy-smart businesses committed to accelerating energy efficiency. The Climate Group targets five industries - energy, transport, built environment and industry - that contribute the most to carbon emissions. As a part of the built environment industry, Corgan has an important role to play in reducing operational and embodied carbon, a key component in the fight against climate change.
Corgan joined the World Green Building Council’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings (NZCB) commitment as of December 7, 2023. As a signatory to the NZCB commitment, the firm pledged to continually find ways to reduce our operational carbon emissions and mitigate the remaining unavoidable emissions by the end of FY 2025 through credible offsets. In 2024, Corgan laid out a clear path towards decarbonization and began executing strategies to minimize our emissions with the ultimate goal to be carbon neutral in 2025.
- 100+
LEED Accredited Professionals
- 115+
LEED Registered Projects
- 38M+
Square Feet of LEED Projects
- 14B+
LEED Construction Dollars
Advocates for Sustainable Design
For each project, we assemble an integrated team of experts in sustainability, discovery, and innovation to harmoniously weave foundational environmental tenets into the design of the building. We develop solutions that balance the built and natural environments through ecology, site planning, conservation, preservation, cultural heritage, building massing, material selection, building systems, economics, and construction methodologies.
Bringing Wellness to the Built Environment
At the core of our efforts is a single, firm-wide ambition: to create environments where our clients thrive. WELL and Fitwel certification are instrumental in delivering on that ideal. These performance-based certifications systems help ensure the built environment has a positive impact on human health and well-being, which is why Corgan has over 30 WELL and Fitwel accredited professionals working in our studios. Certified environments include criteria like higher air quality, daylight views, close access to drinking water, lactation rooms, and sit-to-stand desks, among many others. Once viewed as luxury features, WELL and Fitwel criteria now represent the new standard.
We've designed more than 50 million square feet of WELL workplaces in the past five years — including the first WELL-certified building in Texas. Our own headquarters is WELL Gold Certified, and our NYC and Phoenix offices have received 2-star Fitwel certifications.
It’s important to us to provide enhanced well-being to everyone who enters our doors, and to follow the same practices we recommend to our clients.
