Carbon Counts is an exhibition about material matters which is running in our London gallery space until March 2020 and will form a backdrop to a series of curated events.

FCBStudios’ response to the Architects Declare manifesto advocates an accelerated shift to low embodied carbon. In order to achieve this, we have committed to interrogate the material choices in all our work.

By understanding the embodied and emitted carbon in the construction and life cycle of our designs, we will be able to make better informed choices to improve the impact of our work on the environment.

Carbon Counts draws together key metrics for some of the most common materials used in architecture today. Read more about these here.

The embodied carbon of a building is made up of the impacts from the extraction, processing, manufacture and packaging of the materials we use; the carbon emissions resulting from their transport and construction on site, maintenance over their life span and what happens after the building is demolished.

Each totem in this exhibition has the same volume as 1kg of CO₂ - the equivalent volume of CO₂ emitted by the manufacture of the piece of material held in each totem.

Carbon Counts seeks to start a conversation. It is a springboard to encourage wider debate and discussion so that as an industry we can work together to continue to research, test, analyse and develop.

We must arm ourselves with this knowledge because we have to act.

We will have to make difficult decisions: balancing longevity vs. embodied carbon/style vs. substance/perceptions vs. experience/tried and tested vs. new technologies.

In doing so, we can continue to create spaces which are engaging, are sensitive to their external environments and which touch the planet lightly.