The year 2030 has started to appear regularly in my daily life. It is the end date of the Strategic Plan we just adopted at VMDO; it is the expiration date on my credit card and the year my passport renews; and it’s the deadline for achieving zero emissions across our firm’s portfolio. A date that seemed far away when the 2030 Challenge started in 2005 is now right around the corner.
In keeping with the Way of Absolute Candor, I’m just going to say it out loud: VMDO is probably not going to meet the emissions targets of the 2030 Commitment on time. Does that mean we should give up, cut our losses, and walk away?
Hell, no, it does not
Progress is progress, and you can’t change what you don’t measure. Decarbonization matters, no matter how short we fall in achieving our goal. For the third year in a row, VMDO is publishing detailed information on our 2030 Commitment submission and what we are learning from it. Our goal is to encourage other firms to share detailed metrics on their portfolios and projects and to provide a resource for others to learn from.
This is a long piece with lots of detail. Don’t have time to go through it all? The big take-aways from last year remain largely the same but take on greater urgency with the direct attack on (and quiet stepping back from) climate action in 2025:
- Accountability is success. Data transparency is the only way we are going to learn from each other, and it is the best way to hold ourselves accountable. We should all be publishing our data whenever possible.
- Carbon is king. Energy reduction is only the first step in the journey. We need to look at our work in terms of emissions, not energy bills.
- We all get an A for effort. Not every project is going to hit the 2030 target; it does not mean we should not try. Missing the target on a project is not a failure, as long as you (and other team members) take the lessons from each project and apply them to the next one.
- If you commit (and report), decarbonization will come. Signing on to the 2030 Commitment has revolutionized how VMDO practices. If you have not signed on, you should. At VMDO, the Commitment gave the sustainability team the leverage to change how we work and created a common language for discussing project performance/success.
This post is broken down into four parts:
- Part 1: Firmwide 2030 Metrics
- Part 2: Detailed Metrics by Typology
- Part 3: Total Carbon Metrics
- Part 4: What to Do When the World is on Fire
PART 1: FIRM-WIDE 2030 METRICS
Our 2024 firmwide reduction was 50.6%, a hair’s improvement from 2023 and yet our best year so far. As mentioned in last year’s blog post, the small change is not surprising as we have several large projects in our portfolio under construction right now; their projected energy use intensities (pEUIs) should remain stable until they are complete.
Here is a snapshot of our 2024 dashboard. Most of our projects have an energy model (or will have by the end of schematic design). This is the first time we have reported on embodied carbon for 100% of our portfolio, which I’ll cover in more depth in Part 3.
Part 2: DETAILED Metrics by Typology
Radical transparency is essential to improving outcomes across the profession. We know that every firm is at different place on their reporting journey and that sometimes means making mistakes (as we did in our first year of reporting)—such as using national baselines instead of regional ones to inflate pEUI reductions, or relying on default reductions in DDx rather than energy model results that aren’t so great, or submitting partial portfolios of just the best projects to keep the overall reduction number high, or counting a project as zero energy when, in fact, there is no plan for installing renewables*. Mistakes like these don’t help the profession get better, though: they create the false impression that some firms have figured it out and some haven’t. At VMDO, we’re an open book. See something in our results that looks strange? Have a suggestion for how we could do better? Send me an email and let’s learn from each other.
2024 K12 Projects
VMDO had a few large K12 projects start in 2024 which kept the overall percentage of our portfolio that is K12 work at 34% in 2024. Like last year, this portfolio balance positively impacts our firmwide numbers because, in general, our K12 work tends to have better energy performance and a greater likelihood of having renewables installed. Highlights when comparing 2024 to 2023 include:
- Our K12 portfolio average reduction improved by 2% to 61%, up from 59% in 2023.
- Lancaster MS renovation was completed in 2023 and thus came off of our 2030 reporting, which did not have a huge impact because it was small and only reported lighting power density (LPD).
- New projects in this typology include Maury HS, Antilles, Alexandria GMES, and RCPS Woodville ES.
There were no major changes to 2030 reporting for K12 projects already in the DDx.
2024 Residence Life Projects
Residence Life continues to focus on delivering the large projects captured in recent years.
- Our Residence Life portfolio reduction improved by 1% to 47%, up from a 46% reduction in 2023.
- There was one new residence life project in 2024.
Major changes to 2030 reporting for projects already in the DDx include:
- Another round of cost-cutting and updated models at the University of Miami Phases 2a and 2e impacted both the projected EUI and the project baselines (since VMDO uses LEED baselines for residence life**), resulting in a lower percentage reduction.
- UF Honors Housing came off our reporting, which given its low efficiency helped to buoy our overall reduction in the typology even with the downgrades at the later phases of the University of Miami.
2024 Academic Projects
This category contains a range of programs and has historically had the greatest variability in performance. 2024’s programmatic mix was dominated by high energy use programs in science, medicine, and the arts.
- Our Academic portfolio average reduction was 32%, down from 42% in 2023.
- New projects in this typology include the UVa Center for the Arts, Virginia Tech School of Medicine and Fralin renovation.
Major changes to 2030 reporting for projects already in the DDx include:
- ODU Bio has another updated energy model/LEED baseline, which combined with more value engineering changes dropped the project’s reduction to 16% from 25% in 2023. This significantly affects both the typology’s performance and the firm’s overall performance for the coming years given the project’s size and schedule. This is a project for which we are the architect of record, not design architect.
- Martin Science is a messy renovation/addition, and the energy model is being done by the HVAC subcontractor (not something we would recommend in the future). We finally received the model a few weeks before submitting but have low confidence in its alignment with those done by our engineering partners.
2024 Civic and Culture Projects
Civic and Culture (formerly Athletic and Community before adoption of our new Strategic Plan) includes community centers, athletic facilities, libraries and other public buildings.
- Our Civic and Culture portfolio reduction improved by 10% to 56% reduction, compared to 46% in 2023.
- New City Library was the only project in this grouping that came off our reporting in 2024.
- Western Loudoun Recreation Center and George Mason Regional Library were added in this typology in 2024.
Major changes to 2030 reporting for projects already in the DDx include:
- Eureka Park’s PV array was accepted as an add alternate and is now within the project budget.
And in the interest of full transparency, here are the specifics for each project, with changes to last year’s data highlighted in red and gray, and new projects in yellow.
Part 3: TOTAL CARBON METRICS
In last year’s analysis I wrote about moving from reducing energy use intensity to reducing emissions. After all, zero carbon was always the end goal of the 2030 Challenge.
At VMDO we spent 2024 educating ourselves on carbon (using LMN’s Path to Zero Carbon series, amongst other resources), standardizing workflows and scopes around how (and when) VMDO measures upfront carbon, establishing internal benchmarks***, and participating in c.scale’s beta testing group to help strengthen that great tool. We learned with the release of CLF’s 2025 WBLCA Dataset a few weeks ago that our internally benchmarked projects are pretty close to the national averages in that dataset. Look for a future blog on what we’re learning about upfront carbon.
For accountability purposes, below is a breakdown of our 2024 portfolio’s total carbon intensity (now in kgCO2e/m2!). We measure embodied/upfront carbon using scope A1-A3 only, and exclude site, MEP, and refrigerants. In terms of tools, we use a combination of Tally (31% of our portfolio) and c.scale (61% of our portfolio). There is a single OneClick LCA model that accounts for our remaining portfolio square footage. We have not ventured into pulling the data into EC3, and we do not have a holistic approach to selecting products based on EPDs, so honestly we are still in the initial stages of carbon analysis.
We show a 30-year duration below but are mindful that upfront carbon is released all at once, with all the associated negative impacts, while operational carbon is released over time.
Part 4: WHAT TO DO WHEN THE WORLD IS ON FIRE
It is a crazy time to hold the title Director of Sustainability and Inclusion. Every time I switch on the news, I see another federal climate action program gutted, another DEI program shuttered, and/or another emissions target abandoned. It’s like everything I’ve worked on for the past 20 years is being erased at a terrifying rate and it makes me want to spend Earth Day face down in my backyard.
Here’s the thing: Erasure relies on our participation. Katherine Hayhoe reminds us that the most impactful action we can do as individuals is to talk to others about climate change. That means that we need to keep on keeping on, despite the headwinds, and remember that we are not alone in this work. To quote P.J. Melton: “You have no idea who needs to hear your message right now. You have no idea what impact it might have on someone else. That doesn’t make your message tiny and meaningless. That makes your message magical as hell.”
VMDO remains committed to climate action, to equity and inclusion (more detail in a later blog), and to holding ourselves accountable through radical transparency every year—and we encourage other firms to do the same. Check back next year for an update on our 2030 Commitment journey.
Endnotes
* A reminder that VMDO does not count renewables as part of the project unless 1) we are contractually required to deliver zero energy; 2) PVs are within the construction budget; or 3) there is a signed PPA and an installation timeline for the project’s array. We do not count zero-energy ready projects as zero-energy.
** From 2022’s blog: Our exception to using Zero Tool baselines is residence life. Residence life is not well-represented in CBECS 2003: there are only 13 residence halls between 65,000-200,000 sf in the database and most were constructed before 1979. Because of the increased ventilation rates in residence halls required by current codes (most CBECS halls are unventilated) and the wide variability in energy demand based on typology/density (suite verses semi-suites verses traditional configurations), we rely on ASHRAE 90.1-2010 Appendix G to establish our 2030 baseline.
***I want to give a shout-out to Jesse Walton and the Mahlum Birddogs for sharing with the world their Low-Carbon Design Dashboard, a very useful Tableau template that helps you dig into your 2030 DDx data.
