On Architecture and Greenwashing

Correcting insidious greenwashing practices in favor of long-term sustainability solutions

With its reliance on extracted materials and an intense use of resources, the process of construction begs the question whether real sustainability in architecture and planning is possible. For some, a short-term solution is "greenwashing": adopting strategies of simulated commitment instead of investing in actual change toward fewer emissions. NGOs have called out large companies for “low integrity” pledges, pointing out the systemic ecological injustice that the built environment creates through material, wealth and labor extractivism. As institutionalized and commodified greenwashing hollows out the term, how do architects and designers position their work beyond a flattening universalistic understanding of sustainability? The first volume of a forthcoming series, On Architecture and Greenwashing is a collection of essays that presents a cross section of positions on architecture and its political economies, and explores ways to correct course in the face of the climate crisis.