What do you think?
Rate this book
Going for Zero: Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future
Climate change is no longer an abstract threat. Day after day, an already disrupted climate is impacting the lives of millions, and the time available to curtail climate change is alarmingly limited. Going for zero greenhouse gas emissions requires retooling everything about industry, agriculture, transportation, and every city and town that people inhabit. The work of architects, engineers, landscape architects, urban designers and the countless others who shape the built environment has never been more relevant. Decarbonizing how buildings are designed, constructed, and operated is a sea change that is already altering professional principles and practices.
In Going for Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future, seasoned architect and former AIA president Carl Elefante addresses how buildings and cities can and must help resolve the looming climate emergency. Elefante offers a decidedly alternative viewpoint, one informed by his architecture career rescuing buildings from senseless demolition and learning from the practices and wisdom embedded in built heritage.
For architects and the countless others who work together creating human habitation, the twenty-first century imperatives demand a profound mode shift, from an expansion mindset to one of reintegration and healing. Elefante argues that curtailing the climate emergency, resolving intransigent social and economic injustice, and launching the urban era onto a truly beneficial and sufficient path presents challenges that must be addressed through built form.
The challenge of our built environment and the possible solutions are covered in four climate imperative, justice imperative, urban imperative, and beyond modernism. Elefante explains that revitalizing communities by optimizing existing resources makes social, economic, and environmental sense and directs resources where they are most needed.
Going for Zero is an urgent call to action and path forward. Elefante’s message is ultimately one of hope—but we must act now.
In Going for Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future, seasoned architect and former AIA president Carl Elefante addresses how buildings and cities can and must help resolve the looming climate emergency. Elefante offers a decidedly alternative viewpoint, one informed by his architecture career rescuing buildings from senseless demolition and learning from the practices and wisdom embedded in built heritage.
For architects and the countless others who work together creating human habitation, the twenty-first century imperatives demand a profound mode shift, from an expansion mindset to one of reintegration and healing. Elefante argues that curtailing the climate emergency, resolving intransigent social and economic injustice, and launching the urban era onto a truly beneficial and sufficient path presents challenges that must be addressed through built form.
The challenge of our built environment and the possible solutions are covered in four climate imperative, justice imperative, urban imperative, and beyond modernism. Elefante explains that revitalizing communities by optimizing existing resources makes social, economic, and environmental sense and directs resources where they are most needed.
Going for Zero is an urgent call to action and path forward. Elefante’s message is ultimately one of hope—but we must act now.
296 pages, Paperback
Published April 24, 2025
3 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 13, 2025
Carl Elefante takes an ambitious breadth of subjects under his wing (climate, justice, urbanism), but succeeds at bringing them together into one message - we need to rethink the role of architecture. I enjoyed the conversational writing tone & plenty of case study references. I do feel that the message of the book stops slightly short of clearly calling out overconsumption under the imperative of capitalist growth in the Global North as the culprit, even though it comes soooo close many times. Thank you to the author for this timely book - a lot of architecture curriculums would benefit from using it as a starting point.
Displaying 1 of 1 review