Motivate Your External Team Members

Raise the Topic

Have an intentional conversation with stakeholders, including clients, real estate professionals, construction managers, contractors, product manufacturers, and dealers. Inform them about the impact that interiors projects can have.

Read the Room

Acknowledge that different stakeholders might be at different places in terms of their understanding of carbon, or their incentives for making change. Find ways to motivate each stakeholder with what matters to them: different motivations could include operational cost savings, resource efficiency, human health and well-being, and the climate crisis.

Tip: Changing the language might help. Do your clients and collaborators respond to goals like “Buy local,” “Save money,” “Keep people healthy,” “Attract fresh talent”? If so, you can find solutions that address these goals and are also low-carbon.

Ask These Questions

Acknowledge that different stakeholders might be at different places in terms of their understanding of carbon, or their incentives for making change. Find ways to motivate each stakeholder with what matters to them: different motivations could include operational cost savings, resource efficiency, human health and well-being, and the climate crisis.

• Do any of the stakeholders have their own sustainability goals or commitments? 
• Are they using certain rating systems to achieve their own Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals?
• Do they have their own sustainability teams who can inform the project? 

Start Early

Engage collaborators around carbon at the beginning of the project. Start playing with materials in the early phases, and get the team used to balancing performance, project needs, and carbon accounting. Consider alternatives for materials early.

Recruit Partners

Tell developers, contractors, building material dealers, consultants that reuse and low-carbon design are project priorities by including them in conversations and written contracts.

Involve brokers and developers in a high-level conversation around reuse and recycling. Less construction and less disruption will always save money and time for clients, so encourage brokers and developers to avoid promising, “We’ll just rip it out” to prospective tenants.

Hold Innovation Olympics

Be clear with vendors, consultants, and contractors on the problems you are trying to solve and ask them to come to meetings prepared with solutions. Reward the most creative ideas!

Seek Out and Share Resources

Circulate a list of asset-management platforms and national and local salvage hubs among your collaborators, and encourage them to add to it. 

Do a Salvage Walk Through

Find a local architectural salvage facility to partner on a walk through and identify existing materials and elements for salvage.

Tell Designers and Contractors: “Screws, not Glues”

Work with contractors to find solutions that can be deconstructed or disassembled responsibly, allowing components to be recycled or reused. Choose temporary fixtures and joints over adhesives. 

Partner up for VE and CA

Cost is still the biggest factor for contractors when it comes to selecting and installing products. Work closely with them through the product selection process, so that they are prepared to make the right decisions during value engineering and construction administration phases. Include the client’s facilities team in these conversations so that they are aware of the decisions when they eventually demolish and renovate the space. 

Keep Everyone Up-to-date

Hold regular charettes with stakeholders throughout the project, so that everyone has the latest information
on the progress of the project and the decisions being made.