(E01) Embodied Equity: A Radical Shift Toward Inclusion in the Built Environment

Reducing inequities within our built environment is a critical challenge for our industry, but how can we navigate the complex pathways that have been institutionalized over generations? Can we learn from our industry’s experience defining and addressing embodied carbon to explore how and where social inequities are embodied in today’s project design, delivery, and operation? How can practitioners incorporate this understanding into their practice?

This session will explore the scale and significance of embodied equity in the built environment. We will discuss the root causes and compounding factors, and the magnitude of impact on social equity outcomes. Drawing on the multi-year Centering Health Equity research initiative, we will share an emerging framework to guide exploration of these topics, and to empower practitioners across multi-sector fields to move our practice from being part of the problem towards inclusion.

Dimensions of social equity, including racial and gender equity, manifest within the built environment in various ways. The delivery of projects provides opportunities to promote procedural equity and inclusive decision-making. The performance of projects influences distributional equity of fundamental resources and stressors by influencing access to food/water, clean air, movement, shelter, safety. The policy environment that governs our industry (land use, transportation, resource management, fiscal, utilities) provides an opportunity to promote structural equity by developing equitable policies informed by our history of inequitable impact. And finally, building on the environmental focus of green building allows us to promote transgenerational equity by avoiding the placement of unfair burden on future generations.

These layers of impact and influence can be challenging to address in daily practice. This session will look at practical examples, as panelists share specific examples of how embodied equity manifests in the chain of custody within built environment projects, from planning and financial structure, through design, build and operation. You will hear practical examples of how to advance health and equity throughout the project lifecycle and achieve LEED IPpc89 Social Equity within the Community; LEED IPpc144 Social Equity within the Supply Chain; LEED IPpc108 Integrative Process for Health Promotion that are available in LEED BD+C v4.1, ID+C v4.1, O+M v4, ND v4, HOMES v4.

Join your peers in this session combining real-world case studies, informative panels, and group dialogue, and come prepared to share experiences and discuss challenges.