On Monday 23rd August, ACAN encourages you to take part in a Climate Protest Day!
The “code red for humanity” in the 6th IPCC report outlined dire warnings about irreversible damage to our climate, we need political and business leaders to take this issue seriously, now.
We encourage businesses (architectural and otherwise) to support the call to action by offering staff paid time off to protest, signalling their commitment to taking collective climate action as business leaders. Frequently, it has fallen to passionate individuals to protest in their free time or annual leave, but transformative change needs support from all quarters. We are therefore seeking commitments from the businesses for whom we work to support our action.
Two years ago, we marched with Fridays for the Future and the UK Green Building Council. Since then, the ACAN network has grown significantly, but both legislative barriers and lack of action across the architectural industry continue to counteract the work we are doing as individuals. In the run up to COP26’s Built Environment Day, now is the perfect time to apply pressure, highlighting the issues and asking policymakers to support our demands.
Protest in any form is welcome. Those who are able are encouraged to join a physical march, for those who are unable to attend such events there are valuable ways of voicing your concerns, including: crisis talks, company-wide educational sessions, contacting your elected officials or whatever you feel is an appropriate response to push for the necessary systemic change.
To demonstrate your company's support, please fill out the company commitment form. If you are an individual with or without company support, you may wish to join our coalition by filling out our individual commitment form.
Share your commitment and tag @architectscan with #ClimateProtestDay.
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By supporting employees to join protests, [the company] is signaling a strong commitment to its employees, clients, and stakeholders that they both recognise the climate emergency and will take demonstrative action and push for necessary changes at a societal level
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It is clear that employees, clients, insurers, etc. are looking for businesses who share their values to work for, collaborate with, and support, by joining the protest, [the company] is publicly signalling that they prioritise climate action as a business
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The protest is a chance to unify [the company’s] vision for climate response across the business
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This may be a press / marketing opportunity for early adopters to the commitment, we have received interest from a few large publications to run stories on designers taking part in the climate protest day, in addition to an opportunity to contribute to a social media campaign
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If [the company] has signed up for Architects Declare / the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge but are having trouble reaching the targets, come out to demand accelerated legislative change to remove the barriers preventing us from hitting the goals
ACAN!
ACAN is a network of individuals within architecture and related built environment professions taking action to address the twin crises of climate and ecological breakdown.