News

An Ambitious Journey Ahead

The energy sector and building industry accounts for over 40 % of global industry’s heat-trapping emissions combined, according to the World Resources Institute. As the world’s population and the severity of the climate crisis continue to grow, we are challenged to think how to build responsibly – creating high quality spaces for people while also reducing our environmental footprint. 

In Snøhetta, we have a long spanning tradition for designing socially sustainable structures, and for the past twelve years we have had a strong focus on environmentally sustainable designs, particularly through our Powerhouse projects, which are spanning from built schools, office spaces and retrofitting projects.

For over a decade, we have researched and experimented with energy positive structures that are net carbon neutral over their lifecycles. A key focus area of ours has been to design buildings that pay back their CO2 footprint over their lifetime by returning clean energy to society, offsetting the fossil energy that otherwise exists in the energy mix.