A view of exhibitors during COP28 in Dubai.

Inayat-ur-Rahman, Business Editor

For Gensler, climate action is the moral imperative of our times. We spoke to Andy Cohen, Co-CEO at COP28 who has a vision to create a better world through the power of design. As the world’s largest and leading design firm, he believes the company can contribute to a more sustainable future.

“Our biggest opportunity is to make an impact through our project work. Every building we work on is toward net zero and that will have a monumental impact as we design over 1b square meters a year,” said Andy Cohen, Co-CEO at Gensler, during an exclusive interview with Gulf Today at COP28 in Dubai.

“Using a combination of energy-saving and energy-generating strategies, low-carbon material selection, passive solar design, and more, we are eliminating millions of metric tonnes of potential carbon emissions through our project efforts.”  Cohen added.

 Andy Cohen.

“Gensler has 55 offices, 6,000 people and last year we had a practice in over 100 countries, so we are able to bring a lot of research and a lot of knowledge from around the world. What we really believe in for resilience and climate change, we show in the Gencler Cities, Climate Challenge which is about creating net-zero buildings and achieving 100% net zero by 2030 within our firm’s client footprint.

The reason our focus is on cities is that now more people live in cities than ever before and by 2050, 70% of the world’s population is going to live in cities. What’s really important for Gensler, and the built environment is that 40% of all carbon created, comes from buildings alone, so we feel we can have a deep impact and positive change on the built environment through net positive design, as the world’s largest design firm.”

“We believe that how the 20-minute city, district or neighbourhood is designed is critical. To be impactful globally, cities need to become walkable, factor in population density, connectivity, and become mixed-use and multi-modal.”