Arizona, California and Nevada will be forced to make deep cuts to the water they draw from the imperiled Colorado River under a new two-year operating plan published Friday, intended to help stave off an escalating crisis in the beleaguered waterway.
The long-awaited plan from the Department of the Interior comes after years of fraught negotiations between the seven states that rely on Colorado River water failed to produce a deal. And it arrives at a time when the river's two key reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have both fallen to record lows — threatening water and power supplies for tens of millions of people.
In July, the US Bureau of Reclamation published an operating framework for the waterway which set out the broad parameters of water sharing over the next 10 years, including a provision that cuts be set out every two years.
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📷: Daniel Cole/Reuters; Rebecca Noble/Reuters
Relentless heat is rewriting briefs for sustainable building design. Intensified European heatwaves linked to Greenland meltwater and an off‑the‑charts El Niño raise the bar for energy‑efficient buildings, eco‑design for buildings and low carbon design. Passive cooling, heat‑adapted envelopes and water‑sensitive urban design form the practical core of environmental sustainability in construction, grounded in life cycle thinking in construction and building lifecycle performance.
Delivery is accelerating. Geneva’s Quai Vernets district is moving forward as a circular, low‑carbon scheme using concrete with substantial recycled content, signalling circular economy in construction at city scale. Urban mining and closed‑loop flows are becoming baseline practice, cutting embodied carbon and the carbon footprint of construction through low embodied carbon materials and verified green building products with environmental product declarations (EPDs). Whole life carbon assessment and rigorous lifecycle assessment are shifting from optional to expected as clients target net zero whole life carbon and net zero carbon buildings within mainstream green construction.
Policy and finance are aligning. City leaders have endorsed the Ulaanbaatar Declaration, prioritising nature‑based buffers, soil‑water stewardship and green infrastructure. An investment matchmaking platform is directing capital into land‑restoration pipelines that protect peri‑urban catchments. The UK’s nationwide Deposit Return Scheme shows circular economy infrastructure can scale, setting expectations for take‑back logistics, high‑quality secondary aggregates and resource efficiency in construction.
What to do now
- Specify verifiable, circular, eco‑friendly construction products and renewable building materials; quantify embodied carbon in materials and require EPDs.
- Commit to whole life carbon, whole life carbon assessment and lifecycle assessment aligned with BREEAM; prepare for BREEAM v7; pursue carbon neutral construction.
- Design for heat and hydrological volatility using passive measures; optimise life cycle cost alongside carbon footprint reduction and building performance.
- Plan end‑of‑life reuse in construction with circular construction strategies that enable disassembly, urban mining and guaranteed secondary aggregates.
- Evidence environmental and financial performance at procurement to accelerate decarbonising the built environment and sustainable construction.
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