ASLA will partner with the National Indian Carbon Coalition (NICC) to offset greenhouse gas emissions from its ASLA 2025 Conference on Landscape Architecture in New Orleans, Louisiana, October 10-13. This is the second year ASLA has partnered with NICC.

While it pursues its goal of achieving zero emissions by 2040, ASLA has committed to purchasing up to 3,750 metric tons of positive climate contributions from NICC this year (equivalent to 3,750 carbon credits). This partnership will also advance the cultural empowerment and climate equity goals of the ASLA Climate Action Plan, which was released in 2022, and ASLA’s Call to Action: Co-creating a Future that Heals Land and Culture, which was released at the ASLA 2024 Conference.

The carbon offsets NICC will provide have been generated in the Tribal Forests of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in Mississippi. The band’s forest carbon project is a natural climate solution that generates carbon credits through Improved Forest Management.

“Landscape architects support the climate goals of Indigenous communities – and, this year, the self-determination of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in achieving their ambitious forest carbon goals. We applaud the band’s efforts to protect their native forests, enhance resilience and biodiversity, and educate the next generation,” said ASLA President Kona Gray, FASLA, PLA.

“By conserving these woodlands and enhancing forest stewardship, we honor the enduring connection the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians holds with this land. Reinvesting carbon revenues into a modernized K–12 education system ensures that this connection not only endures but thrives, empowering future generations to carry it forward,” said Bryan Van Stippen, Program Director, NICC.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians will use the income generated from carbon offset sales, which would otherwise come from harvesting trees, to:

• Build a new 35-acre K-12 school campus
• Steward a native, growing forest
• Enhance biodiversity and protect habitat
• Support long-term carbon storage
• Create measurable climate benefits

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians has a Climate Action Plan that guides its investment in forest and wetland management, solar energy, electric school buses, biofuels, building energy efficiency, and sustainable waste management. The Tribe has created climate benefits by enrolling more than 25,000 acres into a forest carbon project in 2020. The project will protect 12 million trees from harvesting for 40 years.

The lands of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians span 35,000 acres and include more than 26,000 acres of forest. The forest carbon project will protect lowland cypress swamps and diverse ecosystems that support the growth of gum, hickory, oak, pine, and other tree species. The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians’ land is home to a range of water birds, including herons and egrets; white-tailed deer; and alligators. Some trees are harvested to create culturally significant objects, such as drums, stickball sticks, and blowguns.

Funds from the forest carbon project will go to constructing a new 35-acre educational campus. The campus will include new middle and high school buildings, a gymnasium, a basketball arena, a Career and Technical facility, and a renovated football and track field.

“Land stewardship has always been important to our Tribe, and the emerging [carbon] market gives us an invaluable opportunity to continue to protect and preserve our forested tribal lands and address our children’s educational needs,” said Cyrus Ben, Chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

The lead sponsor of ASLA 2025 conference carbon offsets is KOMPAN.

In 2024, ASLA partnered with the National Indian Carbon Coalition on carbon offsets. ASLA’s members and sponsors contributed more than $53,000 to purchase more than 3,500 credits, a 23 percent increase over 2023.

Attendees and exhibitors: Please offset your attendance at the ASLA 2025 Conference during the registration process or via this contribution form.

Road accidents are a leading cause of death worldwide, causing 1.19 million fatalities each year. More than 90 percent of these fatalities occur in low and middle income countries. And more than half of fatalities worldwide are among pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists. Another 20-50 million people suffer from traffic injuries each year, with many of those injuries resulting in disabilities.

This year’s Transforming Transportation conference in Washington, D.C. focused on new strategies to improve safety for all people — pedestrians, cyclists, public transit users, and motorists. Co-hosted by the World Bank and World Resources Institute, the two-day event explored ambitious efforts to roll-out safe and sustainable networks of complete streets, bicycle infrastructure, bus rapid transit, and electric vehicles worldwide.

“Strengthening national road safety policies saves lives,” said Kelly Larson with Bloomberg Philanthropies. “Since 2007, Bloomberg has made road safety a top priority.” Larson said their advocacy has helped save 312,000 lives worldwide. “We’ve also strengthened 100 policies that protect more than 4 billion people. We are focused on making streets for people, not cars.”

Bloomberg Philanthropies aims to reduce vehicle speeds through “hard-driving media campaigns” and new infrastructure, enhanced data collection, and improved traffic enforcement.

According to Marie Eugenia Martinez Donaire, with the City Council of Madrid, Spain, complete streets, which provide safe and accessible sidewalks, bike lanes, and car lanes, are key to reducing traffic accidents. The city is also tracking accidents via radars and cameras to identify problematic areas and make improvements that reduce injuries.

Safer streets also enable schoolchildren to get to school, said Mamta Murthi with the World Bank. A road safety program in India has led to increased attendance and exam completion rates. Better quality roads, with sidewalks and separate bike lanes, enables more students to walk or bike to school. Campaigns aimed at teenagers also encourage safe biking.

Jean Todt, Special Envoy to the UN Secretary General for Road Safety and a former race car driver, said there has been progress on traffic fatalities worldwide. “50 years ago, France saw 18,000 fatalities per year; last year, there were 3,000.”

But he said much greater progress needs to be made, particularly in developing countries. He thinks public education is essential. Awareness campaigns can encourage governments to set national road safety agendas that bring together transportation, health, and police departments.

The UN is also working to expand access to highly safe, ventilated helmets for two- and three-wheel motorcycles that can sell for $20. The riders of these vehicles account for 30 percent of total traffic deaths each year — more than 357,000 people.

The UN’s goal is for developing countries to require a safe helmet like the one developed by the UN with TotalEnergies and then provide subsidies to include a helmet with each new motorbike sale. “We want 500 million of these helmets produced.”

Another conversation focused on how to encourage safe biking. With high-quality infrastructure, this form of transportation offers so many benefits: increased health and well-being and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, traffic congestion, noise, and pollution.

According to Kristian Hedberg with the European Union (EU) delegation to the U.S., the EU invests billions each year in cycling infrastructure, including protected bike lanes. Many major European cities already act as hubs for broader cycling networks, but the EU now requires smaller cities of 150,000 people or more to also develop sustainable urban mobility plans and expand the benefits of safe cycling infrastructure to more communities.

The Netherlands, perhaps the world’s cycling leader, has created a cycling embassy to bring its transportation planning knowledge and resources to developing countries. Their goal is to create 10,000 cycling infrastructure experts in the developing world within the next 10 years, said Lucas Harms with the Government of the Netherlands.

Cities in the developing world are also investing in active mobility. Chennai, India, has an ambitious plan to make 80 percent of its main roads safer complete streets that are pedestrian and bike friendly in just over a decade. Lima, Peru plans to develop more than 600 kilometers of protected bike lanes by 2030. A recent $150 million investment from the World Bank will support 50 kilometers of new lanes.

Despite the clear benefits of safe biking infrastructure, it still remains a low priority on the global climate agenda. Athena Ronquillo-Ballesteros with Climate Lead, said “biking is not on the radar of global climate policy makers, even with the health and clean air benefits.”

Other sessions explored how climate change is complicating investments in transportation infrastructure. Rising seas and increased flooding means new roads need to be built higher and older roads need to be elevated and more green infrastructure is needed.

Zambia in Sub-Saharan Africa is investing in green infrastructure to “prevent flood damage to roads,” said Charles Milupi, Minister of Infrastructure in Zambia. “Climate change is real — elevating roads and [green infrastructure] is a must for flood-prone communities. We must change our infrastructure accordingly.”

And the Kingdom of Bhutan, a mountainous country between India and China, is building a new Mindfulness City with “mindful infrastructure” that is designed to adapt to melting glaciers and increased river flow, said Tashi Penjor, managing director of the new city in Gelephu. The city and its transportation networks, which are designed by landscape architects at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), will privilege walking and improve community health and resilience. “We conceptualize projects to be green, clean, safe, and happy.”

Electric vehicles are another important climate and health solution. In Lahore, Pakistan, air pollution can be ten times higher than safe levels. Poor air quality has led to flight cancellations and school closures. “We have a smog season now — that’s fog plus smoke,” explained Imran Sikandar, Transport and Mass Transit Department with the Government of Punjab, Pakistan. Electric vehicles are seen as a way to reduce pollution from cars, trucks and two- and three-wheelers. Efforts are underway to switch to electric buses, develop bus rapid transit lines, and incentivize the replacement of 30 percent of fossil fuel-powered vehicles with cleaner and cheaper electric ones.

Other organizations and cities are taking on the challenges preventing the expansion of electric vehicles in cities. These include “range anxiety” due to the lack of convenient urban charging stations and the lack of universal charger standards. In dense cities like New York, the goal is to put more chargers on streets where people live and in parking garages.

The National Aquarium’s new Harbor Wetland shows the great potential of creating wildlife habitat in cities. With just 10,000 square feet, it has already drawn otters, herons, ducks, crabs, fish, eels, and jellyfish in the first few months since it opened.

The $14 million constructed wetland in Baltimore, Maryland was designed by landscape architects at Ayers Saint Gross, a multidisciplinary firm. It improves the harbor environment and advances research and innovation. It’s also a free educational landscape that inspires the public to reconnect with nature.

“The Harbor wetland is an example of how to marry science and art,” said Amelle Schultz, ASLA, PLA, a principal and landscape architect with Ayers Saint Gross. “It leaves no doubt that landscape architecture is a STEM discipline.”

Schultz said the floating wetland may look simple but in reality it’s a complex work of design and engineering. “Only about one-third of the project is visible; two-thirds is below the surface.”

The wetland has many layers. More than 32,000 native tidal marsh shrubs and grasses form the top layer. They were planted in recycled plastic matting that will allow the plant roots to grow down into the water, providing habitat for dozens of species and filtering the harbor water.

Amid these plants are shallow channels, with beds of oyster shells that provide additional habitat. Compressed air is pumped into these channels, bringing dissolved oxygen into the harbor and keeping water circulating, like in a natural tidal marsh.

This entire system sits on top of another layer of custom pontoons. Their buoyancy is adjusted as the weight of the wetland increases with plant growth. The pontoons also support the walkways and outdoor classroom spaces that line the wetland. “Traditional constructed wetlands eventually sink under their weight — this one won’t,” Schultz said.

Sitting at the end of the classroom space, hundreds of feet into the harbor, there is a surprising moment of serenity. It’s easy to forget about all the engineering and technology and just imagine you are in a natural wetland.

And the project also makes it easy to imagine more wetlands in the inner harbor. The wetland supports the aquarium’s long-term ecological research and will inform the creation of future constructed wetlands. The system is designed to help make the case: Sensors embedded in the wetland test the water quality, and researchers are documenting species populations.

Schultz thinks one measure of the project’s success is the incredible range of species that now visit. “The aquarium’s interior exhibitions are built to be natural, but the animals can’t leave. The animals that visit the wetland choose to be here,” she said. The diversity of species that visit were a surprise: “American eels are really hard to find in the harbor.”

The grasses are important habitat for many species the aquarium wants to track. As they were growing in, the aquarium even added a plastic coyote to scare off geese, which would have made a meal of them. “It’s more of a joke now than a deterrent,” said Shelley Johnson, ASLA, PLA, senior associate with Ayers Saint Gross.

Harbor Wetland also builds on research conducted on a smaller prototype just a few feet away in the same bulkhead, which was initiated more than 10 years ago. Ayers Saint Gross worked with Biohabitats, McLaren Engineering Group, and Kovacs, Whitney & Associates to advance an initial concept created by Studio Gang.

“Even in the prototype, the aquarium team saw small fish come to the small stream in the middle of the wetland. No one expected that to happen,” Schultz said.

The aquarium thinks the Harbor Wetland will boost the local economy. “The wetlands will bring more people to the inner harbor,” Johnson said. “Not everyone can afford tickets to the aquarium, but they can visit the wetland.”

School groups are already visiting, where they are given tours by aquarium researchers. The mural that frames the wetland expresses the aquarium’s hope that more young people in Baltimore will be inspired to join the effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

“Landscape architects led the team to the solution — the technical and scientific aspects, and married that to the public realm,” Schultz said.

The technical work alone realized benefits: their innovations led to three new patent applications focused on the integrated buoyancy and aeration system.

Superstorm Sandy inundated Lower Manhattan, causing billions in property and infrastructure damage.

To protect against future flooding, storm surges, and sea level rise, landscape architects are developing an innovative mix of green and grey solutions along the southern coast of Manhattan.

These are not nature-based solutions but forms of armor. And designers are showing how this armature can be woven into the public realm, creating new kinds of infrastructure.

Smart design is resulting in retractable gates and walls, landscaped berms, and raised platforms. No concrete walls separating communities from each other or the waterfront here.

The concept behind this effort is called the “Big U” and it came out of the Rebuild by Design competition funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the aftermath of Sandy. Since then, billions in federal, state, and city funds have gone to making the plan a reality.

The plan is being designed and implemented through the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resilience Program. This effort spans many jurisdictions and includes lots of smaller projects, explained Gonzalo Cruz, ASLA, vice president of landscape and urban design at AECOM, during an event organized at the offices of SCAPE as part of Climate Week NYC.

AECOM has developed the master plan for the projects. “There are twelve teams on board, with so many involved — 200 to 300 people, even for the smaller projects,” Cruz said.

All teams are united behind the goal of creating new infrastructure that reduces flood risk but also creates places people want to be in.

Under FDR Drive on the east side of Lower Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge, AECOM is adapting a linear park designed by Ken Smith Workshop.

A series of retractable gates are being woven into the park along the East River. “They are like transformers,” Cruz said. “During major storm surges, they will flip up.”

The gates enabled the landscape architects to keep the waterfront as open and accessible as possible during good weather.

Further north on the east side, landscape architects with MNLA are bolstering 2.4 miles of riverfront from Montgomery Street to 25th Street. The riverfront and nearby communities are in the floodplain. During Sandy, many of the housing developments were hit hard and isolated by rising waters. So the plan also addresses their risks.

The East Side Coastal Resilience Program strings together a necklace of neighborhood parks that double as flood protection systems. Some are wider than others.

New riverfront parks will be eight feet above the river and essentially built on top of the existing parks. “The new parks are integrated with the flood protection,” said Molly Bourne, ASLA, a principal at MNLA.

To improve the resilience of the landscapes, MNLA added in a diverse range of soil mixes, trees, and plants that can handle “wind, waves, inundation, and salt.”

Narrower parts of the linear park include defensive berms but still offer space for bike lanes and pedestrians.

A new pedestrian bridge high over FDR Drive will improve access to the waterfront but also ensure the community will not be isolated in the next superstorm.

The Big U continues around to the west side of Lower Manhattan. There, landscape architects at SCAPE and BIG have been designing the Battery Park City Resilience Projects.

In seven projects, “we are using berms, platforms, hills, and retractable gates to create a line to stop the water,” said Greta Ruedisueli, ASLA, an associate with SCAPE. They are all “strategically placed” to blend into the communities.

In some neighborhoods, existing waterfront platforms are being raised and rewoven into the community.

And in others, subtle grade changes and berms help maintain the line of defense, while flood walls built into constructed hills ensure no river surge will seep underground into the community.

The grade changes and land forms enabled SCAPE and BIG/CSM to increase biodiversity through native trees and plants and provide spaces for residents and visitors to sit and take in the nature.

In Rockefeller Park, a flood wall is being stitched into a housing development so it becomes unnoticeable. “The wall is a textural element. It can be concealed when it is high through material, color, and hue,” said Rachel Claire Wilkins, Affil. ASLA, a senior landscape designer with BIG/CSM.

All of this new infrastructure is being designed for the future. “We expect the flooding to be higher in 25-50 years,” Wilkins said.

It is also being designed to flood and then bounce back from inundation. “Occasional flooding will be OK,” Bourne said. “What is important is that the landscapes remain usable up to the water’s edge.” To ensure that, all the grey infrastructure and the trees and plants are being designed to adapt.

Still, Bourne thinks these projects are “precedent-setting,” because they haven’t been done before in a dense area like Lower Manhattan. “We are in new territory. But we designed this infrastructure to be easier to maintain in the future.”

Cruz said that other landscape architects working on coastal flood defenses need to understand how the engineering works before bringing design ideas to the table.

“You will be crushed if you don’t understand the mechanisms. We can’t be too tree hugger-y. These systems have to perform. It’s about how to make them last the longest and provide the most benefit to the most number of people.”

Buildings, landscapes, and infrastructure are responsible for more than 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions each year. Reducing the use of materials with high embodied carbon, like concrete, metals, and plastics, is key to bringing down those emissions.

Landscape architects who have used Climate Positive Design‘s Pathfinder know it’s a tool for calculating the carbon footprint of a landscape design. It then helps designers figure out ways to reduce emissions from materials and increase carbon sequestration faster.

The new version Pathfinder improves on those capabilities but also enables landscape architects and planners to do much more.

“We decided it’s time to deepen our carbon accounting and evaluate other factors — biodiversity, equity, cooling, and water conservation — with the same rigor,” said Pamela Conrad, ASLA, founder of Climate Positive Design and ASLA’s inaugural Biodiversity and Climate Action Fellow.

The new updates will help landscape architects achieve more of the resilience, equity, and biodiversity goals of the ASLA Climate Action Plan.

In terms of carbon, Pathfinder 3.0 “makes it easier to cut ‘business-as-usual’ emissions in half by 2040 and double sequestration,” Conrad said. This is because it now offers “more insights on lower-carbon materials and specific suggestions on how to improve your project’s impact.”

For biodiversity, the tool helps landscape architects track how well their design helps achieve the global 30 x 30 target. This refers to the target set by world leaders at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP last year that calls for all countries to protect 30 percent of land, coastal, and ocean ecosystems by 2030.

Pathfinder 3.0 helps landscape architects:

• Identify the biome and eco-region of their project site
• Determine how to best protect and enhance native species
• Create designs that increase biodiversity by at least 10 percent

“Pathfinder is not just helping users visualize their options. It’s also supporting innovation and creativity in transformative design,” said Colleen Mercer Clarke, an interdisciplinary scientist and landscape architect, who is special envoy to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA).

Landscape architects can also now see how well their designs increase equitable outcomes by providing greater benefits to Justice 40 communities.

Pathfinder 3.0 aligns with the U.S. government’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), which determines whether a project is in an underserved area. If the site is outside the U.S., a landscape architect can also identify the site as being in an underserved area based on CEJST criteria.

Curious to learn how much a design can cool a community? Pathfinder 3.0 shows how well a design reduces severe heat areas, which have been defined by the Trust for Public Land. It enables designers to see how much shade is created through different design strategies.

In terms of water conservation, the tool now shows how to reduce water use through projects by 30 percent. It uses baseline data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense.

Climate Positive Design undertook such an ambitious expansion because they see landscapes increasingly serving as critical infrastructure. With climate change and biodiversity loss, landscapes must do more for communities.

“Landscape architects are uniquely qualified to drawdown carbon, create healthier communities, and protect ecosystems through our projects,” Conrad said.

“We have an opportunity and responsibility to address all of these through our work. But we also need to be able to measure those strategies and impacts.”

To better measure impacts from a wider range of materials and their transportation to sites, the new Pathfinder aligns with the datasets of Carbon Conscience, a tool that can be used to cut emissions in the early concept phase. It also aligns with new industry standards being developed through the Embodied Carbon Harmonization and Optimization (ECHO) project.

Learn more about Pathfinder 3.0 and explore an updated user guide and methodology. Check out their design toolkit, which is based on the ASLA Climate Action Field Guide.

With Architecture 3030, Climate Positive Design also updated the 2030 Palette, a “visual database of sustainable design principles, strategies, tools and resources.”

There are new resources on:

• Coastal seaforestration
• Drawdown
• Afforestation
• Urban gardens
• The 15-minute city
• Regenerative peri-urban agriculture
• Water-smart landscapes and systems

Also worth exploring: a comprehensive new guide to climate action planning and a decarbonization framework, which were also developed with Architecture 2030.