For the fourth year, the ASLA New York Chapter has organized an event for Climate Week NYC, one of the world’s largest climate gatherings.

The free, immersive workshop — Combating Coastal Flooding Through Green & Hybrid Infrastructure — is co-organized by the University of Miami Center for Urban and Community Design, ASLA New York, landscape architecture firm Hargreaves Jones, Waterfront Alliance, and engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol.

The workshop will be held on Wednesday, September 24 from 4-6 PM at 30 Broad Street, New York City. It will be followed by a happy hour presented by Kind Designs.

The co-organizers state that two major coastal cities — New York City and Miami — are on “the front lines of climate change, facing rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes, extreme heat, and increased flooding.” For both cities, “addressing coastal flooding is essential to long-term resilience.”

While nature-based infrastructure offers a powerful solution, its adoption remains limited. The goal of the workshop is to convene “key stakeholders to identify barriers to implementing green infrastructure and explore strategies to accelerate its expansion within today’s regulatory and economic landscape.”

“Climate Week NYC is an opportunity to unite leaders and tackle some of the most pressing climate challenges we face,” said landscape architect Annie Phaosawasdi, ASLA, PLA, Chapter President, ASLA New York Chapter, and associate principal, Hargreaves Jones.

“As designers of outdoor spaces, landscape architects play a crucial role in cities’ resilience — managing stormwater, mitigating urban heat, and restoring ecosystems. This workshop provides a platform for experts in nature-based solutions to highlight these solutions’ strengths, discuss the obstacles, and brainstorm solutions.”

“Landscape architects bring unique technical expertise for tackling challenges of flooding caused by climate change,” said Thomas Klein, director, Center for Urban and Community Design, University of Miami.

Through the workshop, “we will share this knowledge with a diverse coalition of experts from city agencies, NGOs, climate finance, and other design practitioners, with the goal of fostering unique collaborations and charting a path towards broader adoption of green and hybrid infrastructure in our communities.”

Register today

The organization credits a set of ambitious energy and transportation strategies for the reduction

ASLA released the second annual assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions generated by its business operations. The organization achieved its goal of a 20 percent reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2024 and continued to make progress towards its goal of zero emissions by 2040.

The assessment details the amounts and sources of greenhouse gas emissions generated in 2024 by ASLA operations. This total includes electricity use, magazine printing and shipping, business travel, employee commuting, waste produced, and more. These emissions add up to 257 metric tonnes.

To put that in perspective, the average U.S. home produces approximately one metric tonne of emissions monthly via its electricity use in regions where coal or gas generates power.

“We accomplished our ambitious goal by looking into every part of our business operations. A lower carbon footprint makes good climate and business sense. We are committed to continue our efforts to reduce our emissions,” said ASLA CEO Torey Carter-Conneen, Hon. ASLA.

Top sources of emissions reductions from 2023 to 2024 included:

• Purchasing 100 percent renewable energy for the ASLA Center on Landscape Architecture
• Reducing employee commuting miles by 47 percent, with miles by personal vehicle declining 69 percent
• Reducing number of business travel miles by 60 percent
• Reducing the number of complimentary industry partner subscription copies of Landscape Architecture Magazine (LAM) by 60 percent.

2024 Operations Emissions

The 2024 assessment was developed in partnership with Honeycomb Strategies, a sustainability consulting company. The company and ASLA team cooperated to collect extensive and complete data on:

• monthly business travel and commuting,
• energy used and waste generated from the ASLA Center for Landscape Architecture, the organization’s LEED Platinum- and Well Gold-certified headquarters, and
• printing, shipping, and online use for Landscape Architecture Magazine (LAM)

Of the total 257 metric tonnes, the ASLA headquarters emitted 74 tonnes, or 29 percent, and LAM emitted 183 tonnes, or 71 percent.

LAM reduced emissions from printing, distributing, and digital reading by implementing a set of strategies, including reducing complimentary print copies by 60 percent. Emissions from LAM printing decreased by 8 percent and distribution by 7 percent.

The calculations for the Center’s emissions included such factors as electricity use, employee commuting, and business travel.

In 2024, the Center used 112,827 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity or 8.9 kWh per square foot – substantially below the 16.9 kWh average annual electricity consumption per square foot for administrative office space, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). ASLA updated its renewable energy purchasing agreement, yielding a 34 percent decrease in energy use and a 19 percent reduction in emissions from 2023.

• ASLA employees commuted to the office 2,761 times, covering 57,000 miles
  • 40 percent of trips by car, a decrease from 69 percent in 2023
  • 52 percent by public transit (train, subway, bus), an increase from 27 percent in 2023
  • 6 percent by foot or bike, an increase from 4 percent in 2023
• ASLA employees traveled 90,352 miles on business trips, a 60 percent reduction over 2023.
  • 92 percent of trips by plane, down from 95 percent in 2023
• ASLA produced an estimated 7,280 pounds of waste
  • 71 percent of waste went to the landfill and 29 percent was recycled

2025 Reduction Actions

As the 2024 data was collected, ASLA implemented new strategies to reduce emissions in 2025 and beyond. To reduce its emissions this year, ASLA has implemented a set of strategies:

• Continued to promote benefits and incentives for low-carbon commuting
• Continued to encourage train travel for shorter business trips
• Further analyzed its waste
• Reduced catering of ASLA hosted events
• Continued to refine Landscape Architecture Magazine complimentary copy distribution list

To empower other organizations and companies to make these changes, ASLA published Towards Zero Emission Business Operations. The guide is designed to help landscape architecture firms of all sizes navigate the transition to zero-emission offices more easily. It outlines more than 110 actions landscape architecture firms can implement to reduce their business and project greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 65 percent by 2030 and achieve zero emissions by 2040.

Flood Risk Is Widespread in the U.S. Few People Have Insurance for It, NPR, July 14
There is a major flood insurance gap: the vast majority of U.S. counties have experienced flooding over the past few decades, but only 4 percent of homeowners have federal or private flood insurance. One estimate found that a flood insurance policy can be an additional 30 to 75 percent on top of standard homeowners insurance.

I’m a Climate Scientist in Texas. Here’s What the Floods Tell Us, Time, July 10
Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, argues that climate change isn’t creating new risks but amplifying existing ones. “We need to prepare for what’s coming, not just what’s happened before. That means that we need more data, more expertise, more preparation, more communication, and more follow through, to keep people safe.”

What’s Holding Back Natural Climate Solutions?, Mongabay, July 14
New research from the University of Colorado at Boulder analyzed 352 peer-reviewed studies from 135 countries and documented nearly 2,500 barriers to implementing natural climate solutions. They found that “insufficient funding, patchy information, ineffective policies, and public skepticism” were top obstacles to achieving more nature-based solutions like reforestation and wetland restoration.

Baltimore’s Wetlands Restoration Pushes Ahead Despite Federal Funding Setbacks, Inside Climate News, July 13
The Middle Branch Resiliency Initiative, planned and designed by landscape architects at Field Operations, with Mahan Rykiel, DesignJones LLC, Kofi Boone, FASLA, NC State University, and The Urban Studio, lost $32 million in grant funding when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program was cut. The state of Maryland, local agencies, and private philanthropies have made up much of the shortfall.

As Nations Lag on Climate Action, Their Cities Are Stepping Up. Here’s Proof, Grist, July 2
Three-quarters of the world’s leading cities that are part of the C40 network are cutting greenhouse gas emissions faster than their national governments. A new report found that while global emissions continue to increase, per capita emissions across these leading cities fell 7.5 percent on average between 2015 and 2024.

European Union Targets 90% Cut in Emissions by 2040 as Green Groups Cry Foul, The Guardian, July 2
The new approach, which allows for the purchase of carbon offsets from other countries, raises concerns about whether true greenhouse emission cuts will be achieved. The EU has to submit a new climate plan before COP30 in Brazil later this year.

Research on climate change, biodiversity loss, and systemic inequities is being undermined. But there are still “crevices, nooks, and crannies” where important independent research is being conducted. “We need to nurture, protect, and enable these ‘petri dishes,’ no matter how small,” said Lucinda Sanders, FASLA, CEO of OLIN, during the kick-off of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF)’s latest Leadership and Innovation Symposium.

“We need to super-commit and do the hard work. We need to be action-oriented and advocates for healing. Respect, dignity, and love are foundational to our survival.”

Sanders introduced the latest class of six LAF Leadership and Innovation Fellows. They outlined the result of their year-long research, envisioning positive new futures in the areas of infrastructure, policy, public engagement, and agriculture:

“We are losing the cultural war on climate change because of a lack of effective communications,” argued David Buckley Borden, senior advisor of creative practice and innovation, Center for the Future of Forests and Society, Oregon State University, and associate research professor, University of Oregon College of Design. “Landscape architects can better engage the scientific community to close the science-communications gap. Landscape architects can contribute to expanding public eco-literacy.”

Site-based learning about climate change and biodiversity exists only in the margins, in “bougie garden festivals,” Borden said. Most designed landscapes are “not communicating environmental science,” even though they may be informed by science. He pointed to Teardrop Park in Battery Park, designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, as a positive example of how to communicate earth sciences through design.

He said landscape architects can go beyond simply transferring scientific information to the public, instead using strategies that convey, contribute, contextualize, and criticize. He called for bringing in the visual arts, humor, pop culture, and applying a collaborative design process to scientific communications.

His own work integrates a design studio with scientific labs and networks, helping to reframe landscapes as “hybrid collective space.”

What do landscape architects have to do with farming and ranching? “Agriculture is the largest land use on Earth,” said Forbes Lipschitz, associate professor of landscape architecture, The Ohio State University. The agricultural sector shapes ecosystems and communities across the planet. So landscape architects need to get involved in “reframing and reshaping” the sector.

A climate justice strategy is needed to “break free” from current industrial, extractive agricultural practices and shift towards a more just and sustainable food system. For Lipschitz, elevating Indigenous approaches to food is key to this climate justice strategy.

She spent months traveling, exploring how the industrial food systems of the U.S. works. “It is not a single coordinated spatial arrangement.” There are more than 33 million cows, 124 million hogs, and 9 billion chickens, who produce more than 96 billion eggs per year. She calculated that shifting to a more plant-based diet would free up massive amounts of land, significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enable “climate repair on a planetary scale.” She envisions a model like the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program, which restores parts of the ecosystems of farms, but now also enabling greater Indigenous stewardship.

“Native communities have the vision and knowledge” of how to manage and harvest lands in a more sustainable, ecological way.

Agroforestry is a significant untapped opportunity, argued Amy Whitesides, design critic, Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The approach involves combining trees and plants with crops or livestock. A type of agroforestry is silvopasture, which just focuses on integrating forest and livestock grazing. Today, just two percent of U.S. farms are agroforests.

Billions of dollars were allocated for agroforestry, alley cropping, soil restoration, and other “climate-smart” agricultural practices as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This support for farmers to increase carbon sequestration through the land was put on hold through an executive order, Whitesides said. Allocated funding is expected to be cut.

Agroforestry is a way to increase ecological restoration and carbon sequestration on farmland, Whitesides explained. She proposed a national agroforestry plan, focusing on degraded farms, former mines and military sites, and areas surrounding rivers. These marginal landscapes, which have experienced pollution and extraction, can be restored, with some grazing that adds value. Agroforesty can also be incorporated into floodplains, providing a nature-based solution to flooding.

She envisions the benefits from “productive, collective commons” in new agroforested areas over the long-term.

Read Part I