(I01) Improve Your Carbon Drawdown: Leverage Landscape Architecture Strategies to Increase Sequestration and Resilience

How can architects, developers, and planners better partner with landscape architects to achieve shared goals on greenhouse gas emission reductions and carbon drawdown? How can residential, commercial, and public landscapes be designed to advance long-term climate resilience? In 2022, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) assembled a Task Force and Advisory Group of leading landscape architects to develop the first Climate Action Plan for the landscape architecture community and allied professions, focusing on addressing the impacts of the climate crisis and building support for Climate Positive Design. The goal of the Plan is to achieve zero emissions by 2040 while significantly increasing carbon sequestration, centering equity, and increasing community resilience to climate impacts, such as flooding, extreme heat, and wildfires. Discover how landscape architecture strategies, including nature-based solutions, provide significant carbon benefits and a range of economic, equity, biodiversity, public health co-benefits. Learn about the latest approaches and tools from landscape architects that can be incorporated in your conceptualizing, planning, and design work. Certification and guidelines, such as the SITES v2 Rating System, and specifically the Pilot Credit 3: Assess and Improve Carbon Performance, and other open-source tools can lower the carbon footprint of projects. Achieving zero emissions while increasing carbon sequestration will require partnerships with architects, developers, planners, and other allied professionals. Our community - the AEC industry - must transform standard practice by taking responsibility for the climate impacts of our projects - from the regional, city, to neighborhood and site scales. The climate emergency requires both organizational and individual action to reduce emissions in all planning and design stages and prioritize nature-based solutions in a meaningful way.