Start Date
05/05/2025
End Date
05/04/2026
Description
Climate change is here. Our outdoor spaces, from backyards to schoolyards, parks to forests to watersheds, have vital roles to play in mitigation and adaptation.
ASLA has released a Climate Action Plan, with the ambitious goal of making landscape architecture projects and practices zero emission by 2040.
As a professional community of designers, planners, engineers, scientists, policy makers, advocates, academics, students -- landscape architects and many, many more -- working in Massachusetts and Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and Vermont and Connecticut and beyond, what are you seeing in your work now?
As we consider the New England landscape, where do we need to go?
The summit invites participants from across our region to discuss climate ISSUES, current and projected, that cities and towns, rural and suburban areas are experiencing in the landscape today, along with ACTIONS that are underway, and that need to grow. Keynote speakers and a lively series of “lightning talks” will share an array of projects, and we’ll discuss measuring IMPACT; a vital design consideration as we look ahead.
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SCHEDULE
11:00am Hello & Welcome
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11:15am Keynote Presentation by Katherine Antos, Undersecretary of Decarbonization & Resilience, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program
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11:45am Breakout 1: Networking + Discussion: In small groups, discuss and identify climate related ISSUES. What do you see now that you didn’t ten years ago? What are you expecting in the next 10 years? Discuss and identify opportunities for ACTION. What IS happening? What needs to happen? What’s getting in the way? How are you communicating that value? And -- how are you starting to MEASURE IMPACT? What tools, metrics, or techniques are you using -- or would you like to use?
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12:00pm Keynote Discussion: For the past five years, landscape architect Pamela Conrad, FASLA, has focused on developing tools for measuring carbon in landscape architecture through Climate Positive Design: the Pathfinder tool.
In this conversation, New England chapter leaders will ask Pamela what she's learned so far through all of this measuring. What lessons and trends is she seeing? What should designers – or owners or municipal leaders and others – who are considering using measuring tools know? Where is her work going from here? Where should our work go? Audience members will be encouraged to join the discussion.
12:30pm Breakout 2: Networking + Discussion. In small groups, say hello to a few more folks interested in this work, and continue the discussion begun above.
12:45pm Break
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1:00pm Climate Action Lighting Talks. Practitioners from around our region each speak for 3 minutes about a project, policy, plan, or other work that they are doing that addresses climate resilience in the New England landscape -- and about how they are -- or will be -- measuring the impact of this action.
1:50pm Closing Comments & Next Steps
2:00pm Adjourn
This summit is one piece of much larger, longer dialogue taking place locally, regionally, and nationally. We look ahead to ongoing collaboration and work. Together.
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This summit is organized by the ASLA chapters of New England.
Distance Learning
Yes
Course Equivalency
No
Subjects
Sustainable Development & Design
Health, Safety and Welfare
Yes
Hours
3.0
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this summit, participants will be able to
1) articulate ways that climate resilience featuring nature based solutions has been incorporated into state policy, and identify lessons learned after five years with over 300 planning and implementation projects funded
2) describe current tools available to measure carbon in the design of landscape architecture projects, and discuss how that might be implemented into a project
3) describe strategies used in landscape architecture projects that advance and measure climate adaptation, including at the scale of a house, a park, and a city
4) be inspired to begin measuring carbon and tracking the impact of other climate resilient strategies in their own work!
Instructors
Katherine Antos, Undersecretary of Decarbonization & Resilience, Commonwealth of Massachusetts; Pamela Conrad, FASLA, Harvard GSD Loeb Fellow; 12 regional leaders incl. Matthew Cunningham, ASLA/MCLD, Bryan Obara, ASLA/STIMSON, & Achan Sookying, ASLA/Langan
Course Codes
Provider
Boston Society of Landscape Architects