EDUCATE
B EC O M I N G CLIMATE POSITIVE
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT PAMELA CONRAD IS REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY LANDSCAPES ARE DESIGNED WITH THE LAUNCH OF AN APP
H
ow many times have you wondered about the environmental impact of your project? Today, there seems to be an app for everything, so it’s probably not too surprising that there’s a carbon calculator app too. The Pathfinder was launched towards the end of 2019 to help create what founder Pamela Conrad calls ‘Climate Positive Design’, which is aptly the name of the organisation behind the app. “We were trying to embrace the idea of being climate positive, where we’re ultimately taking more greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere than we’re emitting through our work,” explains Pamela, principal at CLMG Landscape Architecture in San Francisco, California. “We’ve always held sustainability at the highest priority for our work. And for me personally, I grew up on a farm, playing in the dirt—I very much care about the environment, and around five years ago I just wanted to understand the carbon impact of my projects. We were looking at all kinds of other aspects like stormwater, habitats, plants, but carbon was never part of the conversation. “So, ultimately Climate Positive Design came out of frustration of not being able to measure the impact of my own projects,
which meant there were plenty of other people in the world who also didn’t know how to measure the impact of their projects. There was a gap.”
ULTIMATELY CLIMATE POSITIVE DESIGN CAME OUT OF FRUSTRATION OF NOT BEING ABLE TO MEASURE THE IMPACT OF MY OWN PROJECTS, WHICH MEANT THERE WERE PLENTY OF OTHER PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO ALSO DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO MEASURE THE IMPACT OF THEIR PROJECTS The Pathfinder app doesn’t just act as a carbon calculator, though. It also offers suggestions for reducing the project’s carbon footprint and for improving its carbon sequestration. And it comes with a challenge
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PAMELA CONRAD
too—to be climate positive by 2030. It’s a bold ambition, but it’s proven popular, not just in the US but globally. “It’s very international,” says Pamela. “I believe that climate change is a global human issue and that we should be approaching it that way. Although I’m in the US, I’ve given lectures around the world and I’m collaborating with other international organisations such as the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and the Landscape Institute. For me, a big part of it is bringing people together to make an improvement, to have a positive impact.” In the space of just over a year, more than 1,000 projects have been submitted from more
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