Connection
President’s message:
Climate action and climate justice are key to an equitable world Since our membership voted overwhelmingly in 2019 to make climate action our top priority, we’ve marshaled our resources toward this essential fight. AIA is focused on climate action and climate justice in concert, not in isolation. Together, they are the keys to dismantling systemic racism and marginalization. As Stacey Abrams stated in her keynote address to AIA’s Grassroots Leadership The families who grow up Conference in the shadow of chemical this year, “The families who plants, refineries, landfills grow up in — they understand what it the shadow means to be in the midst of of chemical plants, refineries, environmental injustice. landfills — they understand what it means to be in the midst of environmental injustice. It is in those spaces, in those moments, that you become so valuable. Because your capacity to imagine more, imagine better, imagine different — it extends across this country, and it deepens our capacity for who we can be.”
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Our focus on climate action and climate justice is essential to building a just and equitable world, and I think the AIA is doing some things now that give us perhaps the strongest chance to achieve real change. Early in 2020, AIA released a new Climate Action Plan to mitigate planet-warming sources and own the significant impact the building industry’s footprint has on climate, to adapt to that impact by transforming our practices, and to catalyze every architect to act. Additionally, the Framework for Design Excellence has been recently updated — a veritable playbook for architects to pursue a built environment that is zero-carbon, equitable, resilient, and healthy. The framework defines design strategies across 10 measures inspired by the COTE Top Ten Awards, including equitable communities. It provides best practices, case studies, and high-impact strategies to guide architects at all points of their careers. Why is that important? I often speak about adaptation being a chief value that architects embody, but adaptation is so much more productive when you’re not starting from scratch. Adaptation is possible when you can find efficiencies in what
