CSLA Resource Library

Federal, Provincial and Territorial (F/P/T) governments recognize the contribution historic places make to our communities. Since 2001, the F/P/T governments have worked together through an initiative to jointly develop core programs. The Canadian Register of Historic Places (CRHP) provides a single source of information about all historic places recognized for their heritage value at the local, provincial, territorial and national levels throughout Canada.

How do we halve the emissions of the built environment this decade?  How can landscape architects, architects, planners and engineers be agents of mitigation and systems change?  Kelly Alvarez Doran speaks to the unique agency and advocacy landscape architects and designers have to address the challenges we face, sharing recent work focused on low-carbon, climate adaptive design approaches to landscape and public infrastructure.

Building on a year-long internal research project, Sasaki has developed the Carbon Conscience App, a free tool to help designers assess carbon impact from the early stages of planning. In urban design projects, many decisions that lead to high carbon emissions are made early in the planning process, and so that stage offers the greatest opportunities for impacting the ultimate outcomes. How can we measure embodied carbon of our designs from the earliest concept design phase?

Designing with a Carbon Conscience v2: A web-based application to informplanning and urban design projects on potential carbon impacts. Sasaki Associates. 

Landscape architects can advance climate action on multiple fronts at once. Local climate advocacy, rooted in local climate issues, can plant the seeds for broader change. Climate action starts with making an individual commitment. You‚ as a landscape architect, designer, researcher, and educator‚ have a large sphere of inf luence. You can take action through your workplace, at your children’s school, at your local town hall or city council meeting, with non-profit organizations, and at the state and federal levels. The purpose of this guide is to help landscape architecture professionals become better climate advocates individually, as well as through firms, public institutions, non-profit organizations and community groups, and ASLA’s chapters and national organization. 

The Climate Atlas of Canada (climateatlas.ca) is an interactive tool for citizens, researchers, businesses, and community and political leaders to learn about climate change in Canada. The articles, maps, and videos in the atlas tell a compelling story: climate change is here, it’s a serious challenge, and we can take action. The atlas can help you make sense of climate change, and this guidebook will help you make sense of the atlas. First we’ll explain how to find different kinds of information in the atlas. And then we’ll give you some help figuring out what it all means.

In the face of Canada’s escalating climate and housing challenges, communities across Canada need easy access to trustworthy data and climate information. Climate Insight is an online platform designed to meet this need. It provides a centralized source for communities to find the tools and data they need to advance low carbon, climate-resilient housing and infrastructure initiatives in their communities. Climate Insight is designed to ease the burden of data collection and tool selection fatigue by sourcing and centralizing the tools and data that are the most relevant to practitioners advancing low carbon, climate resilient housing and infrastructure in their communities. Climate Insight is actively being developed and mobilized through a collaborative, consultative process over the course of five years (2023-2028). New features and functionality will continue to be added to ensure our mandate of supporting the needs of communities.

Pathfinder is a web-based application allows registered users to estimate the carbon footprint and time to carbon neutral for landscape projects based on site design and management. Learn how to improve carbon footprints while supporting resilience and equity from the Climate Positive Design Toolkit.

Our world is grappling with complex challenges, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and socioeconomic inequality. Those that plan, design, and engineering our communities and ecosystems have a pivotal role in shaping solutions that promote future resilience. In this webinar, internationally recognized landscape architect Pamela Conrad will share insights into addressing these crises through tangible approaches. She will introduce Pathfinder 3.0, Climate Positive Design Toolkit strategies, and highlight project examples emphasizing Nature-based Solutions. This session offers tools and guidance for integrating ecological, social, and economic benefits into projects while contributing to global efforts to combat climate and biodiversity challenges.

Co-design Now! is a map-based, spatialized resource - that highlights community groups, local initiatives, and grassroots organizations, all in one place. This project aims to amplify the work of community organizations and initiatives across Toronto’s Neighbourhood Improvement Areas to foster engagement between them and designers to strengthen the resiliency of placemaking and city-building practice. Through the process of crowdsourcing information on grassroots organizations and placemaking initiatives, we hope this resource will expand and deepen cross-disciplinary relationships and raise awareness for design as a vehicle for activism.

By changing the way we practice by incorporating community-driven and participatory design principles into our work, we have the incredible opportunity to address social justice issues through landscape architecture and bridge the divide between what our profession has become and the communities we wish to serve. This webinar is follows up on the work and research of an LACF 2021 grant project, Co-Design Now! 

"The ASLA Climate Action Committee and Corporate Member Committee curated more than 70 questions landscape architects can ask vendors and product manufacturers about:
Product: Carbon data, Low-carbon material content, Recycled material content, Hazardous material content, Biodiversity protections; Use of products in landscapes; Location of product manufacturing; Manufacturing facilities; 
Company operations; Equity programs; Advocacy efforts. There are also additional questions for plant and tree nurseries."