CSLA Resource Library

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.

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. All you need to know about the metrics behind the tool, Pathfinder, how it works, further research needed, and how the Climate Positive Design Challenge was established.

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. This is your guide to: Understand how to meet the Climate Positive Design Challenge, Learn about related tools and suggested use, and Explore each step and feature in Pathfinder 3.0.

Communities worldwide were threatened by fire on an unprecedented scale this year. In this talk by expert Jonah Susskind, currently a senior researcher at SWA, increasingly urgent mitigation and protection issues will be examined, including critical feedback loops between urbanization and environmental risk in fire-prone landscapes, key disciplinary knowledge gaps among practitioners, and the introduction of applied strategies for community-scale wildfire resilience.

Case studies serve as educational tools, bolster advocacy efforts, and empower CSLA members to make the business case for adaptation measures to their clients and/or target audiences.  

Landscape architects impact public health through the stewardship of nature and the design of the built environment. We hold an exciting, yet challenging, opportunity to make a real difference in the health and well-being of the people in the communities in which we practice.

This CSLA's Guide to Land Acknowledgements is intended to offer baseline information to guide members and friends of the CSLA as they embark on developing a land acknowledgement. It is not to be viewed as a standardized checklist; rather, it provides the important considerations you will need to understand as you develop a meaningful land acknowledgement.

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 guide is designed to help landscape architecture firms of all sizes navigate the transition to zero emission offices more easily. It outlines more than 110 strategies landscape architecture firms can implement to reduce their business and project greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50-65% by 2030 and achieve zero emissions by 2040. The guide provides best practice strategies relevant for firms that rent or own their offices. It offers firms ways to: Measure their carbon footprint, Develop a climate action plan to reduce emissions, and Take actions to reduce Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. 

"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."

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

To help address the climate crisis, Christopher developed the Carbon Conscience tool, which can be used by designers, planners, municipalities, and others to create spaces with reduced carbon impacts in mind. The tool builds on previous research as part of an effort to produce verifiable information that can be used in project planning and design phases to show how landscapes, architecture, and planning can work together toward a sustainable future. Presented at the Landscape Architecture Foundation's Innovation + Leadership Symposium on June 15, 2023.