About
Sustainable ASLA
ASLA 2023 Carbon Offset Partner: National Indian Carbon Coalition / Fond Du Lac Band Forest Carbon Project, Minnesota / © Stan Tekiela, courtesy of National Indian Carbon Coalition ASLA is committed to being leaders on sustainability, providing greater benefits to the communities with which we engage, and further reducing our climate, water, and waste impacts.
In our nation's capital, ASLA is building on a legacy of positive contributions to the people of the District of Columbia through the ASLA Center of Landscape Architecture. Our 100% wind-powered, LEED Platinum, and WELL Gold-certified headquarters is a model for sustainable workplaces. But we aim to do better through annual sustainability assessments and improvements.
Through our annual Conference on Landscape Architecture, ASLA seeks to provide greater environmental and social benefits to the landscape architecture, vendor, and Conference host communities while rapidly reducing our collective impacts.
The ASLA Strategic Plan, released in 2021, committed to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from our headquarters operations and conference by 20 percent by 2024. In our ambitious Climate Action Plan, which was released in
November 2022, ASLA also made the additional commitment to achieve zero
emissions in our operations and conference by 2040.
Through its conference and business operations, ASLA seeks to advance six key goals of the ASLA Climate Action Plan:
- Carbon Drawdown: Attain zero emissions by 2040 and double carbon sequestration
- Climate Resilience: Enhance capacity, biodiversity, and resilience of liveable cities and communities
- Climate Agency: Advocate for climate justice and social well-being
- Cultural Empowerment: Learn from cultural knowledge systems and practices of care
- Climate Leadership: Galvanize climate champions
- Global Alliance: Advance the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and expand international collaboration
ASLA has also committed to conducting annual assessments of its conference and business operations and making them publicly available. Assessments may be updated based on the latest data, science, and regulations.
We will use our own journey to further improve our social and
environmental performance as an educational opportunity for members and
the communities with which we partner.
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