Andrew Schlesinger, Associate at McCullough, recently attended the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) 2023 Resilience Summit and Spring Meeting in Toronto. In this article, Andrew delves into lessons learned at the Summit and reflects on key takeaways with Lindsay Brugger, AIA, Vice President of Resilience and Urban Resilience Director at ULI.

The Importance of Investing in Resiliency Today

For those still skeptical of the effectiveness of resilience measures, consider this: imagine a commercial real estate property management company making a proactive decision to invest in more shade trees and shade structures as one aspect of resilience. By providing much-needed shade to alleviate the scorching heat of summer days, this foresight will greatly enhance the comfort and well-being of site users down the road and may reduce the building’s energy load.

Now, imagine the same property owner decides not to invest in a redesign to keep their property comfortable. Which space do you want to be in when we are experiencing a heat wave in 2035?

Resilience as a Multidisciplinary and Solutions-Based Approach

Lindsay Brugger, AIA, Vice President of Resilience and Urban Resilience Director at ULI and Andrew Schlesinger, Associate at McCullough

On Monday, May 15th, ULI hosted its Resilience Summit to kick off their Spring Meeting. Much like “sustainability,” the term resilience is a loaded concept. Rooted in design, resilience works to integrate solutions to current and future climate challenges into our spaces and places so we can thrive despite the climate challenges of our era and eras yet to come. (Think of more shade, less water usage, defensible fire spaces, stormwater runoff and sea level protection; the list goes on…)

With this concept of designed adaptation as its crux, the implementation of resilience presents a site specific, systems-based approach to addressing formidable global design challenges. The Resilience Summit brought together a diverse mix of design and development professionals to share best practices, lessons learned, and to strategize how to prepare buildings, cities, and communities most effectively for the impacts of climate change.

Key Takeaways from ULI’s Resilience Summit 2023:

Providing the closing remarks at the Resilience Summit, Lindsay Brugger, AIA, summarized the event with five key takeaways. Here, we list Lindsay’s major concepts that we as designers, developers, and citizens need to be considering as we influence the built environment of our respective spaces and places:

1. Climate change is not a future problem – it’s a now problem

We often talk of years like 2030, 2050, and 2100 when on the topic of climate change. But the climate has already changed and continues to change. As designers and developers, we need to design for a range of future climate scenarios to ensure a prosperous tomorrow.

Elizabeth Yee, Executive Vice President of Programs at the Rockefeller Foundation presenting at the ULI Resilience Summit

To do this, we need to familiarize ourselves with the data projections that scientists, insurance companies, and others are publishing related to our cities and regions - 5, 10, 20 years down the road. This data needs to influence how we view our sites today.

As we study the trends and innovations of professional designers and developers, we also need to learn from community-led activists, who hold valuable lived experience and are generating their own cost-effective solutions to addressing climate change in their neighborhoods.

To learn more, visit Environmental Justice and Real Estate | ULI Knowledge Finder

2. Climate change is a threat multiplier that demands “progress over perfection”

Not only is climate change here today, but it’s also magnifying the challenges before us. From disasters that are increasing in frequency and intensity, to the billions of dollars in investment that we are losing in worker productivity due to extreme heat events, climate change is a compounding threat that will increasingly affect nearly every aspect of our lives.

We need economic, social, and environmental resilience to address the cascading impacts of climate change and need to prioritize strategies that offer co-benefits, paying dividends even on non-disaster days. There is no magic bullet for the multifaceted challenge of climate change and there is no time to waste. We need to lead with our best attempted solutions to these complex problems even if we risk occasionally getting it wrong in the process. We must prioritize progress over perfection.

To learn more, visit Greening Buildings for Healthier People | ULI Knowledge Finder

3. The importance of data and investing for multiple wins

Insurance companies are already leveraging AI and data analytics to predictively determine high risk areas and investors are similarly looking to better understand long-term climate risk and projected future site conditions.

Decarbonizing our built environment will help to stave off the worst-case scenarios of climate change. But we can’t stop there. Making real progress will require a balanced approach of combining the concepts of climate change mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and climate change adaptation (planning for living within our changing climate).

We need to be pragmatic with our objectives and work to integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts into all our scopes and scales of design and development, as informed by data and successful investment.

To learn more, visit How to Choose, Use, and Better Understand Climate-Risk Analytics | ULI Knowledge Finder

4. The need for scalable innovation

As we seek this balance, it’s impossible to dismiss the sheer scope of our climate challenges. We need scalable innovation and solutions to tackle climate change effectively.

Learning from the best practices of the Resilience Summit, we should have our goals set high for advancing portfolio-wide risk reduction. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) assets may surpass $50 trillion by 2025 and we're already seeing innovative, scalable models of development that address multiple ESG goals. For example, this development creates new home for Toronto Public Library Branch (building.ca), which describes a model for social infrastructure that is now being replicated across the city.

This progress is inspiring, and we will need to continually scale up our solutions to meet the demands of climate change and adaptation in our built environment.

5. The importance of partnership

We simply can’t do this alone. Each of us in our respective disciplines and professional circles need to leverage our strengths and collaborate with others.

Every single session at the Resilience Summit touched on this need for partnership. Whether partnerships between philanthropic, public, and private entities, or between developers, local governments, and community members, these collaborations have the potential to create jobs, accelerate investment, and catalyze the transformation of spaces and places.

There is always room for new partnerships. For example, ULI's Water Wise initiative includes a coalition on drought resilient development that brings together the public and private sector.

Applying Lessons Learned from ULI San Diego / Tijuana + McCullough

Chris Clark, Executive Director, ULI San Diego/Tijuana and Tatiana Perez, Senior Associate, ULI San Diego/ Tijuana with chapter members celebrating at the ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto

There is the famous Chinese Proverb: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.” This adage holds incredibly true, especially when connected with resilience and climate design work.

Around the world and even in San Diego, shade, and strategies for cooling cities are becoming priority number one for resilience agendas. Whether in Sierra Leone under the guidance of their Chief Heat Officer to new permitting requirements under San Diego’s Climate Action Plan to provide shade tree canopy coverage of at least 50% of all public right of way hardscaping area, cities are taking adaptation to climate change seriously, and for good reason. ULI created an in-depth report titled, Scorched, on the topic of managing extreme heat.

At McCullough, we are integrating resilient design strategies into every project. From selecting climate-ready trees that will thrive today and in the future despite hotter, drier conditions, to using more efficient drip irrigation methods, water recycling and reuse, or promoting “softscape” materials over hardscaping, we are working to prioritize both climate change mitigation and adaptation through our design.

We are working with our clients and project collaborators to reduce our negative climate impacts and to maximize regenerative and solutions-based design.

We are also implementing the use of Carbon Positive Path Tool, designed by landscape architects to allow project managers to track the carbon footprint and sequestration potential of proposed projects.

Next Steps for ULI San Diego / Tijuana and McCullough

Working with our collaborators, McCullough will work to guide our clients and stakeholders to make responsible stewardship decisions for the long-term. We remain committed to leveraging landscape architecture to make the greatest positive impact on our environment – both in adaptation and mitigation – one project site at a time.

For those interested in learning more about resilience efforts in San Diego and Tijuana, here are a few resources and events to put onto your radar.

First, everyone should read San Diego’s 2022 Climate Action Plan, which lists the strategies used for a more sustainable place to live, work, and play.

Second, ULI San Diego / Tijuana will be hosting their Bi-National Resilience Summit (in partnership with World Design Capital) in April 2024. This event will bring together leaders in design and development to share best practices, innovations and insights into resilience and sustainability for our region. The summit will explore how professionals and communities on both sides of the border are addressing issues such as water resources, defensible fire requirements, heat and shade management, reuse of materials, and the latest in renewable energy and low-carbon building methods.

Mark your calendar for April 2024 and check back with https://sandiego-tijuana.uli.org/ for more information. We look forward to seeing you there!

Lastly, the Urban Land Institute will be hosting their 5th Annual ULI Resilience Summit in New York City, NY on April 12, 2024! Read more at www.uli.org/resiliencesummit.

Additional Resilience Resources:

To learn more about ULI’s Urban Resilience Program and inspiring case studies, please visit links below:

Urban Resilience Program website: uli.org/resilience
Major Reports and Resources: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/about/reports/
City Resilience Strategies: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/city-resilience-strategies/
Climate Risk and Real Estate Investment: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/climate-risk-and-real-estate-investment/
Drought Resilience: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/drought-resilience/
Flood Preparedness: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/flood-preparness/
Heat Mitigation: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/extreme-heat-2/
Wildfire Resilience: https://americas.uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/urban-resilience-program/wildfire-risk/

Interactive Library of Case Studies:

Home - ULI Developing Urban Resilience
Firebreak: Wildfire Resilience Strategies for Real Estate - ULI Developing Urban Resilience
Scorched: Extreme Heat and Real Estate - ULI Developing Urban Resilience
Resilient Parks and Open Spaces - ULI Developing Urban Resilience
Green Infrastructure - ULI Developing Urban Resilience
Buildings Prepared for Sea Level Rise - ULI Developing Urban Resilience
Policies Enhancing Resilience - ULI Developing Urban Resilience

Designing for Tomorrow, Today - Lessons Learned from ULI's Climate Resilience Summit and Spring Meeting