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ALBION DISTRICT LIBRARY BY PERKINS + WILL IS A 2018 COTE TOP TEN RECIPIENT. IMAGE: DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY

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Who we are

The Committee on the Environment (COTE®) is an AIA Knowledge Community working for architects, allied professionals, and the public to achieve climate action and climate justice through design. We believe that design excellence is the foundation of a healthy, sustainable, and equitable future. Our work promotes design strategies that empower all AIA members to realize the best social and environmental outcomes with the clients and the communities they serve.

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To learn about the Framework for Design Excellence (formerly the COTE Top Ten Measures), click here.

Check out COTE's history and timeline. 

Starting a local COTE or sustainability group and need some guidance? Check out the AIA COTE Network Resources here.

A big thank you to our 2024 sponsors: 
Founding sponsors: Building Green
Premier sponsors: Sherwin-Williams
Sustaining sponsors: GAF Roofing, Milliken, Andersen Windows,
BlueScope Buildings
Green sponsors: EPIC Metals
Allied sponsors: TLC Engineering, Sierra Pacific Windows

Green against Green: Renewable Energy Sprawl

  • 1.  Green against Green: Renewable Energy Sprawl

    Posted 10-26-2016 03:10 PM

    Green against Green: Energy Sprawl

    Sometimes environmentalists fight renewable energy. Green arguments against green energy come into play wherever wind-farms spoil mountaintops or shore views and the problems are not simply aesthetics but extend to deforestation, coverage of highly productive agricultural soils or disturbance of wildlife. Cleverly, wind and solar industries have adopted the term farm to distract from the fact that their renewable energy production is often industrial and its only connection to farms is that farmland gets covered up for energy production.
     Amazon Solar Farm Accomack, Virginia

    Local jurisdictions usually control land use, and often they are at a loss how to classify those wind and solar "farms" since the ag zoning category clearly offers little help. If big enough, power generation sometimes becomes a matter of the state and its utility controlling Public Service Commission.

    The Baltimore County Council just deferred an application for a solar "farm" until it had a chance to study the issue how planting solar panels on the  

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    Green against Green: Energy Sprawl

    Archplanbaltimore remove preview
    Green against Green: Energy Sprawl
    Sometimes environmentalists fight renewable energy. Green arguments against green energy come into play wherever wind-farms spoil mountainto...
    View this on Archplanbaltimore >

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    Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
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