Dear COTE® Colleagues:
February has already been an eventful month with both good and bad news. NASA announced that 2018 was the fourth warmest year on record, US weather-related disasters last year resulted in more than $91 billion in losses, and the State of the Union address did not mention climate change. The good news—our government is back at work, Congress has established a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and announced the Green New Deal resolution. We commend the immediate public support by AIA of the Green New Deal framework and call for action by Congress to support investments in infrastructure, upgrades of the existing building stock, and resilience improvements in the built environment to achieve a carbon neutral future by 2030. The mission of AIA COTE® has never been clearer or more urgent.
The newsletter this month features an interview with COTE® founder, Bob Berkebile, FAIA. At this critical time, it is important to reflect on the power of passionate individuals to create lasting change. At the 1989 AIA Convention in St. Louis, Berkebile and Kirk Gastinger, FAIA, presented Critical Planet Rescue (CPR), a measure calling for AIA to sponsor research and to develop a resource guide to help architects and their clients to act responsibly, which ultimately led to the formation of the Committee on the Environment. Bob’s vision, commitment tireless work towards an integrated approach to building and environmental stewardship has inspired generations of architects and helped launch the green building movement. The work of COTE® continues today and Bob’s Critical Planet Rescue (CPR) plan is more urgently required now than ever before.
AIA has recently realigned Sustainability & Resilience staffing to better integrate COTE® in multi-year Institute goals to aggregate the collective impacts of design decisions on health, climate, resilience, and social equity and grow AIA’s sustainability and resilience network. This includes engaging local COTE® networks and referencing COTE® Top Ten and 2030 Commitment data to connect architectural practice to broader societal goals of “healthy, resilient, equitable, and sustainable communities."
The AIA COTE® Advisory Group met this month in Washington, DC, to set our course for the coming year and also meet with Congressional staff and committee members to advocate for climate action, carbon reduction, energy efficiency, resilience, and infrastructure investment. COTE® will collaborate on initiatives and programs as part of the national AIA Sustainability and Resilience Group as well as with regional and local COTE® chapters. We will be continuing the launch of the COTE® Top Ten Toolkit in the coming months with presentations across the country and at the AIA Conference in Las Vegas in June.
This will be a busy year, one of critical importance to our profession, our communities, our country, and our planet. Thank you for your contributions to COTE®’s mission.
Marsha Maytum, FAIA
2019 Advisory Group Chair
AIA Committee on the Environment