Climate Action & Sustainability
We offer sustainability consulting services and climate action strategies for developers, building owners, and tenants. Focusing on certification, strategy, and analytics, we help organizations and communities achieve carbon targets and sustainability goals.
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The best outcomes happen when sustainability is integrated from the start of design.
—Kirsten Ritchie, Climate Action & Sustainability leader
27 Items
Google at St. John’s Terminal
New York, New York
St. John’s Terminal is a sustainable 12-story workplace designed as Google’s Global Business Organization headquarters located in Hudson Square in New York.
Pacific Center
San Diego, California
Pacific Center, a life sciences campus and mixed-use development in San Diego, is optimized for an enhanced tenant experience and is targeting LEED Zero Energy.
NVIDIA
Santa Clara, California
The Silicon Valley pioneer NVIDIA sought a corporate headquarters that reflected its core belief in people as its greatest asset.
First United Bank
Fredericksburg, Texas
First United Bank wanted to create an open, inviting environment that serves the community with a design that is sustainable, timeless, and long-lasting.
The Lighthouse
South San Francisco, California
The Lighthouse is a shared amenity space for a community of biotech companies in South San Francisco, that is targeting net zero energy.
Under Armour Global Headquarters
Baltimore, Maryland
Gensler collaborated with Under Armour to design a groundbreaking headquarters and destination for collaboration, athletic excellence, and community connection.
San Francisco International Airport, T1 Net Zero Program
San Francisco, California
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has set the goal of becoming the first airport in the world to achieve zero carbon, zero waste, and zero net energy.
10 Gresham Street
London, United Kingdom
Gensler partnered with CBRE IM to reimagine 10 Gresham Street, an office building transformation that will usher in a new sustainable future in London.
Sustainable Shade Structures
Tirrases, Curridabat, San José Province, Costa Rica
This research initiative focuses on the relationship between extreme heat and vulnerable communities and creating actionable steps to offset climate injustice.
Rancho Los Amigos – Harriman
Downey, California
For over a century, the 212-acre Rancho Los Amigos campus has been a cornerstone of the Downey community, supporting the physical and mental health and wellb...
LinkedIn Omaha
Omaha, Nebraska
LinkedIn partnered with Gensler to design its new 200,000-square-foot campus in Omaha, Nebraska — the first portfolio project embracing LinkedIn’s Future of Work Strategy, developed alongside Gensler.
American Physical Therapy Association Headquarters
Alexandria, Virginia
The new headquarters of the American Physical Therapy Association empowers employee collaboration and promotes mobility, accessibility, and sustainability.
CSULB Parkside North Residence Hall and Housing Administration Building
Long Beach, California
California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) enlisted Gensler to help reach the university’s goal of achieving net-zero status by 2030.
The Link
Denver, Colorado
The Link is a creative mixed-use office tower in downtown Denver that transforms an existing building into a modern, amenity-rich environment.
The Acre
London, United Kingdom
Gensler transformed an inward-looking, closed off building into a modern and sustainable workplace that connects The Acre’s past with its future in the heart of London’s Covent Garden.
Torre Universal Sustainability
San José, Costa Rica
Torre Universal, a modern, class A+ corporate office and retail center in San José, strives to be a benchmark of sustainable development, multimodal mobility, and vertical urbanism.
Café Britt Headquarters
Heredia, Costa Rica
Café Britt tapped Gensler to design a highly sustainable headquarters that mirror its company values and embodies its environmental responsibility ethos.
citizenM
Seattle, Washington
Located in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, citizenM is the city’s first fully modular hotel and a model for sustainable hotel design.
Walmart Home Office
Bentonville, Arkansas
Walmart’s new 350-acre home office will be fully integrated into the community, and inclusive of the natural beauty of Northwest Arkansas. Gensler is the...
Holt Renfrew Sustainable Guidelines
Toronto, Ontario
Canadian luxury department store chain Holt Renfrew tapped Gensler’s Climate Action & Sustainability consultants to develop its sustainable design and construction guidelines.
UPCycle
Austin, Texas
Guided by the concepts of upcycling, adaptive reuse, and a sustainable design approach, Gensler repositioned a dilapidated old warehouse into creative offices.
Centro de Convenciones de Costa Rica
Heredia, Costa Rica
Costa Rica’s first convention center sustainable design milestone in a country that pioneered eco-tourism and is committed to a forward-looking green ethos.
CSU Northridge Student Sustainability Center
Northridge, California
Through net zero consulting and LEED certification management, Gensler’s Climate Action & Sustainability consultants helped the Center achieve LEED Platinum status and become the completed net zero energy building in the CSU system, with a 24KW rooftop photovoltaic array with a glazed overhead window that offsets the building’s entire energy needs.
Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC)
Houston, Texas
Gensler designed the Houston Advanced Research Center to embody its sustainability mission and serve as a prototype for affordable, high-performing buildings.
Etsy
Brooklyn, New York
Etsy’s 200,000-square-foot headquarters is one of the largest Living Building Challenge (LBC) Petal-Certified buildings in New York City.
U.S. General Services Administration, Federal Office Building
Miramar, Florida
Along with Hensel Phelps, Gensler is managing a design-build team that will deliver this new GSA office building to meet the 2030 “net zero” objectives of...
Santa Monica College Core Performance Center
Santa Monica, California
This new building at the heart of the Santa Monica College campus serves as a focal point for the physical activities of the student population.
INSIGHTS
Publication
The Power of Adaptive Reuse for a Low Carbon Future
This report presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of One Post Office Square to quantify embodied carbon savings and evaluate projected total carbon impact over time.
Blog
A Playbook for Sustainable Design Education
How Gensler and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, created a replicable curriculum model to prepare architects for climate-conscious design.
Research
How to Design Sustainable Digital Media Experiences
The research introduces a sustainability toolkit for digital media design, offering actionable strategies to reduce energy consumption, minimize e-waste, and integrate environmental goals into user experiences.
Research
Commercial Office Building Electrification Playbook
The report outlines strategies for electrifying commercial office buildings, emphasizing the role of all-electric systems, heat pump technologies, and sustainable design in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and advancing carbon neutrality goals.
Research
Building for Centuries
The “600-Year Office” concept explores how modular and flexible building designs can adapt over centuries to shifting societal demands, while embedding sustainable strategies to minimize environmental impact and maximize long-term functionality.
Blog
When Rivers Rise and Wells Run Dry: Designing Water-Resilient Cities
Climate change is making floods and droughts more intense — but designers have solutions that can limit the damage.
Research
Reducing Gypsum Wallboard Waste for a Sustainable Future
Tackling the global Gypsum Wallboard waste crisis requires localized, collaborative action across the material’s life cycle to enhance circularity and safeguard against significant public health risks and environmental degradation.
Blog
How a New Vision for Flexible Co-Living Conversions Can Support Housing Affordability
Gensler and The Pew Charitable Trusts studied building typologies in 10 cities to better understand the potential in this unique office-to-residential conversion model.
Blog
Scaling Circular Design: Key Policies, Standards, and Strategies
As momentum grows for circular design, cities and clients face significant challenges and opportunities to implement it widely.
Blog
Climate Change Is Threatening What We Love About Cities
If cities hope to thrive in the face of climate change, they’ll need to balance emotional connection with environmental resilience.
Blog
The Carbon Impact of a Workday
When people calculate their carbon impact, they typically consider their cars, food, clothes, and flights. But they rarely consider where they spend their day. It’s time to change that.
Blog
7 Myths Dogging Efforts to Fully Electrify Buildings — Let’s Bust Them
Despite misconceptions, building electrification is a practical and beneficial choice for many building owners.
Blog
Reimagining Haussmann: Adaptive Workplace Design in the Parisian Urban Fabric
A look at how we can adapt these historic apartments to become sustainable, flexible, and human-centered workplaces for the future.
Research
The Carbon Impact of a Workday
The Gensler Research Institute partnered with the MIT Mobility Initiative to quantify workplace, residence, and commuting emissions across U.S. cities to better understand how organizations can cut emissions during the workday.
Blog
How London’s Green Real Estate Can Lead the Global Climate Agenda
Despite global decarbonisation efforts, emissions continue to rise. But the UK is quietly and steadily reducing its carbon footprint.
Trends in Climate Action & Sustainability
The building industry de-risks investments with resilience strategies.
With rising urban heat and flooding, investors seek solutions that protect the long-term value of real estate. Cities and developers turn to nature-based infrastructure, resilient building retrofits, and targeted climate risk modeling to safeguard assets against escalating physical risks.
Circularity takes center stage.
Circular design reshapes the built environment. From adaptive reuse and modular design to material recovery and deconstruction, owners, developers, architects, and urban planners rethink waste as an opportunity. By treating buildings as material banks, the industry cuts carbon, conserves resources, and moves closer to net-zero goals.
AI and machine learning tools improve sustainable performance insights.
AI-driven management systems and machine learning platforms allow building owners and operators to predict, track, manage, and optimize their energy, water, carbon, occupant comfort, and air quality performance in real time.
CLIMATE ACTION & SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP
David Briefel
Climate Action & Sustainability Leader, Sustainability Director, Principal