Our cities are being exposed to increasingly severe weather — a threat that today’s infrastructure is not prepared to combat. This slow-motion crisis has tangible consequences for business operations, financial assets, and the livelihood of our communities. Meaningful design starts with understanding the specific risks present in each climate zone and the risks posed to doing “business as usual.” The design phase is where resilience is either built in or permanently lost. Site selection, building systems, and material specification are all significant instruments in risk mitigation and some of the most consequential investments in the long-term success of any built asset.

If our cities are underprepared, our buildings can carry some of the burden. Designers and planners have a strong role to play: Reducing a building’s energy consumption reduces carbon emissions, driving our environmental stewardship of the future.

Gensler designs over one billion square feet of space every year, which gives us an enormous responsibility — and opportunity. As a signatory of the AIA 2030 commitment, we have pledged to achieve projected net-zero operational carbon across our portfolio by 2030. Transparently reporting our energy use and carbon emissions is an important step in achieving our climate goals and pushing the rest of the industry to do the same. This commitment to low-energy performance extends to our own office operations, where we continue to reduce emissions using the same strategies we bring to every project we design.