Built Buildings Lab at Climate Week NYC 2025
Climate Week NYC was an intense and hopeful gathering of people sharing knowledge, connecting, and scheming. People are embracing the need to focus more on reusing the buildings we already have as a critical gap in climate strategy.
Built Buildings Lab, represented by Executive Director Lori Ferriss and Research Director Billie Faircloth, had the privilege of participating in four incredible events:
Meeting of COP30 Activation Group 19 on Culture, Culture Heritage Protection, and Climate Action
The World Monuments Fund hosted the first in-person meeting of Activation Group 19 on Culture, Cultural Heritage Protection, and Climate Action – part of the COP30 Activation Agenda. As project leads for Decarbonizing the Built Environment through Heritage, Built Buildings Lab presented how heritage buildings act as a critical bridge between built environment and cultural heritage climate solutions. Follow the Climate Heritage Network to stay up to date on cultural heritage action at COP30.
US Partnership for Embodied Emissions Reductions (PEER) Convening
At the PEER meeting, convened by Columbia University, the Urban Land Institute, and the Rocky Mountain Institute, it is clearly reinforced that there is a need for a common framework that quantifies the embodied carbon “asset” of existing buildings in the decarbonization equation to drive investment and decision-making. Built Buildings Lab facilitated a conversation about how commercial real estate stakeholders can address the unique challenges of reducing whole life carbon across diverse portfolios and create a harmonized approach to carbon tracking and valuation.
SHIFT Convening
SHIFT held its second U.S. convening, hosted by Architecture 2030 and the German Sustainable Building Council at the Center for Architecture, calling for a radical reimagining of what the industry considers sustainable design. Along with presentations from Ha/f Climate Design, the AIA, and others, Built Buildings Lab premiered findings from the Decarbonizing the Built Environment through Heritage policy and case study scan, proposing a shift in built environment climate policy to catalyze uptake of proven heritage-informed solutions. Learn more about the DBTH Campaign and express interest in participating here.
Climate Threats, Building Loss, and Heritage
Climate Threats, Building Loss, and Heritage hosted by Cornell Atkinson Center, Cornell AAP, and Regional Plan Association, grappled with how communities are learning to balance equity, heritage, and survival in the face of climate change. The ReAL Edgemere Community Land Trust shared their experiences forming a new model of community-led land management in which residents have agency over the balance of ecological protection, development, and community preservation. The role of intangible heritage in resilience and adaptation resonated as a way to articulate the value of memory and connection to place as key anchors for communities even as the physical context inevitably changes.
Here are a few of our top takeaways from conversations in which we engaged:
Attention is on building retrofits. Many sessions focused on the need to accelerate building reuse as a circular economy principal and tactical guidance for building owners to implement these projects.
Reuse and retrofit can feel risky in commercial markets. There are a lot of unknowns, and it takes time to plan and implement projects. Building owners and the banks and investors who fund them need certainty that the investment will pay off.
There is a need for designers, developers, and community leaders to take a proactive approach to shaping policies that impact our work. Particularly for existing buildings, new construction-centric requirements can act as a barrier to reuse and designing with traditional methods. On the flip side, policies ranging from reuse ordinances to deconstruction requirements to fees for vacant storefronts effectively incentivize building care and reuse.
Historic buildings remain on the fringes of built environment climate conversation. While the focus remains on technical solutions, so much cultural and social opportunity is left on the table.
Stay tuned for more on global policy convenings as Built Buildings Lab heads to COP30 in Belem this November!
