Landscape Architects Advocate for Sustainability at COP29

By Fay Harvey  

BAKU, Azerbaijan — For the third year in a row, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has been selected to take part in the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This year’s conference, COP29, will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. ASLA will be represented by two delegates who will offer climate-focused workshops and presentations to global leaders.  

The conference includes a series of formal meetings in which governments assess worldwide efforts to advance the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5–2°C above pre-industrial levels. 

At COP29, ASLA member leaders will discuss the ways landscape architects can design nature-based solutions to create real-world benefits, from increased biodiversity and net-zero possibilities to improvement of community livelihood, health and resilience. 

Pamela Conrad, ASLA, PLA, is one of two delegates representing ASLA at COP 29. Conrad is ASLA’s Climate Action Plan chair and International Federation of Landscape Architect’s Climate and Biodiversity Working Group vice-chair. Conrad is the founder of Climate Positive Design, a San Francisco-based architecture and planning firm and is a lecturer at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, having served as a Harvard Loeb Fellow in 2023.  

Representing ASLA alongside Conrad is Kotchakorn Voraakhom, landscape architect delegate of the Government of Thailand. Voraakhom is the founder of Landprocess, a Bangkok-based landscape architecture and urban design firm helping cities shift to carbon-neutral futures by defending carbon-sequestering landscapes and is also a chair of IFLA’s Climate and Biodiversity Working Group.  

At the conference, Conrad will introduce “WORKS with NATURE,” a guide created by Climate Positive Design in collaboration with Voraakhom’s Landprocess. The guide, which Conrad developed during her two-year ASLA Biodiversity and Climate Action Fellowship, highlights low-carbon, nature-based ways communities can adapt to and combat extreme heat, flooding, wildfire and drought while also supporting health and biodiversity, according to ASLA’s website. Solutions found in the guide use a mix of rural and urban techniques and are derived from 38 countries, both developing and developed.  

In addition, Conrad and Voraakhom are set to co-present a workshop titled “Working with Nature in National Adaptation Plans,” aimed toward global policymakers in the blue zone, the delegate area of the conference. The landscape-solutions workshop is the first to be hosted by the UN and guided by landscape architects, opening a door for collaboration across nations and advancement of climate crisis solutions. 

“Pamela Conrad and Kotch Voraakhom will show policymakers how to design with nature, so communities can adapt to climate impacts but also reduce emissions and restore ecosystems at the same time,” said Torey Carter-Conneen, CEO of ASLA, in a statement to ASLA’s website. “It’s the start of such important global work.”