NAED Responds to New York Times Editorial Columnist Bob Herbert's Op-ed Piece on Nation's Energy Efficiency Strategy

To the Editor:

In his August 5, 2008 op-ed piece in The New York Times, Bob Herbert rightly laments the lack of leadership in the struggle for energy efficiency. In response to this very problem, the major environmental design and planning disciplines—communication design, industrial design, interior design, architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, development, and planning—have come together to form a new National Academy of Environmental Design (NAED) to achieve much greater energy efficiency and conservation in our designed environment.

Buildings generate almost half of the greenhouse gases we emit, with transportation and manufacturing roughly another quarter each. The "fastest, cheapest, easiest, and cleanest step toward a sane energy environment" involves a change in how we plan, create, approve, finance, manufacture, construct, maintain, and operate the designed objects and environments we use and occupy in our everyday lives. The design disciplines have been inadvertently responsible for creating our current carbon-emitting surroundings and we also know how to help change this situation.

The NAED and the design and planning professions are prepared to help provide the leadership Herbert advocates. We would encourage you to visit the National Academy of Environmental Design website at www.naedonline.org and read more about our efforts.

Sincerely,
Thomas Fisher
Dean, College of Design, University of Minnesota
Member, Steering Committee National Academy of Environmental Design

Read Bob Herbert's Column, "The Winning Hand" (8.5.08).

 

NAED Publishes White Paper on Climate Change

"A Rationale for a National Organization to Leverage the Expertise of the Design and Planning Professions and Institutions to Address the Impending Catastrophic Impacts of Climate Change"

Download the white paper (8.5.08).

 

NAED Held Inaugural Meeting in Washington, D.C.

The National Academy of Environmental Design (NAED) hosted its first face-to-face meeting July 10th and 11th at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.. Representatives from a growing coalition of national organizations focused on the built environment met to forge the new organization’s governance structure and develop a research and advocacy agenda for 2008-09. Following the daytime meetings on Thursday, NAED charter members, members of Congress and various representatives from local institutions were invited to an evening reception in the National Building Museum’s new Beverly Willis Foundation Library.

Download the media advisory (7.9.08).