2025 was a tough year for sustainability.
Federal incentives were repealed, renewable energy projects stalled, and even our language around environmental issues came under increased scrutiny. The sense of momentum we had been building over the last decade suddenly slowed, and many in the profession were left asking: Where do we go from here?
As the national landscape grew more uncertain, a familiar refrain grew louder: we must now focus our efforts on a more local level. The advice is simple enough - talk to your neighbors, engage your community, step outside your bubble – but I’ve come to realize that this is much more complex than it sounds. It forces us to confront what we mean when we talk about community, and who we assume is included in conversations about sustainability.
For me, that idea of “community” is deeply personal. I am an eighth-generation Texan, raised in small towns throughout the state. Watching the urban–rural divide widen over the last decade—economically, politically, culturally—has been disorienting. Places that once felt familiar now feel distant. It has pushed me to reflect on how I relate to my own past and what it means to belong.
This tension shows up in my work as well. Most of my architectural career has focused on advancing sustainability in the built environment, yet too often the conversation feels confined to urban centers, well-resourced clients, and high-tech solutions. These are important, but they are not the whole story. The language we use, the metrics we track, and the projects we hold up as models can unintentionally exclude the places and practitioners who don’t fit in that mold. That exclusivity undermines the very progress we aim to make.
As I step into my year as national AIA COTE chair, these reflections have led me to two interconnected questions:
1. How can our profession broaden the sustainability conversation so that more people see themselves in it?
2. What would it look like for me to engage more fully with my community?
These questions are also shaping COTE’s broader work this year. Across the country, local and regional COTE groups are advancing sustainability in ways that respond directly to their own communities – often with impressive creativity and impact. The COTE Network Spotlight Program showcases this local leadership by highlighting programs, initiatives and advocacy efforts that have meaningfully moved sustainable design forward.
In a similar spirit, our Voices of Advocacy series elevates members who have successfully shaped policy in their local jurisdictions, reminding us that climate leadership often begins with those who best understand the nuances of their region. And later this year, our forthcoming resource Lessons from the Trenches will move away from highlighting only exceptional projects and instead share honest accounts – successes and failures alike – from firms practicing in areas historically resistant to sustainability.
Where are the voices from my community?
To explore these same themes on a more personal level, I’m dedicating my Letters from the Chair to a series of conversations with AIA members practicing in more rural parts of Texas—the kinds of communities that shaped me. I want to highlight their stories—how they navigate constraints, address resilience, and define sustainability in places where the word itself can be divisive. I want to understand the opportunities they see, the challenges they face, and the wisdom they carry.
My hope is that by highlighting these voices, we can build a more inclusive understanding of sustainability—one acknowledging that climate action isn’t just a technical challenge, but also a cultural one. It calls on all of us, from the largest cities to the smallest towns, to rethink how we connect, how we communicate and how we collaborate.
Our rural places are not outliers; they are a vital part of who we are. The architects working in smaller communities hold insights that can strengthen our collective response to climate change – if we’re willing to pull up more chairs and widen the circle.