According to the AI results from a google search of “grassroots”, these efforts require collaboration to spread awareness and inspire action. If you are like me, in 2025, you are looking for ways to do all of the above efficiently and effectively. I would like to boldly suggest the following:
· If you are already a member of the AIA COTE Community online and would like to share local events and/or online events, I encourage you to post them on the AIA COTE Events Page. You can also register and join a COTE Network Quarterly Call online. The next call is May 13 from 2-3pm ET and the topic is “Regional Issues”, the main goal to help build our networks.
· If you are already a member of the AIA COTE Community online, but not yet plugged in to a local or state COTE group, I encourage you to email cote@aia.org and ask to be connected.
· If you are not already a member of the AIA COTE community online or haven’t been on the AIA websites recently, I encourage you to take a look at our Knowledge Community webpage. The AIA has updated all KC webpages to be more user-friendly. As a result, I believe this will greatly contribute to the grassroots efforts that will be required of our community in the coming years.
Informed by grassroots design, we at the COTE Leadership Group are excited to announce our 2025-2030 strategic plan: mission and goals, with a focus on collaboration, spreading awareness and inspiring action. This work has been informed by months of reflection and discussion, led by our 2024 chair, Michelle Amt, FAIA; ideating ways that we can support the grassroots efforts of our movement. We start with our mission: to leverage design to improve life for current and future generations. We aim to encourage solutions that will yield the greatest impact and empower all architects, allied professionals, pipelines and the public globally. We strive to identify barriers to climate action and to meet people where they are. We endeavor to accelerate and inspire change. To agitate. To disrupt. To provoke.
The urgency of the mission inspires us to streamline our goals to three: We collaborate. We chronicle design excellence. We enable transformation.
We collaborate
· Build community through supporting the COTE Network
· Expand partnerships among Climate Action Design Excellence (CADE) groups: board committees, KCs, working groups, and other member groups
· Listen actively, act collectively
We chronicle design excellence
· Chart the leading edge of climate action through the Top Ten and Top Ten for Students awards programs
· Amplify voices through quick and nimble communications
We enable transformation
· Improve communications and outreach to increase accessibility to the tools we already have
· Generate and disseminate F4DE knowledge, meeting practitioners where they are
We stand together. We are focused. We are motivated.
Please reach out to me to share your thoughts: cote@aia.org
Robin Z. Puttock, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP, is an Assistant Professor at Kennesaw State University and a practicing architect with over twenty years of professional, national award-winning, sustainable design experience. She is the editor and contributing author of Teaching Carbon Neutrality: A Compilation of Award-winning Architectural Design Studio Methodologies (Routledge 2025) and is the project architect of many LEED certified buildings as well as the first US Department of Education Green Ribbon School recognized by President Barack Obama. Robin serves as the 2025 Chair of the National AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Leadership Group.