Ki AILA members,
I am writing from Hamburg, Germany, where we’ve had our first snowfall and the Christmas markets are filled with the smell of Glühwein and roasted vanilla almonds. Looking forward to a white Christmas.
I hope by now you have had a chance to peruse our new AILA website and joined Memberscape for some interesting discussions and resource sharing.
The Climate Positive Design Working Group held a Member Connect session on the trio of Climate Positive documents that AILA is launching:
- the AILA roadmap - guidance for AILA Executive and State Chapters to promote climate positive design to members
- Member Action Plan - guidance for what AILA members can do to deliver climate positive design through their projects and practice; and
- the Business guide to climate positive - guidance for businesses to achieve carbon neutral certification.
We outlined the three key things that Landscape Architects can do:
- Understand the environmental and carbon impacts of what we do through evidence-based research.
- Manage and mitigate these impacts through good planning and design.
- Advocate and educate for better understanding of carbon neutral and climate positive design with our clients, colleagues, collaborators, stakeholders and Government.
The Gender Equity Working Group is piloting a mentoring program for women in strive for a more equitable profession. The objectives of this program are to retain women in the profession, reduce gender bias and discrimination, reduce gender pay gap and increase women among owners of incorporated businesses.
Fellow nominations are now open. It’s time to honour distinguished members for their service to AILA and the profession. I encourage you to consider the nomination of females, members in the public sector and/ or academics for a more balanced representation of our profession.
Looking for an opportunity to get more involved in AILA? EOI’s are out for the Advocacy Committee, Practice Committee, People Recognition (ex-Honours) Committee, Finance and Risk Audit Committee, and Biodiversity Positive Design Working Group. I invite you to apply or to encourage someone with the passion and expertise in any of these topics to apply. Applications close on Wednesday 15th December 5pm.
Enjoy the festive season!
Jasmine Ong AILA
National Director