From commitments to consequence: Architecture’s role in accelerating climate action at COP31

With COP31 starting this week, I find myself reflecting on how far AIA has come in its engagement with the global climate community—and how much more there is to do. Since AIA first formally participated in the COP process at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, our presence has evolved from establishing a seat at the table to becoming an active contributor to the global conversation. We have built relationships, established partnerships, elevated the voices of our members, and demonstrated that architecture is an essential part of the solution.

This year, we bring a different level of purpose and resolve. Representing more than 101,000 members across more than 120 countries, AIA carries the collective knowledge, experience, and capacity of a profession that directly shapes the places where people live, work, learn, and gather. Our work is central to climate action.

The question before the global community is no longer whether we understand the climate challenge or whether we have the knowledge and technology to respond. It is whether we can accelerate solutions at the scale and speed needed. Can we set new audacious goals and meet them? Dedication, commitment, and effectiveness must now define our way forward.

This is where leadership matters most. As I have emphasized throughout my presidency, leadership can’t wait. The urgency of this moment requires us to move beyond incremental progress and demonstrate what is possible when our profession brings its collective knowledge and expertise to bear.

For architects, this means looking beyond individual buildings and understanding the interconnected systems that sustain communities. Energy, water, materials, infrastructure, ecosystems, housing, public health, and economic development are not separate conversations. They are part of the same living system. Every decision we make in the built environment has consequences that extend well beyond a project boundary.

This is why regenerative design represents such an important shift for our profession. Sustainability has helped us understand how to reduce our impact. Resilience has taught us how to anticipate, withstand, and recover from disruption. Regenerative design asks us to go further: How can our work actively restore ecological systems, strengthen communities, improve human health, and create conditions for life to flourish?

It is a shift from doing less harm to creating more life, from treating symptoms to addressing root causes, from designing isolated objects to participating in the evolution of whole systems. AIA’s adoption of regenerative design as a strategic priority signals a new horizon for the profession, and it signals to the world that we are essential in defining our collective future.  

However, we cannot regenerate communities if we fail to protect them from growing risks.

This brings me to the second important signal AIA is bringing to COP31: our commitment to disaster risk reduction and resilience. AIA’s formal alignment with the principles of the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 is a significant step in recognizing that climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and the design of the built environment must advance together.

Our Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience pledge provides a framework for architects to integrate risk understanding, preparedness, safety, and resilience into design, planning, advocacy, and practice. Through our engagement with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s ARISE network, we are connecting the expertise of our profession with a global effort to reduce disaster risk and strengthen community resilience.

The message is clear: Resilience cannot begin after a disaster. It must be embedded in the decisions we make long before one occurs. Where we build, how we invest, what materials we use, how communities access essential services, and how our buildings respond to changing conditions all determine the risks we create or reduce. The cost of inaction is measured not only in dollars but in lives, livelihoods, and the loss of cultural and natural assets.

These two commitments, advancing regenerative design and embedding disaster risk reduction into the built environment, are deeply connected. One looks toward the future we want to create; the other addresses the risks we must confront to get there. Together, they establish a more complete vision of our responsibility to people and the planet.

AIA’s engagement with the global climate community has matured significantly since 2021. Our participation in the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), convened by the United Nations Environment Program, connects our profession to a worldwide coalition of governments, industry leaders, financial institutions, researchers, and civil society organizations working to transform the buildings and construction sector. 

Through GlobalABC and our broader international partnerships, AIA is helping bring the expertise of architects into the conversations where policies are shaped, investments are directed, and strategies are developed. We are not simply advocating for the importance of buildings; we are contributing to the work of transforming them.

At COP31, these collaborations take on particular significance. Through engagements at venues including the TED Countdown House and the Resilient Cities, Buildings and Cooling Pavilion, we will connect the experience of our members with international efforts to advance practical solutions. These engagements provide opportunities to demonstrate how design, planning, policy, and investment can work together to create more resilient and regenerative communities.

Ultimately, meaningful change happens locally. It happens in the retrofit of an existing building, the restoration of a watershed, the design of affordable and resilient housing, the investment in public infrastructure, and the planning of communities that can withstand and adapt to change. It happens when architects work alongside engineers, scientists, policymakers, financiers, community leaders, and the people who ultimately inhabit the places we create. COP31 brings all of those collaborations together to work on the wicked problems we face.

As we approach 2030, we must be honest about where commitments have fallen short but be equally committed to build on progress made. At COP31, AIA will bring more than a voice to the global dialogue. We will bring solutions, expertise, professional commitments, and the capacity of our members to advance them. Through our partnerships with organizations such as GlobalABC and our growing engagement with international institutions, we are connecting global ambition with the realities of practice and the needs of communities.

Each of us has an opportunity to translate this ambition into local action, to work across disciplines, to challenge conventional approaches, and to create places that give more than they take. We must be the change we want to see in our communities. That is not simply an aspiration; it is a professional responsibility and an invitation to lead.

We began this journey in 2021 by establishing our presence. Today, we arrive with a stronger voice, a more expansive vision, and a demonstrated commitment to action. COP31 is another milestone, but it is also a call to action. The horizon is changing, and so must our approach. We have the knowledge, the tools, and the collective capacity to make a difference. Now we must bring them together with urgency, purpose, and resolve.

We are no longer simply bringing architects to the global table. We are bringing solutions to the table.

The future is not something we simply inherit. It is something we design, build, and regenerate together.