LDA Design is standing alongside other UK landscape architecture firms in a call for action on the twin crises of climate breakdown and mass biodiversity loss.
As well as issuing our own climate statement, which commits the business to becoming carbon neutral by 2025, LDA Design is a founding signatory of UK Landscape Architects Declare, part of a global movement petitioning for change.
UK Landscape Architects Declare recognises that although there have been major improvements to practice over the last 20 years, a paradigm shift is now needed if we are to meet society’s needs without breaching ecological boundaries. Failure to act will risk further catastrophic damage to the natural world.
The hope is that all UK landscape architecture and urban design practices will join in making this commitment.
“We cannot work away at the edges simply hoping everything will be okay,” argues Bernie Foulkes, director, LDA Design. “Landscape architects, planners and urban designers have the expertise to transform the way we conceive of places, as well as our relationship with – and impact on – the natural world. It’s time to find our collective voice, so that we can be an unstoppable force for ‘net good’, delivering places that critically offer social value gain.”
All signatories of the Declaration will seek changes that include:
- Advocate for faster change in our profession towards resilient and regenerative design practices and a higher governmental funding priority to support this.
- Evaluate all new projects against the aspiration to contribute positively to mitigating climate breakdown, and encourage our clients to adopt this approach.
- Adopt a whole systems approach to landscape design, understanding the critical role of soils, bacteria and mycorrhizal funghi.
- Work to provide assessment tools for lifecycle costing, carbon usage, biodiversity gains.
- Collaborate with architects, engineers, contractors and clients to further reduce construction waste.
- Promote low-embodied carbon, and look to maximise carbon sequestering, responsible and sustainable use of water and biodiversity net gains in all projects.
Sign up now, and join the push for change.
