The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Land and Water impact area and Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS), together with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), announced the launch of a new digital Freshwater Basin Threshold Tool (BTT), developed in collaboration with the Freshwater Hub of the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN). Designed for corporations, NGOs, water researchers, and other decision-makers, the publicly available BTT Online Beta turns complex freshwater science and data into accessible, actionable information. The tool helps users understand environmental needs at the basin scale, establish science-based freshwater targets, and identify where action and investment can have meaningful impact, while making the evidence and methodologies behind those insights more accessible. 

“The health of watersheds is central to the sustainability of all ecosystems,” said John Farner, executive director of Land and Water at the Lincoln Institute. “The Basin Threshold Tool provides crucial insight into fostering sustainable water systems and maintaining ecosystem health in the context of our changing climate.” 

In its new form, the BTT is an open-source platform that compiles and displays basin surface water flows, levels, storage, and quality around the world. Previously, applying this guidance to set science-based freshwater targets would require specialized GIS analysis, technical expertise, and significant manual work to identify basin boundaries, interpret datasets, and calculate appropriate thresholds. Today, the new BTT brings much of that process into a repeatable digital workflow. 

The Freshwater Hub of the Science Based Targets Network is a collaborative effort co-led by WWF and World Resources Institute (WRI), along with Pacific Institute, The Nature Conservancy, CDP, and Conservation International. Together, these partners developed some of the leading science used in the frameworks, tools, methods, and guidance for water impact assessment, management, and reporting. To support this effort, the Lincoln Institute has made a $300,000 in-kind contribution of data management and software development services to WWF through CGS, a nonprofit technology partner focused on turning complex data into practical decision-support tools. CGS is providing the geospatial, data-integration, and product-development capabilities needed to transform the BTT from a spreadsheet-based resource into an accessible online decision-support tool, supported by data infrastructure that connects user-facing results to the methodologies, studies, and source data behind them. 

“The challenge is not a lack of freshwater science or water data, but making that information easy to apply in real-world decisions at scale,” said Kyle Onda, director of data science and engineering at the Center for Geospatial Solutions. “Rather than building the BTT as a one-off application, we designed an underlying open data foundation that can evolve with the science, support new applications, and extend the value of this work to the broader freshwater community.” 

The Lincoln Institute and WWF will be unveiling the BTT on September 23 at Climate Week NYC. The event, which will also be livestreamed, will include a panel discussion on corporate water engagement and policy and a technical demonstration of the tool focusing on the Rio Grande Basin.  

“The appeal of this tool is its simple interface. It is easy to use, but the data making up the foundation is extremely well researched, detailed, and specific,” said Angela Bowman, senior director of US Waterscapes and Freshwater Metrics at WWF-US. “CGS understands how to make that kind of data accessible to every user and you can feel the ease when you’re using the tool. From a business perspective, that means teams can start using the insights right away and quickly integrate science-based targets into decision-making.” 

Learn more about the BTT.

Kristina McGeehan is director of communications at the Lincoln Institute.

Lead image: Backwater Wetlands of the Mississippi River in the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin. Credit: Wildnerdpix via iStock / Getty Images Plus.

That we need to build much more housing, affordably and quickly, is hardly in dispute. It’s the details of where, what, and how we build that can sometimes evade consensus. But at a Lincoln Institute convening last fall, two groups that are sometimes perceived to be at odds over such details—the pro-housing community and climate action leaders—found far more common ground than disagreement.

The quest to build more affordable housing quickly, cheaply, and in as many places as possible can appear to conflict with goals related to energy efficiency and climate resilience. “There’s a perception that modernizing building codes or applying energy and resiliency standards to new housing will drive up construction costs and slow down supply,” says Solomon Greene, former executive director of Land and Communities at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a co-organizer of the convening. “But the research doesn’t bear that out—it’s possible, and necessary, to advance housing supply and resilience together.”

Once you account for the full lifecycle costs of a home, Greene points out, building less resiliently or less efficiently isn’t necessarily cheaper. When homes are built in hazardous areas, are unable to withstand climate risks, or consume excessive amounts of energy, the costs are borne by the eventual homeowner or renter, in the form of higher costs for insurance, energy, and disaster prevention and recovery.

Greene had encountered some of these tensions during his time leading the Office of Policy Development and Research at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where proposed updates to resilience and energy-efficiency standards often encountered pushback from some segments of the housing development industry. “Ultimately our goals were not that dissimilar,” he says. “But because the housing crisis and climate crisis were increasing in at least equal measure, and because resources to contend with both were scarce, it created a sort of a false sense of competition.”

Committed to addressing that disconnect, Greene partnered with Heather Clark, a senior fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to bring housing and climate leaders together at the Lincoln Institute event, where participants discovered many shared objectives. “What both groups are really looking for is more housing, a variety of housing types, in well-connected, accessible places, close to jobs and close to services,” says Amy Cotter, director of urban sustainability at the Lincoln Institute, who attended the convening. Climate advocates and housing supporters may have different reasons for seeking those goals, she notes, but “they’re asking for the same thing.”

And yet, that vision is not being realized in much of the US. We’re still not permitting and building enough new housing to meet demand in most areas, and when we do, we continue to build homes in precarious places, even as climate change causes wildfires and storms to grow more frequent and intense. Often the same legacy zoning and permitting regulations that have made it too hard to build housing have pushed new homes into higher hazard areas.

For example, in the years since 2017, when Hurricane Harvey dumped over 40 inches of rain on Greater Houston and flooded hundreds of thousands of homes, one in every five new housing units—more than 57,000 homes—has been built in a floodplain, an area prone to periodic flooding. As one convening attendee said, “A house that floods every other year isn’t affordable, no matter what you paid for it initially.”

And it’s not just Houston, says Clark, who is also chief executive at Biome Studio and coauthor of a Housing Multiplier Project policy playbook inspired by the convening. Nine out of 10 new homes built in Arizona and California between 2020 and 2022 face significant wildfire risk, Clark notes, compared with around 40 percent of older homes. And in North Carolina, for every home bought out after a disaster between 1996 and 2017, 10 more new homes were built in high-hazard areas. “Why do we continue to build in those locations?” Clark asks. “I think there’s a strong perception that we have to—that we’re desperate.”

With a background in affordable housing development, Clark understands that impulse—she agrees that we urgently need to build much more housing—but disputes the idea that we have to build everywhere, including in high-risk places, to achieve that goal. “There is enough land to solve our entire housing shortage in existing neighborhoods that are lower hazard and close to jobs, transit, and services,” Clark says. “We can get there by changing regulations to make it easier to build homes in those locations, whether that’s from new construction or by repurposing existing buildings.”

She points to a recent analysis by the Center for Geospatial Solutions—a nonprofit data and mapping enterprise launched by and operating out of the Lincoln Institute—suggesting that today’s housing shortage could be addressed by building on publicly owned land in lower risk existing neighborhoods. Ongoing analysis by World Resources Institute (WRI) also shows the potential to solve the housing shortage in existing connected neighborhoods—on parcels like parking lots and underutilized commercial buildings.

Drawing from pro-housing policies that are already working across the country, the policy playbook coauthored by Clark identifies six priority actions communities can take to get more affordable and resilient housing built in more places more quickly. As we build our way out of the housing shortage, Clark says, policy choices related to where, what, and how development occurs can unlock even more community benefits, in addition to moderating home prices and rents.

Where We Build

When homes are scarce but cheaper to build or buy in high-risk areas, many homebuyers and renters are forced to trade risk for affordability, Cotter says. “People are moving to places that are more affordable, even though they face greater risk,” she says. “That puts more people in harm’s way—more people who will be victims of disasters, and more expensive disasters for us as a society to have to deal with.”

Building a lot more housing in safer locations could change that. “If there are sufficient available, affordable home opportunities for people in the US that they don’t need to accept more risk—if they can readily find homes in places that are safer—then there won’t be such a premium on homes that are in safer places,” Cotter says. “That could go a long way toward putting us on a path to a housing market we can continue to insure, and that people can afford to get into.”

Adding infill housing to existing, transit-served neighborhoods reduces emissions, improves health for residents, and cuts household transportation costs by allowing them the option to drive less and live closer to their friends, jobs, and community. Beyond that, research suggests, it’s fiscally smart for communities to encourage infill housing. New homes built in existing neighborhoods near jobs, stores, and transit save a community an average of $21,000 per unit in infrastructure costs compared to the cost of building on the outskirts of town, according to a new study by WRI, ECOnorthwest, and Pew Charitable Trusts. The savings are ongoing, too, with such infill housing costing a community half as much to maintain each year, while producing about 13 percent more property tax revenue per acre.

What We Build

Adjusting the types of housing that can legally be built can also create immediate and enduring affordability. That means encouraging right-sized housing at prices people can afford.

In 2021, Portland, Oregon, legalized duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, cottage clusters, and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in areas formerly zoned only for single-family homes. In the next three years, some 1,400 of these smaller homes were permitted; they sold for $250,000 to $300,000 less, on average, than new single-family homes built in the same neighborhoods.

While most residential land in the United States is zoned exclusively for single-family homes, many Americans cannot afford a detached house on a large lot. Smaller starter homes and multifamily homes, though, cost less to build, purchase, heat, and cool, making them affordable to more people at the outset as well as year after year.

And because compact and multifamily homes in connected neighborhoods require less energy to heat and cool and allow more residents to walk or take transit, solving the housing shortage with this type of development would result in direct emissions savings comparable to half the country’s new car sales being electric vehicles by 2035, according to research by RMI.

That’s just the direct emissions benefits of more multifamily homes in existing neighborhoods. Housing is such a dominant segment of the US economy that “solving the housing shortage strategically has gigaton-scale emissions reduction potential,” the policy playbook states. A shift in the built environment toward efficient and grid-interactive homes can hasten the transition to clean energy and the adoption of more sustainable construction methods, improve grid resiliency, and cut household utility costs, the report suggests.

How We Build

Homes that are truly affordable—not just to buy and rent, but to live in, year after year—should be built to operate efficiently and to withstand climate risks like wildfires and hurricanes. That doesn’t cost as much as people assume.

“There’s the perception that it’s too expensive to build a resilient home or an efficient home,” Clark says. “Our analysis shows that’s actually not the case.”

New research from the University of Alabama shows that adopting hazard-resistant building codes does not systematically increase home prices or constrain supply—and that, while delaying code adoption is unlikely to improve affordability, doing so increases vulnerability to future hazards.

Regulatory requirements such as minimum parking mandates, meanwhile, can also add significantly more expense to construction than do energy efficiency measures, Clark says. Rules requiring at least two parking spots per unit, for example, add between $50,000 and $100,000 per unit to development costs. But energy efficiency upgrades on a four-story multifamily building add just $18 per apartment, according to research by HUD—a cost recovered in less than two months through the resulting energy savings. Similarly, an RMI study across nine major US cities found that all-electric single-family homes were less expensive to build and to operate than mixed-fuel houses.

Uninsurable = Unaffordable

Still, resistance to resilience standards persists—and Greene says it’s time for the housing and climate camps to join forces.

“We need to improve resiliency, because people are increasingly exposed to extreme weather and climate-related risks,” says Greene, now the inaugural executive director of the Center for Housing Research and Innovative Solutions at the University of Denver. “And neither HUD, as a public agency, nor the households living in harm’s way can afford to keep on incurring those costs and those losses. The most promising path forward is working collaboratively with developers, insurers, and communities to align incentives so that resilient, affordable housing becomes the norm.”

Greene says the biggest emerging issue facing HUD during his tenure was the growing insurance crisis. Average home insurance premiums rose 9 percent in 2025 and have more than doubled since 2019, driven largely by claims related to wildfire, hurricanes, and other climate-related hazards, and some insurers have abandoned risky markets or entire states. For examplee, State Farm, California’s largest home insurer, in 2023 stopped writing new homeowners policies in the state, while more than a dozen insurers, such as Farmers and Progressive, have stopped issuing policies in Florida. A home that costs too much to insure, or that cannot be insured at all, can hardly be considered affordable; the best way to lower those costs, Greene says, is to reduce the risk in the first place by pairing smarter land use decisions with building more resilient homes.

Meanwhile, building codes—which provide the foundation for stronger, more resilient homes—have, in many places, not kept pace with accelerating climate hazards. “If we are going to build in certain locations, we really need to make sure higher standards are in place, like what we see in Louisiana,” Clark says. “They’re requiring homes to meet a base building code and be built above a certain elevation. And Louisiana is also requiring an energy code, so the housing that’s built is more affordable over the long term.”

Likewise, Alabama has updated its building codes for new homes in certain high-risk areas, and offers incentives for owners of new and existing homes to meet Fortified Roof standards—which were shown, in a University of Alabama study, to reduce insurance claims and losses by over 70 percent after Hurricane Sally. “That work has completely changed Alabama’s insurance market for the better,” Clark says.

That said, some portions of building codes could be tweaked—particularly in lower-risk areas—to expedite construction. “We should also be looking at, for example, parts of the building code that might not make sense, like the requirement for dual staircases in small plexes—that adds a lot of cost to a building,” Clark says. So does requiring a three- or four-family house to meet the stricter commercial code, instead of the residential code required of single-family homes and duplexes. “As we increase the adoption of building codes to reduce hazard risk, let’s figure out how to make it less expensive in other ways.”

How to Supercharge Affordable, Resilient Housing

Layering together the where, what, and how of housing yields a powerful policy playbook for accelerating affordability and sustainability in tandem.

The first urgent policy action Clark and her coauthors recommend is eliminating red tape in lower-hazard existing neighborhoods. Unlike the price of lumber or labor, regulations such as parking mandates, minimum lot sizes, and zoning rules are policy choices that local governments can directly change. Other priority actions identified in the policy playbook include using city- and state-owned land in low-hazard areas for housing, normalizing disaster-prepared building standards, simplifying public financing for low-income housing, embedding energy affordability into new construction, and reforming utility rates and programs to strengthen the grid and encourage efficiency.

Colorado stands out, Clark says, for having passed a series of housing bills in recent years to make it easier and faster to permit and build housing by right—that is, without special variances required—particularly near transit. “You’re seeing more housing get built on the ground as a result,” Clark says. “What’s also exciting, though, about Colorado, is that they’re not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They’re not saying we’re going build housing everywhere and we’re going to do it without consideration for energy or resiliency.”

In conjunction with the pro-housing bills, Colorado created a Wildfire Resiliency Code to ensure new homes can better withstand wildfire risk, told insurers to factor resilience into their rate structures, and established a Model Low Energy and Carbon Code that rewards efficiency or Passive House construction. “That’s going to make sure new housing that gets built is efficient, grid interactive, and all-electric, so people are going to benefit from lower energy bills.”

Colorado also passed a bill on grid interactivity to allow for virtual power plants—meaning homeowners and renters with, say, heat pumps or solar panels and a backup battery or an electric vehicle can get paid for feeding energy back into the grid during times of peak demand. These types of agreements with utility companies help diversify and stabilize the electric grid, which is under increased stress from data centers and other demands, and can reduce the need for new fossil fuel power plants.

The reason Colorado was able to pass all those bills, Clark says, “is because they’ve built this successful coalition where they’ve brought together people who are concerned about housing, and the people who are concerned about energy and fire and resiliency, and all those different groups are supporting these various bills.”

In fact, Clark says, one of the groups that has been most effective in advocating for housing in Colorado isn’t a pro-housing organization at all—it’s a regional energy nonprofit called SWEEP, or the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. “If we’re going to get some of these bills passed that create more resilient, affordable communities, you need to have people break down those silos and really work together so that we can build more housing in the right locations.”

Building a lot of resilient housing in existing, lower-risk neighborhoods is a winning proposition for just about everyone, says Cotter of the Lincoln Institute. “There are all these cobenefits—in addition to creating more affordable housing supply and reducing emissions, it makes fiscal sense for communities, it doesn’t require as much infrastructure maintenance or initial capital investments,” she says. “There are health benefits to getting people out of their cars and being closer to community, there are health benefits when you take cars off the roads. The case for it just continues to stack up.”

Jon Gorey is a staff writer at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: A fourplex in Portland, Oregon. Credit: Mark E McClure/Sightline Institute via Flickr.

Global leaders, local policymakers, and grassroots changemakers will gather September 20–27 for Climate Week NYC, the world’s largest climate event. This year’s convening, focused on the energy, impact, and action we drive together, will have dozens of breakouts, roundtables, plenary sessions, and side events. 

The Lincoln Institute will participate in several events as part of Climate Week NYC: 

Resilient Communities and Affordable Energy  

September 23, 1–3 p.m. ET, Inclusiv Headquarters (by invitation only) 

Earlier this year, the Center for Impact Finance (CIF) at the Lincoln Institute published “Resilient Communities and Affordable Energy: Charting Roles for Community Finance,” which reflects perspectives from the community finance sector about the strategic opportunities and challenges ahead. The report highlights how community lenders have continued to work to expand access to clean, affordable energy amid shifting federal support. 

Building on the report, CIF will join Inclusiv, a nonprofit network of community development credit unions, for an interactive session where community lenders will discuss different types of collaborations and how to leverage strategic partnerships to expand reach and impact. 

Driving Freshwater Resilience for Climate-Threatened River Basins 

September 23, 5–6 p.m., presented by Panda House 

Science Based Targets Network’s (SBTN) Freshwater Hub is a collaborative effort led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and World Resources Institute (WRI), along with the Pacific Institute, The Nature Conservancy, CDP, and Conservation International. Together, these partners have developed some of the leading frameworks, tools, methods, and guidance for water impact assessment, management, and reporting. To support this effort, the Lincoln Institute and its Center for Geospatial Solutions have joined the WWF to accelerate the development of the Basin Threshold Tool (BTT), an open-source platform that compiles and displays basin water flows, levels, storage, and quality around the world. Its database includes data, methods, and supporting information designed to help companies as they set science-based freshwater targets.

The Lincoln Institute and WWF will be launching the Basin Threshold Tool at Climate Week NYC with a panel discussion on corporate water engagement and policy and a technical demonstration of the tool, focusing on the Rio Grande River. We look forward to a great discussion on how the BTT can aid stakeholders in tracking basin conditions at different scales, advancing net-zero goals, and making informed water management decisions. 

Architecture, Planning, and International Law: Building Postcarbon Futures 

September 23, 6:30–8:00 p.m., presented by the Center for Brooklyn History and the Architectural League 

The Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History and the Architectural League are hosting a conversation about what it will take to build a more just and sustainable future, inspired by the Lincoln Institute’s newest book, Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions, by Billy Fleming. Drawing on the 29 innovative climate justice projects highlighted in the book, Fleming will join Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Keller Easterling to explore how to reduce emissions while creating more just, equitable, and resilient communities.  

More information about Climate Week programming can be found on the Climate Week NYC website.

Kristina McGeehan is director of communications at the Lincoln Institute.

Lead image: Open lawn in New York City’s Central Park, featuring colorful autumn trees in front of the Manhattan skyline. Credit: StockSeller_ukr via iStock/Getty Images Plus.

In April, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy participated in the American Planning Association’s annual National Planning Conference, engaging in discussions about climate change, housing, and economic development. The conference was split into an in-person component, held from April 25 to April 28 in Detroit, Michigan, and an online portion, held from May 27 to May 29. 

The conference, which attracts practicing planners, academics, researchers, policymakers, and other participants from across the US and Canada, kicked off on April 25 with a session on the “2026 Trend Report: Emerging Trends and Signals.” Copublished  by the Lincoln Institute and the American Planning Association (APA), the report was presented by APA staff members Ievgeniia Dulko, Petra Hurtado, Senna Catenacci, and Joseph DeAngelis. While most conventional planning practices lean on past data and current assumptions, the annual trend report emphasizes the importance of accounting for potential futures. During the session, the speakers outlined emerging trends planners should consider, including the role of artificial intelligence in governments.  

The next day, the Lincoln Institute’s Alykhan Mohamed joined Dulko, Hurtado, and Catenacci for “Planning with Foresight,” a session on the growing importance of futures literacy for planners. Formatted as a learning lab, the session allowed planners to learn how to better shape present-day decisions by imagining multiple plausible futures and incorporating future scenarios into their work. 

Anthony Flint, Lincoln Institute senior fellow and author of Mayor’s Desk: 20 Conversations with Local Leaders Solving Global Problems, moderated “Leading Cities Through Change—Mayors Panel.” The panel comprised three Michigan mayors: Sheldon Neeley of Flint, Christopher Taylor of Ann Arbor, and David LaGrand of Grand Rapids. The mayors addressed an array of topics, from the water crisis in Flint and affordable housing issues to the statewide property tax revolt.  

The Lincoln Institute’s Mary Ann Dickinson moderated “When the Cloud Drops—Planning for Data Centers” alongside speakers Brett Gracely, planning practice leader at Plummer; Kyle Mucha, principal planner with McKenna; and Manny Patole of New York University. The group discussed an upcoming Lincoln Institute report on how communities can navigate planning discussions about data center siting. They emphasized the importance of assessing data center proposals based on resource management, equity, and governance, keeping in mind the needs and wants of investors and those affected by data centers. Over 400 people attended the session, with conversations continuing in the hallways afterward. 

Lincoln Institute Director of Urban Sustainability Amy Cotter moderated “Equitable Urban Planning for a Changing Climate” alongside speakers Eleanor Sharpe, former planning director of the City of Philadelphia; Emilia Oscilowicz, coauthor of the Lincoln Institute Policy Focus Report Planning in a Polycrisis; and Adam Lyons of Enterprise Community Partners. The session explored how planners can advance equitable policies that reduce climate risks and enhance ecological public health. One particularly well-received point: “Housing policy is climate policy.” 

“While there is this impression that climate activists are at odds because of competition for limited resources and the idea that environmental regulations slow down building affordable housing, it seemed like people agreed that good housing policy cannot exist without good climate policy, and vice versa,” said Layla Sastry, Lincoln Institute program coordinator and session attendee. 

A meeting of the APA Water and Planning Network, which connects land use planners and water resource and utility planners, was held later that afternoon. Dickinson, the cochair of this network, moderated the meeting, which drew 30 people, some of whom attended after hearing about it in the data center session. 

During the Detroit component of the conference, the Lincoln Institute also hosted an exhibition hall booth, where members of its Publications, Communications, Learning Design, and User Experience team (PCLDUX) distributed thousands of copies of the Lincoln Institute’s publications to eager attendees. 

On the first day of the conference’s virtual component, in May, Lincoln Institute Director of Planning Practice and Scenario Planning Heather Sauceda Hannon moderated “Navigating Uncertainty—Using Strategic Foresight” with speakers Elizabeth Ginsberg and Austen Edwards of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). The panelists explained how they applied Exploratory Scenario Planning (XSP) to the Century Plan, a project in northeastern Illinois that aims to build a stronger future for the region, focusing on transportation, climate, and the economy. Ginsberg and Edwards shared how XSP helped them narrow their focus to regional action, engage with elected leaders and other planners, and use resources from state and regional agencies to encourage local officials to shift to a horizon-based mindset.   

Hannon and Consortium for Scenario Planning Analyst Daniela Faria presented “Exploratory Scenario Planning for Brazil’s Public Lands,” diving into the Lincoln Institute’s work with Brazil’s Secretariat for Federal Assets (SPU) on Imóvel da Gente, or “Property of the People,” which aims to make federal public property useable and useful for Brazilian citizens.  

Faria outlined the XSP process at the start of the session, which emphasized how collaborative methods and efforts strengthen institutional capacity, broaden participation, and ensure that land use policies serve diverse community needs. 

Rounding out the first day of the virtual conference, Hannon moderated “State Preemption for Housing—Benefit or Bane?” with speakers Andreea D. Udrea, deputy director of zoning in the Dallas Planning and Development Department; Lucy Kempf, director of the Metropolitan Nashville–Davidson County Planning Department; and Meagan McMahan, director of planning for the City of Minneapolis. The panelists discussed how states are taking legislative action to preempt planning and zoning by local governments, and the various ways this preemption affects local planning. 

The next day, Dickinson served as a panelist for “Integrated Resource Planning—Where Land Meets Water.” Moderated by Steve Epting of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the panel also included Rachael Belisle-Toler, water resources manager for the Town of Ipswich, MA, and Adam Schempp of the Environmental Law Institute. Their presentations outlined the Integrated Resource Planning project’s methodology, observations, and findings. Key findings included the fact that most states expect local land use plans to identify areas for conservation, water supply, and drainage, and that eight states require water utilities to directly coordinate with land use planners in their communities. 

Mary Ann Dickinson, possibly the Lincoln Institute’s most well-rounded 2026 APA Conference attendee—thanks to her work moderating sessions, serving as a panelist on others, and helping out at the exhibition hall booth—described her experience as “intensive, fun, and rewarding,” noting that she especially enjoyed working the booth as it allowed her to talk to many planners. 

The Lincoln Institute is excited to attend APA’s 2027 National Planning Conference, which will be held May 15 to 18 in Houston. Stay tuned for more information on our participation! 

Eric Xie was a communications intern at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Lead image: Director of Urban Sustainability Amy Cotter (far right) smiles with Adam Lyons, Eleanor Sharpe, and Emilia Oscilowicz after their panel “Equitable Urban Planning for a Changing Climate” at the 2026 National Planning Conference. Credit: Catherine Benedict, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

This article is reprinted with permission from Bloomberg Design Edition, where it originally appeared. It was first published on July 26, 2026.

When a colleague alerted me to the “Bio-Based Materials Petting Zoo and Happy Hour,” one of several interactive events during Boston Climate Week this summer, there was no way I wasn’t going. For a journalist who often chronicles the nerdy aspects of architecture, newfangled sustainable building materials equals pure catnip.

The show-and-tell, held at Boston Building Resources, a local nonprofit that collects and distributes salvaged construction materials, didn’t disappoint. Curator Sara Kudra offered a full roster of alternative building blocks for the built environment, including hemp, cork, straw, flax and bamboo. We passed around samples of rice husk wall panels, cinder blocks bound with wood fiber, insulation made from sheep’s wool, and acoustic tiles composed of reconstituted crushed glass.

And while the materials were conjured using cutting-edge technology, with futuristic names like Craste, Nexcem, and Glavel, the precedent for more nature-based building is firmly rooted in the past, Kudra said. Bricks of compressed earth, for example, offer a modern version of the vernacular mud hut. “Humanity has known about a lot of this stuff for thousands of years,” she observed as she passed around a test tube of an algae-based cement additive.

Alternatives to conventional building materials have been gaining attention in recent years, from mass timber to green cement. Today the roster of funky ingredients is expanding rapidly, promising healthier interiors, lower costs, better energy efficiency and longer-lasting buildings that require less maintenance. It’s all of a piece in the trend of more sustainable architecture, with its aspirations of a circular economy, reuse and retrofit, and a transition to a postcarbon future.

Can all of this stuff really replace brick, steel and concrete? The idea of sheared sheep’s wool substituting for fiberglass insulation—or importing cork from Portugal for walls and floors—suggests it might be hard for these materials to break out of boutique usage and scale up.

“Currently, scale in the building industry means that you have one manufacturing facility in Georgia that is basically producing all of the carpet tiles that are needed in North America,” says James Kitchin, director of the Abundant Futures Design Lab at the design firm MASS, cofounder of the Bio-Based Materials Collective, and contributor to The Bio- & Mineral-Based Materials Primer, a guide for contractors and design professionals. “The other form of scale is to have more of a dispersed network of manufacturing facilities—more localized supply chains that are more resilient.”

At a practical level, there’s lots of win-wins in more planet-friendly protocols. Farmers discard or burn tens of millions of tons of straw each year; instead, they could sell it to manufacturers of straw-bale structural insulated panels. Cost savings are achieved in the long run, on energy use, maintenance and durability over the life cycle of any building. Builders can also save on labor costs; prefabricated cross-laminated timber, as hardy as steel, is famously easy to work with, trimming construction timelines.

Sustainable building materials are also in many cases safer and less flammable than traditional materials. Compacted straw basically just chars rather than going full-on aflame, unlike the synthetic elements blamed for recent high-rise conflagrations around the world. The task is to convince lawmakers to overhaul government regulations and building codes that favor conventional methods and manufacturers—but that’s an uphill battle.

“There’s so many challenges around the entrenched system that we already have, around regulations, warranties and risk aversion,” Kitchin said.

Change is unwelcome in many quarters. Residents in Moreau, New York, rose up to fight a proposed plant that would have turned sewage sludge into biochar, a charcoal-like substance that can be used as a carbon-storing additive. Other places are revising rules and incentives: Seattle established a program to promote mass timber and super-insulated “passive house” techniques in areas zoned for more dense, multistory housing construction.

The evolution of building materials has gone hand-in-hand with changes in design. The earliest human settlements used stone, wood, packed earth and other materials that were handy and close by; builders in ancient Rome combined the invention of concrete with clever engineering to create aqueducts and temples. Wood and brick were standard until the Industrial Revolution brought iron and steel, paving the way for the first skyscrapers. Brutalist architects like Le Corbusier and Paul Rudolph used structural concrete in new ways, and Frank Gehry’s wavy metallic forms were facilitated by aerospace software.

The first sun-dried mud bricks can be traced to Syria more than 7,000 years ago. Today innovators have come up with a porous terracotta version that can absorb water and cool down outside spaces that are subject to extreme heat. All it took was some smart people to take a fresh look at this most basic element of building, so familiar after millennia of use. The ubiquitous cinder block shouldn’t be far behind.

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor to Land Lines magazine.

Lead image: Straw bales fill the wooden framing of a house under construction. Credit: anandoart via Getty Images.

Around the globe, people are transforming their social, ecological, and economic systems in response to the climate crisis. The recently published Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions guides readers through 29 of these exemplary works in a vibrantly illustrated atlas, followed by deep explorations of the issues by more than a dozen leading scholars on the front lines of the climate justice movement.

Don’t miss an opportunity to meet volume editor Billy Fleming, along with select contributing authors and special guests, at Building Postcarbon Futures events around the US in the next few months as they discuss what it will take to build and maintain a more just, regenerative world—and be sure to keep an eye on this space for additional events and event details.

SEPTEMBER 2026

September 9: Boulder, CO
Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions with Billy Fleming
CU Boulder Environmental Design Lecture Series
College of Communication, Media, Design, and Information
1060 18th Street, Boulder, CO 80309
12:00–1:00 p.m.

September 10: Boulder, CO
Book Talk and Community Conversation with Billy Fleming
Trident Booksellers and Cafe
940 Pearl St, Boulder, CO 80302
6:00–7:30 p.m.

September 17: Los Angeles, CA
A Conversation with Billy Fleming, Alissa Walker, and Jenny Jones
Presented by L.A. Forum in conjunction with ASLA Conference
Terremoto Office Garden
3618 Pasadena Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90031
5:30–7:30 p.m.

September 23: Climate Week NYC/New York, NY
Architecture, Planning, and International Law: Building Postcarbon Futures
A Conversation with Billy Fleming, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Keller Easterling, and Daniel Aldana Cohen
Center for Brooklyn History
128 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn, NY 11201
6:30–8:00 p.m.
RSVP required

September 29: Philadelphia, PA
A Conversation with Billy Fleming, Akira Drake Rodriguez, and Kimberly Thomas
Temple University Tyler School of Art and Architecture
Atrium Gallery, 2001 N 13th St, Philadelphia, PA 19122
4:00–5:30 p.m.

OCTOBER 2026

October 1: New York, NY
Radical Gardens: An Ecological and Ever Evolving Design Manifesto
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
2 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128
6:30–8:00 p.m.
Tickets required

October 6: Philadelphia, PA
A Conversation with Billy Fleming and Nikil Saval
American Grammar Bookstore
2046 N Front St, Philadelphia, PA 19122
6:00–8:00 p.m.

October 15: Philadelphia, PA
A Conversation with Billy Fleming and Special Guest
WRT
123 S. Broad Street, Suite 1450, Philadelphia, PA 19109
Time TBD

October 26: Ann Arbor, MI
A Conversation with Billy Fleming and Shalanda Baker
Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan
Art and Architecture Building
2000 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2069
6 p.m.

NOVEMBER 2026

November 18: Miami, FL
Paul J. Cejas Lecture Series
Landscape Architecture + Environmental and Urban Design Department
Florida International University
11200 SW 8th ST, Paul Cejas Architecture Bldg, Miami, Florida 33199
5:00–6:30 p.m.

FEBRUARY 2027

February 22: Berkeley, CA
A Conversation with Billy Fleming, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Danielle Rivera
UC Berkeley
230 Bauer Wurster Hall #1820, Berkeley, CA 94720-1820
5:00–7:00 p.m.

February 23: San Francisco, CA
A Conversation with Billy Fleming and Special Guest
William Stout Architectural Books
804 Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94133
Time TBD

MARCH 2027

March 25: College Park, MD
University of Maryland National Center for Smart Growth
2027 Spring Colloquium Series
Anacostia Building, 1 Physics Ellipse Dr, College Park, MD 20740
11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Lead image credit: Cristian Ordóñez.