This convening and facilitation of experts, the establishment of a Strategic Communications Working Group, this ideation on next steps for built environment communications, and this reporting out was made possible with the generous support of the Toni Piëch Foundation. Report drafted by Dr. Michael Shank.
Executive Summary
Since early 2024, the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, in partnership with the Toni Piëch Foundation and supported by Laudes Foundation, has been convening monthly workshops with a select group of communication experts and thought leaders in the built environment space from across Europe and North America.
The purpose of the monthly workshops was to evaluate what is currently working well in the built environment communications space while chalking out the blueprint for what is needed going forward to support – from a communications and engagement perspective – the necessary decarbonization of the built environment, given its outsized existing and growing carbon footprint.
While participation of the experts was in their personal capacity, organizational representation was
wide-reaching, covering a majority of the major climate, housing and just transition players in the built
environment space and ensuring that the advice and ideas gathered during these workshops was
sufficiently representative.