In response to a lack of leadership in the struggle for energy efficiency, the major environmental design and planning disciplines—communication design, industrial design, interior design, architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, development, and planning—have come together to form a National Academy of Environmental Design (NAED) to achieve much greater energy efficiency and conservation in our designed environment.

Buildings generate almost half of the greenhouse gases we emit, with transportation and manufacturing roughly another quarter each. The fastest, cheapest, easiest, and cleanest step toward a sane energy environment involves a change in how we plan, create, approve, finance, manufacture, construct, maintain, and operate the designed objects and environments we use and occupy in our everyday lives. The design disciplines have been inadvertently responsible for creating our current carbon-emitting surroundings and we also know how to help change this situation.

The NAED and the design and planning professions are prepared to help provide the necessary leadership. We would encourage you to visit the National Academy of Environmental Design website at www.naedonline.org and read more about our efforts.

The NAED is hosting its second Annual Meeting at the USGBC headquarters September 29 and 30. The public is invited to attend both days, and should RSVP to info@naedonline.org or by calling 202.785.2324.

Scheduled speakers include Charles E. Blumberg, FIIDA, from the National Institutes of Health Division of Environmental Protection; Sohi Rastegar, PhD, director of the National Science Foundation Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation; and Lawrence C. Bank, PhD program director in the National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation. James L. Wescoat, chair of the NAED Research Committee and Aga Khan Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will lead a session developing a map of research areas across NAED member organizations and sharpening the organization’s research agenda for the future.