Advocacy Day 2022: Landscape Architects Advancing Climate Justice
This year’s Advocacy Day theme was Landscape Architects Advancing Climate Justice, with advocates educating policy makers about the landscape architecture profession and encouraging support of two pieces of legislation—the Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act (H.R. 7534) and the Outdoors for All Act (S. 2887, H.R. 5413).
2022-11-01
ASLA hosted a virtual Advocacy Day on September 29, 2022, when 115 ASLA members met with members of Congress, Senators, and congressional staff to discuss policies important to the profession. This year’s Advocacy Day theme was Landscape Architects Advancing Climate Justice, with advocates educating policy makers about the landscape architecture profession and encouraging support of two pieces of legislation—the Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act (H.R. 7534) and the Outdoors for All Act (S. 2887, H.R. 5413).
Both bills would utilize the unique skills of landscape architects to help underserved communities mitigate the impacts of climate change and enhance environmental justice. Specifically, the Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act would provide grants to underserved communities for projects, including green roofs, cool pavements, tree canopy coverage, transit shelters, and more, that help protect against and reduce urban heat. The Outdoors for All Act would codify and provide a dedicated source of funding for community parks and other outdoor recreation spaces in underserved communities. ASLA advocates successfully gained congressional support for the two bills of this year’s Advocacy Day as demonstrated by new cosponsors for both bills.
ASLA also activated the iAdvocate Network to urge other grassroots advocates to help their colleagues on the Hill by contacting their legislators about the Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act and the Outdoors for All Act. Nearly 1,000 messages were sent to Capitol Hill urging support for these two measures. ASLA encourages advocates to continue to send letters to their federal legislators urging support for these bills.
Finally, as a result of Advocacy Day efforts, staffers from the Kansas congressional delegation offices of Senator Jerry Moran and Congressman Tracey Mann requested a tour of ASLA’s green roof —a landscape architecture tool outlined in the Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act.