On May 28th, AIA Virginia COTE launched their very first Sustainability Summit: Vision to Action! The one-day event was created to bring together professionals interested in sharing and learning more about fostering sustainable practice in Virginia.
The day kicked off with an exciting keynote from Greg Steele, Chief Resilience Officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia, a governor-appointed position dedicated to fostering cross-sector dialogue and informed resilience decision-making in the Commonwealth. Greg described the work he and his team were doing in the Office of Resilience, which was created in 2025 under former Governor Glenn Youngkin, including Chairing the Interagency Resilience Management Team made up of almost 20 different state organizations, and launching a University Collaborative Workgroup between Virginia’s public universities to share data and response planning.
Quick but impactful 5-minute presentations by sustainability subject matter experts prompted roundtable discussion in the morning and afternoon sessions. Attendees broke into smaller groups to discuss topics including advocacy, legislation, codes, electrification, decarbonization, and resilience. Each round table discussion concluded with a report back to the full group, noting priorities, possible action items, and topics for future discussion.
Attendees finished the summit with a final prioritizing work session, listing the following priorities for the coming year and identifying champions to spear head each action:
- Develop and distribute a local resilience toolkit
- Review and evaluate the High Performance Building Act
- Analyze effective data use for sustainable design
- Build involvement in building code cycles from architects and allied professions
- Create a carbon reporting task force
- Attend a COTE meeting or event
COTE would like to thank all attendees and speakers for a wonderful day filled with great discussion and insights. We hope to see you next year!