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ULI New York's Women's Leadership Initiative Embodied Carbon in NYC's Built Environment
New York City has led the way in the United States in whole-life carbon policy adoption including Local Law 97, Clean Construction Executive Order 23, and the Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Leadership Act. With the increased global urgency for radically reducing embodied carbon in our built environment, this topic is gaining importance. During this session our expert panel will explore what it means to address low embodied carbon design and construction in New York City's built environment.
Kate Ascher (moderator)
Kate currently serves as the Milstein Professor of Urban Development at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where she teaches real estate, infrastructure, and urban planning courses.
She also leads a variety of strategic projects involving transportation and other forms of infrastructure as a consultant to Buro Happold Engineering, where she served as partner through 2019.
Prior to joining Columbia’s GSAPP and Buro Happold, she served as Director of Development at Vornado Realty Trust, Executive Vice-President overseeing planning and infrastructure at the New York City Economic Development Corporation under Michael Bloomberg, and Assistant Director of the Port at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Her public sector work has involved overseeing major infrastructure and master planning projects for the New York metropolitan region, including the development of energy, telecommunications, and waste plans in cooperation with community, environmental, business, and other advocacy groups. She has also been responsible for navigating and completing a series of major waterfront redevelopment projects in New York and New Jersey.
Kate Ascher holds a BA in political science from Brown University, Providence, RI, USA and an MSc and PhD in government from the London School of Economics (LSE), United Kingdom. She is the author of several books on urban infrastructure including The Works Anatomy of a City, The Heights, and The Way to Go, as well as co-author of New York Rising, an illustrated anthology of New York City’s physical evolution.
She serves on the Boards of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center in New York City. Kate Ascher joined the Board of the Holcim Foundation in January 2020.
Julia Gisewite
Julia is Turner Construction Company’s Chief Sustainability Officer, responsible for setting and implementing sustainability policies, standards and strategies across Turner’s national and international operations. Turner’s program addresses topics relevant to the building industry including low carbon materials, energy transition, construction emissions, climate adaptation, waste, circularity, green building rating systems, water protection, biodiversity and more. Julia has over 18 years of construction industry experience and holds a degree in Civil Engineering from Cornell University. She is a Board Member of the Institute for Market Transformation.
Turner Construction Company is the largest domestic building company in the U.S. and a leader in diverse market segments, including Green Building. Named ENR’s #1 Green Builder for fourteen years running, Turner employs over 1,000 sustainability-credentialed staff and works on over 500 green building projects each year. In 2023, the company announced its Build Today, Transform Tomorrow ESG strategy, outlining the ways in which Turner seeks to sustain the planet, protect and actively care for people, and lead and purposely transform the industry.
Billie Faircloth
Billie Faircloth, FAIA, is a design leader and educator who has transformed practice-based research and earned a national and international reputation for demonstrating its value, methods, and outcomes. As partner and research director at the Philadelphia-based architectural practice KieranTimberlake, Billie leads the firm’s Research Group, a transdisciplinary team recognized for applying research, design, and problem-solving processes from fields as diverse as environmental management, industrial ecology, chemical physics, materials science, and sculpture. Her projects include Tally™, the AEC industry's first BIM-integrated lifecycle assessment tool.
Billie is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design in the Environmental Building Design program and the Robotics and Autonomous Systems program. Billie’s present work in practice and academy focuses on socio-technical interactions between building culture and the environment and architecture’s outcomes as critical grounds for innovation. She is Chair Emeritus of the AIA Committee on the Environment, a member of the Board of Directors for Building Transparency, and recently served as a co-chair of UIA2023’s Climate Adaptation panel.
Billie is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design in the Environmental Building Design program and the Robotics and Autonomous Systems program. Billie’s present work in practice and academy focuses on socio-technical interactions between building culture and the environment and architecture’s outcomes as critical grounds for innovation. She is Chair Emeritus of the AIA Committee on the Environment, a member of the Board of Directors for Building Transparency, and recently served as a co-chair of UIA2023’s Climate Adaptation panel.