Research, Strategy, Print Design/Adobe Suite/The Now Institute
Los Angeles NOW
The UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge
In 2015, UCLA launched an interdisciplinary study to identify the opportunities and challenges of guiding Los Angeles toward a sustainable future. This was a part of the Obama administration’s Grand Challenge initiative. As part of this multi-year collaboration with the UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge, the NOW Institute has been exploring the ways in which the complexity of sustainability can be synthesized into a productive action plan for Los Angeles. Our partners included BuroHappold Engineering and UCLA among others.
My Role
My role included research, project development, photography, print design and distribution.
LA Count Breakdown
In order to know which brains to pick, it was necessary to paint a picture of all the players contributing to our resource consumption and related emissions.
Energy Consumption
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Catering to Multiple Perspectives
Typically energy and water usage stats are understood from the perspective of either supply or demand within a single urban sector. We wanted to paint a more holistic picture than that.
New Supply and Demand-Side Strategies
With 1.5 Million newcomers and no new strategies, only 37% of County supply will be sourced locally. If we capture just 1 inch of LA’s rainfall each year, that amounts to 80 Billion Gallons and another 10% of the County’s supply being sourced locally.
The Book
In the 80 page Grand Challenge document, we emphasize a part-to-whole relationship that is left unexamined in other sustainability studies. We consider consumption and emission percentages from all urban sectors simultaneously, and in doing so, we highlight how quickly Los Angeles can achieve 100% renewable energy by simply combining top-down and bottom-up strategies for both sectors.