With increasing frequency, communities across California face costly damages and disruptions brought on by climate change. Leaders have the power to mitigate these effects and advance prosperity by focusing on sustainable development.
Harris’ guidance helps communities access sustainable development’s triple-bottom-line benefits: social, environmental, and financial. We advise municipalities on decisions and investments that yield both immediate and long-term dividends.
Informing Smart Growth
Harris supports Smart Growth initiatives that create socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable communities abundant in opportunities. Our planners emphasize long-term planning and development that accounts for healthy living spaces, transportation options, shared economic benefits, and connections to the natural world.
Envisioning a Way Forward
Communities striving for greater sustainability don’t have to start from scratch. Harris leverages the Envision® framework to guide sustainable, resilient infrastructure development from planning through delivery and end-of-life.
Related People
Brochure
Urban Footprint
Harris is proud to partner with UrbanFootprint—a cloud-based scenario planning tool designed to help land use planners, the public, and decision makers understand and communicate the impacts and trade-offs of land use decisions using scientific research and data about real places where people live and work.
Envision® Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System
Harris & Associates is a proud charter member of the Envision® sustainable infrastructure rating system. This system provides a holistic framework for evaluating and rating the community, environmental, and economic benefits of all types and sizes of infrastructure projects.
-
Advisory Services
Advisory Services
The regulatory and procedurally amorphous environment in which communities operate require a deep understanding of how to navigate through challenging questions to get to a transparent and beneficial outcome. Our team offers smart strategies and consultation to help create effective plans and successful projects that account for 21st century variables such as available resources, climate change and resilience, shifting regulations, and emerging technologies. Harris leverages deep, cross-functional expertise to consider every perspective.
-
Climate Action Plans
Climate Action Plans
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is critical to limiting climate change. Our Climate Action Plans provide municipalities with an inventory of their emissions by source along with reduction goals and strategies for achieving them to meet regulatory requirements while improving the health and resilience of their communities.
-
Sustainability Plans
-
Envision + LEED Certification
Envision + LEED Certification
We help municipalities earn industry distinctions that validate their commitment to green development and demonstrate responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources. LEED-certified buildings are proven to conserve energy and water while benefiting the health of occupants. Similarly, the Envision® Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System recognizes infrastructure projects designed to meet long-term sustainability goals, and Harris is a proud charter member of Envision®.
-
Connected Communities + Smart Cities
-
GHG Benchmarking
GHG Benchmarking
As the saying goes, "You can't manage what you don't measure." Harris works with communities to quantify, analyze, and compare greenhouse gas emissions as a pivotal step toward reduction. Once GHG benchmarking is complete, our Environmental Planning + Compliance team helps community leaders create Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction Plans to achieve their reduction goals.
-
Risk + Resilience
Risk + Resilience
Harris delivers a tailored approach to help cities create future-proof communities. We factor societal and economic systems, regulations, and data into the process to identify potential risks and improve communities’ ability to recover from shocks to critical systems from natural disasters and exacerbating impacts caused by climate change.
Advisory Services
The regulatory and procedurally amorphous environment in which communities operate require a deep understanding of how to navigate through challenging questions to get to a transparent and beneficial outcome. Our team offers smart strategies and consultation to help create effective plans and successful projects that account for 21st century variables such as available resources, climate change and resilience, shifting regulations, and emerging technologies. Harris leverages deep, cross-functional expertise to consider every perspective.
