Speaking Engagements

10/15/22

When the City Saves a Forest

06/28/21

London Climate Action Week: Sustainable Wood for Cities

Pathways towards climate-smart wood procurement

Introduced by former deputy mayor of London Nicky Gavron, Scott Francisco and Cities4Forests are hosting a participatory expert-level exploration of the
latest thinking and research on sustainable wood for city projects.

06/21/21

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization UNFAO

Sustainable Wood for a Sustainable World (SW4SW)

Sustainable wood in construction: Contributing to green cities and the bioeconomy

Scott Francisco presents the groundbreaking Sustainable Wood for Cities platform outlining 8 pathways for wood sourcing to benefit climate, biodiversity and livelihoods.

05/18/21

HOUTBOUW Netherlands: Accelerating sustainable timber construction through innovation and education

This keynote by Scott Francisco outlined several key strategies to support circularity and sustainability in the new global forest economies. In particular the Cities4Forests' Partner Forest Program.

11/05/19

“Workplace4Forests: How Next Generation Office Space Can Become a Hero in the Battle for Climate and Biodiversity”

As part of WORKTECH 19 in Toronto, Scott will be addressing the potential of private enterprise in addressing their remote influences on climate change.

10/23/19

College for Creative Studies’ Toyota Lecture Series in Design: “The City Forest Nexus: Designing A Synergistic Global Environment”

Scott will be presenting the synergies found in recent work as part of Detroit's College for Creative Studies' Toyota Lecture Series in Design.

09/21/19

UN General Assembly - UN Climate Week “Local Leadership for Climate: Solutions to the Climate Emergency”

As part of the UN General Assembly's 2019 Climate Week, Scott will speak on a panel on the power of cities to offer solutions to the escalating climate crisis and the actions that Cities4Forests has taken towards these goals. The recording of the session (including Scott's talk) will be available here.

09/20/19

Grimshaw Architects: “Bridging sustainable futures with systems thinking”

Scott engaged Grimshaw Architects New York office in a conversation on sustainable cities, net zero buildings, forests, wood, and how design and systems thinking can build a bridge to a sustainable future.

05/22/19

Urban Future Global Conference, Oslo: “The City-Forest Nexus”

Using ‘forest-positive’ wood as the first choice for urban infrastructure - from skyscrapers to pot scrapers - can reduce global CO2 emissions by 5-10% through avoidance and sequestration. However, the effectiveness of the wood-first movement hinges on a new kind of synergistic, transparent and charismatic relationship between cities and forests that must be designed and cultivated with the same creativity as the mass timber revolution. Cities will play the pivotal role in transforming the global economy by using their cultural, political and innovation power to guide behavior and values, consumption patterns, and link sustainable urban building with the world’s life-sustaining forests and the people who rely on them.

10/31/17

UN FAO Rome: “Sustainable Wood for a Sustainable World”

Scott will be presenting in this global forum on his ten years of work and research on the connection between urban wood sourcing and community forest conservation at the global scale, including: Wood at Work, Brooklyn Bridge Forest, The Future of Forest Work, C40 F40

10/17/17

World Design Summit: Wood as a Focal Thing: Catalyzing a conservation design culture in an era of technocracy

Design is a culture-building activity: while offering new infrastructures for daily life, it “leads change” in our patterns of thinking, communication, skills and symbols.

For millennia wood has offered human civilizations and cultures a material to build “things”, from ships and dwellings to tools, musical instruments and even cities. The primary material for many built environments, wood demands a world of relationships, skills and knowledge that span from forest to workshop and building site.

In this symposium, I draw on expertise and findings from Wood at Work (woodatwork.nyc), a transdisciplinary community of practice I founded in 2015 that brings together leaders in conservation, forestry, industry innovation, architecture, and urban planning. Together, our mission is to advance the role of wood globally in urban construction, forest conservation, and climate discourse by focusing on the links between sustainable wood use, and the strategies that make sourcing this wood truly beneficial to global conservation efforts and human well-being.

11/10/15

GROW: Cultivating the Next Generation of Architectural Leaders, Center for Architecture

GROW was a one-day symposium in November 2015 geared toward emerging leaders and mid-career architects seeking inspiration and knowledge. Scott Francisco was invited to speak on the topic of "business structure."

02/03/14

“Forests As Capital” Annual Conference of the International Society of Tropical Foresters, Yale Chapter

Pilot Projects and its partners in the Brooklyn Bridge Forest were finalists in the Innovation Prize for outstanding ideas and concepts in financing tropical forest conservation. The Brooklyn Bridge Forest team presented the project before a panel of judges and conference attendees.

10/18/13

2013 MAS Summit for New York City

New York City needs leaders that will cultivate opportunity and nurture innovation in all spheres. This year’s Summit themes were Innovation and Leadership, driving a discussion of building a globally competitive city that is socially, economically and environmentally resilient. Scott Francisco presented Brooklyn Bridge Forest and 100 Fountains. See a video of the presentation.

10/04/13

IAM Inhabit

A gathering of creatives from a variety of disciplines to share ideas and issues related to their artistic and spiritual practices.

09/27/13

IIDEX, Toronto

"Envisioning Adaptation: Design as a Bridge to a Sustainable Future"

Are we simply solving today’s problems, or truly designing for the future? Value-engineering efficient solutions for today’s office spaces often results in functional but ultimately disposable environments... Starting now we must design for both today’s volatile market and a future we can only assume will treat energy and waste in a very different way. For sustainability to gain real traction in the world of interior furniture, fixtures, and finishes, we need design to perform exceptionally in today’s competitive market, and avoid obsolescence and landfill in an unknown future. This will require a shift in thinking to permeate our industry.

09/20/13

Work Revolution Summit

The Innovation Paradox: Do our products of innovation lead to an innovative culture—or not?

04/18/13

Young Executives of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce

Craftsmanship, Culture and Technology in Workplace Strategy: Building a Creative and Efficient Environment For Your Company

A conversation with workplace design and strategy experts:

Scott Francisco, Pilot Projects Design Collective
Sara Matiz, MAD
Filippo Soave, Perkins and Will

Is craftsmanship relevant in our technological age? Does it impact organizational culture and workplace design? How can productive organizations be supported by design? As Italian traditions intersect with contemporary business practices, are craftsmanship and technology at odds with each other? What does a workplace look like that supports both craftsmanship and a streamlined business model?