In Her First COTE Chair Letter, LPA’s Ellen Mitchell Asks: ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’

LPA Director of Sustainability + Applied Research Ellen Mitchell was recently named Chair of the AIA’s Committee on the Environment. In her first Chair letter, she kicks off a new interview series.

2025 was a tough year for sustainability.

Federal incentives were repealed, renewable energy projects stalled, and even our language around environmental issues came under increased scrutiny. The sense of momentum we had been building over the last decade suddenly slowed, and many in the profession were left asking: Where do we go from here?

As the national landscape grew more uncertain, a familiar refrain grew louder: we must now focus our efforts on a more local level. The advice is simple enough - talk to your neighbors, engage your community, step outside your bubble – but I’ve come to realize that this is much more complex than it sounds. It forces us to confront what we mean when we talk about community, and who we assume is included in conversations about sustainability.

For me, that idea of “community” is deeply personal. I am an eighth-generation Texan, raised in small towns throughout the state. Watching the urban–rural divide widen over the last decade—economically, politically, culturally—has been disorienting. Places that once felt familiar now feel distant. It has pushed me to reflect on how I relate to my own past and what it means to belong.

This tension shows up in my work as well. Most of my architectural career has focused on advancing sustainability in the built environment, yet too often the conversation feels confined to urban centers, well-resourced clients, and high-tech solutions. These are important, but they are not the whole story. The language we use, the metrics we track, and the projects we hold up as models can unintentionally exclude the places and practitioners who don’t fit in that mold. That exclusivity undermines the very progress we aim to make.

As I step into my year as national AIA COTE chair, these reflections have led me to two interconnected questions:

1. How can our profession broaden the sustainability conversation so that more people see themselves in it?

2. What would it look like for me to engage more fully with my community?

Read the rest of Mitchell’s COTE Chair letter here.