In the heart of London’s Covent Garden neighborhood, a complex of five Victorian-era structures—previously home to a seed merchant company, a brass and iron foundry, and a Nonconformist chapel, among other uses—have been restored and adapted into a single, cohesive office building with ground-floor retail and dining space. The three-year restoration preserved the property’s industrial heritage, yet it provides enough flexibility to meet the needs of today’s workforce.

“NZI on TAP” is a new series that explores the energy and vigor participants experience on-site during Net Zero Imperative (NZI) Technical Assistance Panels (TAPs).

As the environmental impact of construction remains heavily scrutinized amid growing concerns around climate change and resource depletion, universities are turning to new design strategies that prioritize innovation, environmental integration, and sustainability.

Despite geopolitical headwinds, green building regulations continue to gain momentum among local authorities. Many cities have moved beyond reporting requirements to demand practical, asset-level action. Numerous jurisdictions have introduced requirements on net-zero carbon and energy efficiency in buildings, fossil fuel-free heating, embodied carbon, electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities, and climate adaptation measures.

Since the 1980s, the Dallas suburb of Plano has attracted some of the country’s biggest corporate headquarters and established itself as a hub for major employers. But how did Plano revamp to meet the goals of a changing economy and a changing community? The city made a pivot that has been echoed in growing cities around the country: a major shift toward investing in parks and activating green space.

ULI is proud to announce partnerships with seven public agencies in California and Nevada that are working to advance resilience in urban planning and real estate development in their communities. The organizations are partnering with their local ULI District Councils as part of a larger effort aimed at connecting public sector leaders to ULI’s technical assistance, networks, and other resources and helping cities prepare for the impacts of climate change and other environmental vulnerabilities.

Six months after urban wildfires devastated neighborhoods in Los Angeles, signs of rebuilding are evident. Although the landscape still resembles a charred war zone, many residential lots have been cleared with assistance from FEMA. In Altadena and Pacific Palisades—the communities that, together, lost more than 16,000 structures—some homeowners are overcoming huge hurdles, such as permitting and steep construction costs, and are expected to begin rebuilding this year. And builders are banding together in a new Builders Alliance to share resources and incrementally ease the massive housing shortage that plagued the city even before the fires.

Extreme weather events such as droughts and floods significantly impact vulnerable communities across the country—especially in places where the population continues to grow, creating even more tension between real estate demand and the risk of catastrophic flooding or drought. The good news is that shaping real estate projects around water-wise and flood-resilient measures can greatly mitigate water-related risks—and greatly enhance asset value at the same time.

Without climate adaptation, large corporations could face $1.2 trillion in annual losses by 2050, according to Lindsay Brugger, vice president of the Urban Resilience program at ULI’s Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate. Brugger delivered opening remarks at ULI’s sixth annual Resilience Summit on May 15 in Denver where more than 300 attendees gathered at the Hyatt to explore resilience and recovery locally and elsewhere.

The ULI Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate and the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) brought together executives in the commercial real estate and property insurance industry on May 13, 2025, in conjunction with the ULI Spring Meeting and Resilience Summit in Denver, Colorado, to discuss strategies for operating in this environment of growing risk. As Mary Ludgin, event facilitator and senior advisor at Heitman, noted, “Increased conversation between property owners and insurers is a crucial step in managing risk and controlling costs in a tumultuous time of heightened physical risk.”