Explore the Sessions
get a sneak peek of the Conference Program
01
Resilience & Community Planning
02
Environmental & Ecological Conservation
03
Health, Innovation & Sustainability Practices
We’re currently publishing a preview of conference sessions. This is not the full schedule, and additional sessions will be added. The complete program—including evening events and pre-conference happenings—will be available February 15.
Communities in Action: Lessons from Local Resilience Champions
This interactive panel will feature local resilience leaders from Beaufort, Charleston, Bluffton, and North Charleston, sharing lessons, challenges, and practical strategies for addressing development pressures, environmental challenges, and community needs. Attendees will gain insights into nature-based solutions and approaches that support both people and the environment.
Grassroots Efforts for Wetland Protections: Bluffton's Story
This presentation will explore Bluffton’s grassroots efforts to protect local wetlands in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Sackett decision. Attendees will learn about the town’s phased approach, including implementing wetland buffer ordinances, partnering with legal and academic organizations to strengthen protections, and integrating wetland conservation with stormwater and resilience goals. The session will highlight the challenges of balancing preservation and development, navigating political shifts, and creating defensible, locally tailored environmental regulations that support both community and ecosystem health.
Environmental Preservation Initiatives of Hilton Head Island, SC
This session will highlight Hilton Head Island’s environmental preservation initiatives, showing how the community is balancing development with conservation. Attendees will learn about efforts to protect beaches, waterways, and wildlife through tree preservation, beach restoration, erosion mitigation, sustainable practices, and public engagement, as well as innovative programs like the Quench Buggy to reduce plastic waste. The session will explore how collaboration between nonprofits, government, and local stakeholders is advancing ecotourism, fostering environmental awareness, and ensuring long-term sustainability for both people and the island’s unique ecosystems.
Incorporating Resilience & Regenerative Design into the Built Environment
From hurricanes to wildfires, from global shocks to neighborhood upheavals—our built environment must do more than survive; it must lead the way toward renewal. In this session, we confront these urgent realities and chart a path through resilience and regenerative design. We’ll define these terms not as buzzwords but as guiding frameworks for transformative architecture. Participants will explore how architecture can be an integral part of the cycle of disaster response—from proactive vulnerability assessment to reactive recovery efforts. Join us for a compelling discussion on proactive design, civic responsibility, and the powerful role architecture can play before, during, and after disasters.
Connecting the Dots: Making Resilience Relevant in Your Community
This interactive workshop will help participants connect resilience to sustainability, wellness, and broader community challenges. Attendees will explore how communities face both sudden shocks and ongoing stressors, learn from real-world examples of cross-disciplinary resilience initiatives, and discover strategies to implement collaborative solutions that benefit people, the environment, and overall community well-being.
A Conservation Outcome: South Carolina’s Newest Tool
This session explores Beaufort County’s implementation of South Carolina’s first Green Space Program under the 2022 County Green Space Sales Tax Act. Attendees will learn how this new funding mechanism supports long-term conservation, integrates with land use planning, and influences future development decisions. Real-world project examples will highlight how the program achieves permanent conservation outcomes while balancing growth and community needs.
Stream Restoration as Placemaking: A Multidisciplinary, Collaborative Approach to Stream Restoration in Public Places – Stream Landscape Architecture and Greenway Collaboration
In recent years, there has been a notable shift: The rise of opportunities to integrate stream restoration into public spaces. These projects are now being woven into the fabric of public parks, campuses and commercial and residential developments, all with the intentional goal of fostering meaningful public engagement with restoration efforts. We aim to underscore the significance of ecological restoration. Emphasizing the value of addressing challenges of aligning environmental objectives with placemaking and offer practical insights into effective strategies for interdisciplinary communication and collaboration.
Photos from McAdams
Dix Park – GSI and Landscape Architecture Collaboration
The Gipson Play Plaza exemplifies the City of Raleigh’s commitment to integrating green stormwater infrastructure and landscape architecture into public spaces, manifesting constant contact between the Park’s visitors and nature. Providing innovative flood reduction measures that protect neighboring communities and enhance water quality. A new parking lot is seeded with permeable pavement and bioswales, as well as a water garden that incorporates a meandering recirculating stream. A Native forest habitat, with babbling waterfalls, water cannons and watermills piquing the curiosity of children and adults.
By now, most communities have a plan, or at least a big idea, for a community trail or a trail network. What do you do, next? How to you transform your big idea into an implementable project? Using real world examples, attendees will learn how to plan for trail feasibility studies which serve as a bridge between planning and construction. Come out to learning about how to budget for a feasibility study, what one should include, and how to keep the community engaged as you build momentum for the next stages of trail development.
The Next Steps of your Big Idea
Fortune Springs Park has a storied history. It’s public use as a park is well documented since the early 1900s, but its story starts during the Revolutionary War with a slave named Pompei Fortune. Learn how principles of resilient design and landscape architecture were used to recover this park…not once, but TWICE! From design interventions in the early 1970s by famed Landscape Architect, Robert Marvin, to recent green infrastructure upgrades to support another century of use.
Recovering Resilience - The Lost Treasure of Fortune Springs
Though separated by geography, Mount Pleasant and Pickens County share a common goal: protecting natural resources while planning for the future. This conversation highlights how each community’s conservation story led to tangible policy outcomes—from wetland protections to land-use ordinances—and offers practical takeaways for local governments seeking to balance growth, resilience, and stewardship.
policy with purpose - turning local values into action
Green Tools for a Blue Planet: Sustainable Outdoor Practices for a Resilient South Carolina
This session highlights practical, accessible “green” tools and strategies South Carolinians can use to protect the natural spaces they enjoy. Focusing on simple actions during outdoor activities, participants will learn how sustainable practices support environmental stewardship, enhance physical and mental well-being, and help preserve the Palmetto State’s natural heritage for future generations.
Fostering Healthy Communities and Resilience Through Plant Selection and Conservation
This presentation will highlight the work of the SC Botanical Garden and partner organizations to champion plant conservation efforts, provide healthy communities for people and planet and build resilience into our landscapes. We’ll explore the critical role plants play in our landscapes and how our changing climate is already having substantial effects on natural systems and the benefits they provide. Martin will share important considerations when selecting plants for landscape projects like drought tolerance, heat resistance, and climate resilience. Additionally, we’ll discuss factors that impact plant survival and delve into the benefits of native plants for local ecosystems and wildlife.
A Statewide Model for Healthy People and Healthy Places
Research shows that time in nature supports better mental health, cognitive function, andoverall wellbeing, yet most people spend little time outdoors. This plenary introduces Nature at Work, a statewide model that translates nature and health research into practical strategies for workplaces and communities. Grounded in a Nature-Based Health Promotion Model, the session highlights how connecting people to place can improve health, strengthen resilience, and support healthier people and healthier places across South Carolina.
Water, Wellness, and Work: The Blue Mind Connection in South Carolina
This moderated panel explores the science of “Blue Mind” and the health benefits of time spent in, on, and near water. Susan Johnson, Founder & CEO of Nature at Work, will open with brief framing remarks before panelists from the South Carolina Aquarium, Warrior Surf, and Coastal Expeditions share short examples of water-based programs that support mental health, wellbeing, and resilience. The session concludes with a facilitated discussion and audience Q&A focused on practical applications across workforce and community settings.
Practical Food Strategies to Improve Productivity, Focus and Energy
Most people try to push through low energy, brain fog, and poor focus with more caffeine or more sugar but those strategies often make things worse. In this practical talk, you’ll learn how the foods you eat directly affect your energy, focus,and productivity throughout the day. We’ll explore simple, food-first strategies and supplement suggestions where appropriate that support steady energy, clearer thinking, and better stress resilience. Principles of Nutrigenomics will also be discussed. Nutrigenomics is the study of how the foods you eat interact with your genes to optimize gene function and influence how your body functions. This talk will provide easy nutrition guidelines, realistic food swaps, and recipe ideas you can start using right away to fuel your body and brain more effectively.
Plugging the Drain: Litter’s Economic Toll and the Power of Prevention
Litter fuels decay, stifles development, and drains community resources across SouthCarolina. Explore the hidden economic and safety costs of litter and how preventionstrengthens communities, drives growth, and builds resilience
We will be discussing the remaining of Food service items like cutlery, take out packaging, drinks etc. to make venue, events and most food service compostable. We also have reimagined paints, stains and other coatings to use domestic waste streams. These are designed with LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and GHG (Green HouseGas) accounting principles. They also will cost the same and will be made domestically with domestically produced ingredients.
FROM NATURE TO INNOVATION: REIMAGINING EVERYDAY PRODUCTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Rapid development across South Carolina has transformed our region’s natural landscapes with new homes and unprecedented demolition of old buildings, threatening the region's cultural heritage and straining our landfills. Dr. Alan Todd, founder and executive director of Conway Architectural Salvage and Heritage Project, will discuss the nonprofit’s efforts to keep our region’s historic building materials out of the landfill to be reused for the wellbeing of our local communities.
Deconstruction and the Rise of the Material Reuse Movement
Introduction to the American Flood Coalition & Framework for Flood Resilience
An overview of AFC and our Framework for Flood Resilience, highlighting how the framework supports communities in advancing practical, bipartisan flood solutions.
The Building Resilience into Recovery After Hurricane Helene panel will explore how local leaders in North and South Carolina are working to embed long-term resilience into disaster recovery efforts following Hurricane Helene. Featuring perspectives from SC and western NC local leaders, the discussion will highlight lessons learned from the recovery process, strategies for aligning short-term rebuilding with long-term mitigation goals, and opportunities to strengthen coordination across levels of government.
Building Resilience into Recovery After Hurricane Helene - Panel
Watershed Planning by States
A multi-state discussion on watershed-based planning approaches, lessons learned, and opportunities for regional coordination across Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Smarter Health: How AI Can Help You Monitor, Understand, and Improve Your Wellbeing
Writing Resilience: How Environmental Literacy Supports Health and Wellbeing
This session focuses on interdisciplinary studies of Ecological Literature and its positive effects on youth and trauma informed creative writing practices. A discussion of how to implement resiliency in South Carolina’s youth through ecological creative writing is designed for classrooms, the work force, and policy makers.
Restoring the Landscape: Native Planting Strategies for a More Resilient EV Plant Site
The Pulse of Resilience: Why Biodiversity Monitoring is Essential for South Carolina’s Future
Biodiversity is the fundamental building block of the ecosystem services that support our communities. By monitoring our local species and habitats, we gain a clearer understanding of landscape sustainability and the long-term success of conservation efforts. This session explores how biodiversity data serves as a practical tool for land management, helping to ensure that South Carolina’s natural resources remain stable and productive.
Resilient Shorelines: Increasing the Pace and Scale of Living Shoreline Implementation in Sc
What does a resilient shoreline look like? For coastal South Carolina, it looks like incorporating softer, more natural methods to stop erosion and stabilize the shoreline where appropriate. The Nature Conservancy has been a leader in piloting and testing living shorelines for over 15 years and is now working to increase both the pace and scale of living shoreline implementation. This presentation will cover a brief history of living shorelines in South Carolina and then highlight new initiatives led by The Nature Conservancy, including a largescale living shoreline in Georgetown that is testing new and innovative materials, our longest living shoreline to date in partnership with the Department of Defense, and an innovative grant program to bring living shorelines to under resourced landowners and communities.
More than an Aquarium: A Place of Wellness
Come learn about “Blue Mind” and the audiences that have joined the aquarium’s wellness journey over the past decade. Learn about programs from the mountains to the sea that the South Carolina Aquarium has developed that integrate health and wellness into the experience.
Return to Nature: Native Planting Strategies for a More Biodiverse Industrial Sites - Panel
The panelists will share their methods for ecological restoration of the green spaces and native habitats at the Scout Motors Plant in Blythewood, South Carolina, demonstrating the resulting benefits for the environment, the workforce, and the local community.