Panel: Rethinking Urban Development for a Decarbonized Future

As cities confront rising emissions, aging infrastructure, and the urgent need for climate resilience, we face a growing imperative to upgrade buildings while centering the people who use them each day.

This panel brings together groups transforming the built environment: Point Energy Innovations, BOMA SF, HOK, and Gehl to explore how decarbonization, thoughtful design, and people-first planning are reshaping the future of homes, campuses, and cities.

Panelists include:

- Jose Diaz, Sustainability Project Engineer at Point Energy Innovations

- Sean Quinn, Director of Regenerative Design at HOK

- Sofie Kvist, Director at Gehl

Moderated by Tom Arnold, CEO at Gridium and Member at BOMA SF

The conversation will span:

• Retrofitting and electrification of existing buildings, campuses, and civic infrastructure. Speakers will share real projects such as a net-zero state office complex in Sacramento, a decarbonized outdoor campus in Yosemite, and a growing pipeline of modular retrofits for affordable housing.
• Design strategies that prioritize everyday experience, such as passively cooled plazas, walkable green corridors, and modular interiors that make older buildings livable and flexible for the long term.
• Implementation at scale, with an honest look at what it takes to align government, finance, and private partners to move good ideas forward in dense, high-cost urban markets.

We’ll also hear from several of the Yes SF Top Innovators who are building the tools and technologies behind this transition, including modular construction systems, adaptive EV charging infrastructure, and new models for climate finance.

Vince Wong of ElectricFish: Compact, grid-resilient EV charging and energy storage infrastructure that can be deployed in dense urban settings or buildings with limited grid capacity

Huzaifa Muhammad of Chargewheel – Mobile EV charging and energy hubs that reduce the need for fixed infrastructure buildout, ideal for construction sites, campuses, and urban infill

Aramelle Coutant of Kit Switch – Modular interior systems that retrofit existing buildings into flexible, affordable housing units without the need for full demolition or rebuilds

James Richards of Evergrow – A climate finance platform unlocking capital for clean infrastructure projects, including housing, solar, and large-scale energy storage