Pictured: Rick Taylor (left), founder of the Landscape Carbon Calculator, and Trathen Heckman (right), founder and Executive Director of Daily Acts, measure the area of Trathen’s front yard for carbon sequestration calculations on July 27th 2021.
Carbon Calculator: An Interview with Rick Taylor
By Sarina Consulter, Communications Coordinator | August 5th, 2021
As Daily Actors, we all know there is power in small: that the choices we make and the actions we take in our homes, our landscapes, and our neighborhoods ripple out to our greater community, igniting change across our cities and beyond. Mobilizing community to transform thirsty lawns into edible, habitat-providing, water-wise oases is at the core of how Daily Acts has inspired transformative actions for the past 20 years. After these landscape transformations take place, we know that water is being saved, but what about the environmental footprint of transforming the lawn? As the new plants establish over time, will the water-wise garden be able to capture enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to offset the carbon emissions of the materials used to install the garden in the first place?
There’s a tool to determine that, called the Landscape Carbon Calculator, that calculates the CO2 impact of your project and determines how long it will take your landscape to sequester the carbon that was emitted in the process of installing it. We interviewed long-time Daily Actor and founder of the Landscape Carbon Calculator Rick Taylor to learn more about this powerful tool to design for positive change.
Daily Acts: What is the simplest description of the Landscape Carbon Calculator that you can give us?
Rick: The carbon calculator is a tool that will allow you to assess the footprint of your landscape down to the drip emitter level and then based on your plant material, it will tell you how long your landscape will take to sequester the carbon it took to build it. This is the point at which your landscape becomes part of the global climate solution.
Daily Acts: What inspired you to create the Carbon Calculator?
Rick: I wanted to bring awareness around carbon, and how upside-down we are with our relationship to carbon. It is shocking how little people understand it, especially people who are passionate about living meaningfully on this planet. Creating a new landscape requires a lot of resources! We are addicted to a certain aesthetic culturally. I wanted to create a tool to bring something special to the table. No matter how successful my landscape design firm becomes, it’s still a small spec in the bucket. We need more people doing this work.
“We are at a point now where carbon emission reduction is not enough. We can’t sequester our way out of the emissions that our lifestyles have created.”
We’re providing tools for those who know that climate change is real and want to do something about it. Just like we have the Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance, we need a carbon sequestration landscape ordinance – a way to measure the efficacy and impacts of development on a suburban and urban level.
Daily Acts: Who is the ideal audience for the Landscape Carbon Calculator?
Rick: Professionals for sure. The Landscape Carbon Calculator has over 300 data inputs that most homeowners wouldn’t know what they were, since they’re industry-specific. Landscape architects, landscape contractors, landscape designers, city planners, and anyone trying to understand how to make the landscape a more effective solution for climate change should use the Landscape Carbon Calculator.
*We’d like to add that the free version of the calculator offers full calculations, so if you have a computer, internet access, and an interest in carbon sequestration we invite anyone to try this powerful tool out!
We thank Rick Taylor for telling us about his solutions-oriented carbon calculator! Small solutions can add up to big changes, and we are excited to see how our local landscape industry uses this powerful tool to participate in the fight against climate change. Stay tuned for a Landscape Carbon Calculator analysis of our original demonstration garden at the Cavanaugh Recreation Center!
Rick has spent the last 25 years weaving ecological literacy into the landscape profession through practical cutting-edge solutions. His desire to transform the its’ influence from extractive to regenerative has led to the creation of the Landscape Carbon Calculator and Landscape Analytic Solutions. His decades of experience in landscape design and construction have deeply influenced the efficacy of the Landscape Carbon Calculator.
Originally founded as a small landscape design/build/maintain contracting business, his firm, Elder Creek Landscapes inc. has led the SF Bay Area in practical and visionary approaches to sustainability.
He has taught and spoken at countless industry events as well as created curriculum and held a lead instructor positions at Sonoma State University’s Sustainable Landscape Professional Certificate Program as well as for the Ecological Landscape Immersion Program at the Permaculture Skills Center. In this role he helped train future professionals in how to merge ecology, design, professionalism, and economics to build a career rooted in right livelihood.
In addition to his ecological work, Rick serves as a facilitator and collective member for Sonoma County Men Evolving Non-violently (M.E.N.), a volunteer organization working to end domestic violence by working directly with men who are committing these acts. He also speaks publicly on Male Violence to a variety of audiences.