海角视频

A new chapter for 海角视频鈥檚 resilience work begins with a leader shaped by policy, equity, and on鈥憈he鈥慻round city experience.

As climate pressures intensify and cities wrestle with the rising costs of inaction, 海角视频 has tapped Shelby Buso to lead its U.S. Climate & Resilience practice – a role that sits at the intersection of policy, infrastructure, equity, and long-term planning.

Buso, who has held senior sustainability roles in Atlanta, Miami, and San Diego, brings a policymaker鈥檚 eye, a strategist鈥檚 discipline, and a community advocate鈥檚 instinct. As she settles into her new role, Shelby spoke with us about what drew her to 海角视频, the shifting landscape of resilience in the U.S., and what she believes the next five years will demand from cities, institutions, and practitioners.

You鈥檙e stepping into this role at a pivotal moment for climate and resilience in the U.S. What experiences most shape how you approach this field today?

It always feels like a pivotal moment for climate – either because momentum is high or because support is lacking. In my own path, I鈥檝e approached this work from multiple angles: law, policy, nonprofit advocacy, and city leadership. I studied anthropology and environmental studies in undergrad, which led me to ask bigger questions about why our systems look the way they do and how culture shapes environmental outcomes.

Law school helped me understand the structures that drive those systems – why policies exist, who they serve, and how they evolve. I鈥檝e always been drawn to that blend of structure and creativity. Laws reflect our values as communities and changing them is often the most direct route to impact.

Working in cities sharpened that focus. In Atlanta, where I served as the inaugural Chief Sustainability Officer, we were nested within the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, so everything we did was explicitly tied to community benefit. In Miami, the work centered on infrastructure and operationalizing resilience. In San Diego, it was pure mitigation: reducing emissions as quickly as possible. Those three perspectives taught me that 鈥渃limate鈥� means very different things depending on the place and the people.

From your vantage point, what are the most urgent (and perhaps under-recognized) resilience challenges facing U.S. cities and institutions?

Every city is different, and that鈥檚 part of the challenge. We can鈥檛 show up with a template. We need to listen first.

But across the board, the biggest barriers I see are implementation and funding. Cities are great at writing plans; there are plans upon plans in every jurisdiction. What鈥檚 harder is turning them into action – particularly when internal teams are stretched thin and the business case for climate action isn鈥檛 fully built out.

That鈥檚 where outside partners can help: not just to design strategies, but to justify them, fund them, and analyze their long-term value.

As you begin leading climate and resilience work at 海角视频, what is your vision for the practice?

I see us evolving into a truly A-to-Z partner – not just writing plans, but helping clients organize, finance, and evaluate the work. That full-spectrum support is what helps cities move faster.

To deliver that, we need deep, ongoing relationships. When I worked inside city government, the best partners were the ones who already understood our context – how the city worked, what the community cared about, the history behind policies. Every hour I didn鈥檛 have to spend explaining those things was time saved for implementation.

We have an opportunity to build those long-term relationships here.

How do you plan to collaborate across 海角视频 to deliver integrated solutions? And how does 海角视频 serve clients as a true end鈥憈o鈥慹nd partner?

What excites me most about 海角视频 is that we鈥檙e not a firm where advisory lives in one corner and engineering lives in another – we鈥檙e built to bridge every step of the journey.

Internally, that means treating climate, resilience, equity, and justice as lenses that overlay every discipline, not as isolated specialties. The climate team doesn鈥檛 have to be in every meeting because we can cultivate ambassadors across planning, engineering, infrastructure, economics, and sustainability who understand when and how to bring us in. That creates a shared vocabulary and shared responsibility.

For clients, this translates into something powerful: a single partner who can move a project from vision -> strategy -> funding -> design -> implementation -> impact measurement.

Whether a city needs a resilience strategy, a climate budget, a community engagement plan, a decarbonization roadmap, an infrastructure concept, or a feasibility analysis, they don鈥檛 have to assemble a piecemeal team across multiple firms. We can advise them at the policy level, help them build the business case, translate that into technical pathways, engineer the solutions, and quantify the benefits. That鈥檚 what cities need right now. Time is short. Capacity is thin. And the challenges are too interconnected for siloed solutions. The more we function as a unified team, the more we can shorten the distance between an idea and build a resilient, community鈥慶entered reality.

We鈥檙e not just a firm that writes a plan – we can help organize the work, justify the work, finance it, and then analyze the outcomes.

Shelby Buso
U.S. Head of Climate & Resilience

More cities are shifting from compliance-based planning toward long-term resilience strategies. What does that evolution mean for clients? And how do you help them think beyond short-term risk?

Clients increasingly want to move past the bare minimum. They鈥檙e facing complex, interconnected challenges, and their responses need to be equally tailored. Thankfully, we now have both positive case studies and cautionary tales; clear evidence of the cost of inaction.

Our job is to translate that evidence into motivation and momentum. That means expanding the conversation from 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the immediate risk?鈥� to 鈥淲hat is the long-term value for your community, economy, and infrastructure?鈥� Resilience isn鈥檛 just protection – it鈥檚 value creation.

How do you embed climate justice into your work in a way that is meaningful and actionable?

Equity isn鈥檛 an 鈥渁dd鈥憃n鈥� in climate planning anymore, it鈥檚 the foundation. For me, embedding climate justice means ensuring that lived experience carries as much weight as technical expertise. When municipalities genuinely share power with their communities, the work gains authenticity and accountability.

I鈥檝e seen the strongest outcomes when cities treat residents as co鈥慸esigners, not stakeholders to check off. Climate plans only succeed when they reflect the actual conditions people experience every day. And communities have to be able to see themselves in the proposed solutions, or adoption simply won鈥檛 happen.

I don鈥檛 rely on one singular framework, because no two communities are the same. But the principle is always consistent: an equitable plan is one whose benefits land where they鈥檙e needed most, and whose implementation is shaped by the people most affected.

What innovations or shifts in thinking will define the next era of climate resilience?

Climate budgeting is going to be huge. Budget offices, finance teams, and accountants have not traditionally been part of climate conversations, but they must be. Cities and institutions have set ambitious climate deadlines, and the window for action is narrowing. We need to help clients bake climate considerations into financial decision-making so the work can actually get funded.

“I’m lucky to have found work that motivates me every day. Yes, there’s a lot of fearmongering out there, but there’s also extraordinary innovation – ideas I never could have imagined. I get to see those ideas up close, and that keeps me hopeful.”

If you had to predict: what will resilience practice look like five years from now?

Ideally, more consistent and more regional. Cities often get siloed within their own boundaries, but those boundaries are imaginary lines. Climate impacts cross them; our solutions should too. I see resilience becoming more interconnected, collaborative, and globally informed. And 海角视频鈥檚 international reach gives us a powerful platform to support that shift.