Smart Surfaces Coalition
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Smart Surfaces Coalition

The Smart Surfaces Coalition is committed to the rapid, cost-effective global adoption of smart surfaces to enable cities to thrive despite climate threats, save cities billions of dollars, decrease heat, reduce flood risk, slow global warming, and improve city livability, health, equity, and jobs.

Delivering Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Environmental Justice

 

Coalition Partners

The Smart Surfaces Coalition is made up of 40 leading national and international organizations with a shared commitment to enabling and ensuring that Smart Surfaces become the urban design standard globally within a decade.

 
 
 
 

Hear the SSC Story: TEDXBoston

American lung association & Smart Surfaces

 
 

What We do

We help cities make “smart” surface decisions by demonstrating the value of surfaces that manage the sun and rain. By using Smart Surfaces where appropriate, cities around the world can reduce extreme summer heat, minimize flooding, improve public health, create jobs, and advance equity—all while saving money.

Interested in learning more about our work?

 
 
 

SMART SURFACE Solutions

Cities that deploy Smart Surfaces cut urban heat, reduce flood risk, save money, and make communities more livable.

 
White metal roof.

Cool Roofs

Cool roofs are light colored roofs that reflect most heat—unlike conventional dark colored roofs. Cool roofs reflect more than 50% of solar radiation compared to traditional dark roofs, which reflect only about 15-20%.

World Wildlife Foundation green roof.

Green Roofs

Green roofs are covered in vegetation, which provides shading, reduces building energy use, cleans the air, and absorbs water to prevent flooding.

 
 
Path lined with trees.

Trees

Trees provide shade and reduce ambient temperatures through evapotranspiration. Additionally, trees turn CO2 into oxygen, filter out air pollutants, and mitigate flood risk during heavy rains.

Solar panel.

Solar

Solar PVs convert sunlight into electricity and provide shading for buildings, sidewalks, and other public areas.

 
 
Workers applying a light grey coating to dark asphalt.

Reflective Pavements

Reflective (or ‘high albedo’) pavements include light-colored roads, sidewalks, and parking lots. These pavements use a reflective sealant to bounce sunlight and heat away from cities to reduce surface temperatures. They also protect the pavement, extending its useful life.

 
Rain garden.

Bioretention

Bioswales, rain gardens, and other forms of bioretention allow rain to run off into green, porous basins, in turn reducing stormwater runoff, risk of flooding and stormwater system overflow, whilst recharging groundwater.

Permeable pavement parking lot.

Porous Pavements

Porous pavements allow rain to pass through the surface, recharging groundwater while reducing flood risk.

 
Workers installing concrete.

Low- and Zero-Carbon Concrete

Through the process of integrating CO2 into new concrete, concrete can be carbon neutral or even carbon negative. Additionally, carbon-sequestering concrete has a relatively high albedo.

 
 
Solar panels on a white roof.

Combined Surfaces

By combining Smart Surface solutions, cities can maximize the benefits from a single area. For example:

Green roofs + Solar PV generate clean energy, reduce building energy use, manage stormwater, and clean the air.

Porous + cool surfaces reflect heat, capture rain, and clean the air.

 
 

Become a Smart SurfaceS Scholar

Smart Surface Scholars collaborate with the Smart Surfaces Coalition to deliver new research on Smart Surface technologies, city-level surface characterization, heat- and flood-mapping, and public health analytics. The Smart Surfaces Coalition brings together experts from a wide range of fields and industries to share data and knowledge in order to accelerate the adoption of Smart Surfaces.

 
 
 

The Smart surfaces blog

 
Featured
As Climate Disasters Worsen, We Need Spongy Solutions to Weather the Storms

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is shattering records. Hurricane Milton, one of three hurricanes to form simultaneously in October for the first time, was also the fastest hurricane to intensify into a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico….Clearly, we’re living in an unnatural and horrific new normal fueled by climate change…

Let's Stop Talking About Heat Domes. Instead, Let's Do Something About Them.

The dominant topic of every small talk and quaint conversation in between jumps through tree-lined shade and, if you’re among the fortunate, into air-conditioned spaces is the heat. As most of us have noticed, suffering under oppressive temperatures in the aptly-termed “heat dome,”

"Energy Justice": What It Is and Why Everyone Should Start Thinking About It

In recent years, the just transition movement has increasingly focused on energy, in what some have referred to as “a new front-line in environmental justice research and activism” (Sze and London 2008). The concept of energy justice focuses separately on energy concerns among the broader issues addressed in the environmental justice movement (Bickerstaff et al. 2013; Jenkins et al. 2018) by integrating social equity principles into energy systems.

The Urban Heat Island Effect Should Force Us to Build Smarter Now Before It's Too Late

With more paved area, less greenery and more dark surfaces, cities experience what is called an urban heat island effect - substantially higher summer temperatures and worse air pollution than the surrounding suburban and rural areas.

 

Research and Reports

 
Featured
Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions (2023)

Addressing climate change is essential and possible, and it offers a host of benefits - from better public health to new economic opportunities. The United States has a historic opportunity to lead the way in decarbonization by transforming its current energy system to one with net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide.

Delivering Urban Resilience

Delivering Urban Resilience details the costs and benefits of city-wide adoption of smart surfaces in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and El Paso to improve health and livability, reduce urban inequality, and slow global warming while saving billions of dollars.

Cooling Cities, Slowing Climate Change and Enhancing Equity: Costs and Benefits of Smart Surfaces Adoption for Baltimore

In this report, we have expanded the technical depth of analysis from these prior reports. We analyze and model in detail the economic costs and benefits, as well as temperature reduction impact, of one city—Baltimore—adopting Smart Surfaces.

Smart Surfaces: A New Approach to Enhance Urban Resilience and Slow Down and Mitigate Climate Change

The growing citywide risks from extreme heat and weather driven by climate change can be largely offset by citywide adoption of these smart surface technologies while delivering large net financial benefits.