How to Incorporate Carbon Sequestration into Every Project
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
ENV SP Credential Maintenance hours: 1 Elective hour
Qualification Credentials: RCEP PDH
Forests play a crucial role in carbon sequestration, yet traditional afforestation efforts often struggle to integrate effectively into urban and infrastructure settings. Pocket forests, designed using the Miyawaki method, offer a fast-growing, self-sustaining, high-impact solution to mitigate climate change and restore ecological function in developed landscapes. When strategically implemented, pocket forests can contribute to the development of green corridors and interconnected networks of urban greenery that provide measurable carbon benefits, improve air quality, regulate temperature, and enhance community well-being.
This webinar will explore how pocket forests that are as small at 100 square feet can be strategically implemented to support sustainable infrastructure projects, contribute to Envision credit categories, and serve as a tool for organizations and individuals aiming to achieve net-zero climate goals. We will discuss the science behind their effectiveness, best practices for design and carbon measurement, and how professionals can leverage these small forests to maximize long-term sustainability benefits.
Learning Objectives
- Explain how pocket forests contribute to carbon sequestration and ecological restoration in urban and infrastructure settings.
- Identify best practices for designing and measuring the carbon impact of pocket forests.
- Describe how pocket forests can support sustainable infrastructure projects and contribute to Envision credit categories.
Webinar Presenters:
Dr. Greg Zilberbrant, P. Eng, Ph.D
Greg Zilberbrant, a distinguished professional with a remarkable career spanning academia, industry leadership, and environmental innovation having been recognized for his environmental leadership and teaching. Greg spent over 10 years in various technical, managerial and strategic corporate roles in the cement and steel industries before starting his own consulting firm in 2013. Since then has worked with clients in energy, waste, and primary manufacturing focusing on creating value through effective sustainability strategies, environmental management, and stakeholder engagement. Greg is the Executive Director of Beyond21 Academy, a Canadian not-for-profit organization focusing on professional development in sustainability and climate action through education. As an Adjunct Professor with McMaster University W Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology, he empowers the next generation of engineers to design solutions fitting a circular, net-zero world.
Negin Ficzkowski, P.Eng, ENV SP
Negin Ficzkowski is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng) and an Envision Sustainability Professional (Env SP). Negin’s career journey over the last 18 years has been at the intersection of engineering, leadership, sustainability, and policy. She has worked across corporate, academia, and not-for-profit sectors to advance human and ecosystem health by engineering smarter and more ethical and equitable systems.
Her early career focused on leading technical projects in the private sector, before shifting toward strategy development for advancing system-level improvements. Today, through her research, consulting, and advocacy, she equips organizations with practical, science-driven strategies for ecosystem service restoration and highly adaptive engineering solutions. Negin’s work with Beyond21 Academy supports thoughtful ambitious climate action that drives systemic change. As a leader and an educator, Negin has inspired future engineers through teaching at both secondary and post-secondary levels, translating complex sustainability challenges into real-world applications. Through her own dedication to community service and as an advocate of sustainable engineering literacy, Negin has encouraged scientific inquiry and systems thinking at schools across southern Ontario and has engaged thousands of students in dynamic workshops.
More recently, Negin’s commitment to lifelong learning, has brought her back to academia to further explore ways to integrate regenerative principles into engineering education and practice to support long-term benefits for society. As a current PhD student in Environmental Engineering at the University of Guelph, Negin has both a Master of Engineering and Public Policy from McMaster University (MEPP) with focus on ecosystem-driven solutions for climate resiliency, and a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng) in electrical engineering with specializations in integrated systems design from McMaster University.
