Adam Freed

New York, New York, United States Contact Info
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Experience & Education

  • Bloomberg Associates

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Volunteer Experience

  • The Friends of Governors Island Graphic

    Board Member

    The Friends of Governors Island

    - Present 3 years 3 months

    Environment

    The Friends of Gov­er­nors Island is an inde­pen­dent non­prof­it that works to ensure the Island’s con­tin­ued growth and acces­si­bil­i­ty as a vibrant pub­lic resource. As the des­ig­nat­ed fundrais­ing part­ner of the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island and the Nation­al Park Ser­vice, the Friends stew­ards the Island’s green spaces, enhances the vis­i­tor expe­ri­ence and builds a com­mu­ni­ty ded­i­cat­ed to the Island’s future.

  • Board Member

    NYC Water Board

    - Present 10 years 9 months

    Environment

    The New York City Water Board’s mission is to establish rates for and distribute the collected revenues of the Water and Sewer System of the City of New York, proactively considering the optimal level to achieve efficient financing of the System’s infrastructure and sustainable provision of high-quality service at a fair price to our customers.

  • ioby Graphic

    Board Member

    ioby

    - 6 years 9 months

    Civil Rights and Social Action

    ioby is a crowd-resourcing platform for citizen-led neighbor-funded projects. Our name is derived from the opposite of NIMBY. Our mission is to strengthen neighborhoods by supporting the leaders in them who want to make positive change, engaging their neighbors, one block at a time.

  • The New York Climate Exchange Graphic

    Board Member

    The New York Climate Exchange

    - Present 2 months

    The New York Climate Exchange (“The Exchange”) is a first-of-its-kind collaborative model for accelerating climate change solutions for New York City and beyond. The Exchange is a non-profit organization and partnership network comprised of leading universities, businesses, and community groups. With a physical home on Governors Island, The Exchange will offer education, research, incubation, job training, and public programs to empower individuals and communities to respond to climate…

    The New York Climate Exchange (“The Exchange”) is a first-of-its-kind collaborative model for accelerating climate change solutions for New York City and beyond. The Exchange is a non-profit organization and partnership network comprised of leading universities, businesses, and community groups. With a physical home on Governors Island, The Exchange will offer education, research, incubation, job training, and public programs to empower individuals and communities to respond to climate challenges.

Publications

  • Strengthening Partnerships for Effective Federal Funds Disbursement

    Bloomberg Philanthropies

    The American Rescue Plan (ARP), along with other federal resources, provides unprecedented opportunities for cities and towns across the country to respond to the pandemic. If leveraged and administered effectively, the $65 billion in emergency federal funding will not only support individuals and families in immediate need but could also help tackle some of our most pressing long-standing challenges, bringing transformative change to our communities.

    Over the past several months, mayors…

    The American Rescue Plan (ARP), along with other federal resources, provides unprecedented opportunities for cities and towns across the country to respond to the pandemic. If leveraged and administered effectively, the $65 billion in emergency federal funding will not only support individuals and families in immediate need but could also help tackle some of our most pressing long-standing challenges, bringing transformative change to our communities.

    Over the past several months, mayors have made strong efforts to engage community members and elicit feedback on the distribution of these funds, however, many acknowledge their lack of capacity to rapidly deploy the incoming federal aid. At the same time, many foundations and other entities invested in community development are eager to help local government in these efforts, but coming together as a force can be challenging.

    We highlighted five key strategies to strengthen strategic partnerships and leverage federal funding for COVID response and recovery at a recent workshop for city leaders

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Four strategies to transform public spaces for extreme heat

    Cities Today

    The coinciding crises of extreme weather events supercharged by climate change and COVID-19 have fundamentally shifted how we live, work, interact, and think about our surrounding environment. The past year showed the importance of public space in cities as people spilled out of their homes to reclaim streets, sidewalks, parks, and plazas. The past few weeks have demonstrated the health risks associated with the new norm of extreme weather, with record-breaking heat waves in the United States…

    The coinciding crises of extreme weather events supercharged by climate change and COVID-19 have fundamentally shifted how we live, work, interact, and think about our surrounding environment. The past year showed the importance of public space in cities as people spilled out of their homes to reclaim streets, sidewalks, parks, and plazas. The past few weeks have demonstrated the health risks associated with the new norm of extreme weather, with record-breaking heat waves in the United States and Europe overheating cities.

    To help cities around the world enhance outdoor areas to protect vulnerable residents, provide access to open spaces, and cool neighbourhoods, Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consulting firm for cities, developed a new resource illustrating how to improve the quality of public spaces and reduce the impact of heat waves in social housing.

    We highlighted four strategies to accelerate the transformation of public space for extreme heat.

    See publication

  • Building the Future: Cities vs Rising Heat

    Bloomberg Philanthropies

    See publication

  • Adaptation Gap Report 2020

    United Nations Environment Programme

    Contributing Author to the Nature Based Solutions for Adaptation chapter for the fifth edition of the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report, which looks at progress in planning for, financing and implementing adaptation.

    See publication

  • Fighting extreme heat in cities with urban design

    Smart Cities Dive

    To adapt to climate change, we need to build cities like we did in the past – moving toward a climate-responsive urban design, centered on people.

    See publication

  • Accelerating Climate Policy Is Simply Good Public Policy

    The City Fix

    See publication

  • Three strategies to scale city climate action

    Cities Today

    Over the past year, Bloomberg Associates partnered with the Global Covenant of Mayors and the World Resources Institute to better understand what cities need to accelerate the pace and scale of climate action to achieve their emissions goals. Our research uncovered three critical strategies cities can use to accelerate GHG reductions.

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Message from Hurricanes Michael and Maria: Renewable energy makes more sense than ever

    USA Today

    As hurricanes tore apart Caribbean islands and crippled their energy infrastructure, renewables consistently outperformed fossil fuels.

    See publication

  • Driving growth through sustainability

    Medium

    “Do you want to be green or do you want to grow?” This is the false choice that decision-makers often think they face. However, cities have demonstrated again and again that sustainability supports and catalyze economic growth.

    See publication

  • Urban Water Blueprint: Mapping conservation solutions to the global water challenge

    The Nature Conservancy

    The Urban Water Blueprint analyzes the state of water in more than 2,000 watersheds and 530 cities to provide science-based recommendations for natural solutions that can be integrated alongside traditional infrastructure to improve water quality.

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Water Powers Urban Life

    Huffington Post

    There's good news and bad news for cities. The good news is that a new study of more than 200 global cities published this week in the Journal of Global Environmental Change found that fewer large cities than normally reported face water stress (defined as a city using more than 40 percent of their available annual supply), when taking into account water piped in from distant watersheds. The bad news is that even using this new methodology, 1 in 4 cities, accounting for more than 5 percent of…

    There's good news and bad news for cities. The good news is that a new study of more than 200 global cities published this week in the Journal of Global Environmental Change found that fewer large cities than normally reported face water stress (defined as a city using more than 40 percent of their available annual supply), when taking into account water piped in from distant watersheds. The bad news is that even using this new methodology, 1 in 4 cities, accounting for more than 5 percent of global GDP, still face water stress.

    See publication

  • Integrating Natural Infrastructure into Urban Coastal Resilience: Howard Beach, Queens

    The Nature Conservancy

    The Nature Conservancy prepared a report at the request of the New York City Special Initiative for Rebuilding to evaluate the role of nature and natural infrastructure in protecting coastal communities in New York City from some of the impacts of climate change. The community of Howard Beach, Queens, an area that was hard hit during Hurricane Sandy, was selected as a representative neighborhood for conceptually addressing the use of natural systems as part of a resilience strategy in the face…

    The Nature Conservancy prepared a report at the request of the New York City Special Initiative for Rebuilding to evaluate the role of nature and natural infrastructure in protecting coastal communities in New York City from some of the impacts of climate change. The community of Howard Beach, Queens, an area that was hard hit during Hurricane Sandy, was selected as a representative neighborhood for conceptually addressing the use of natural systems as part of a resilience strategy in the face of a changing climate and future storm events.

    The highlights of the study found:

    Natural features can be successfully used in a dense urban setting, in combination with “built” defenses, to provide efficient and cost-effective protection from sea level rise, storm surges and coastal flooding, and;

    Innovative financing options are available to bring these hybrid approaches to reality.

    Also, in preparing this case study, one of the important conclusions reached was that community participation—which was outside the scope of this conceptual study—is a necessary ingredient for any future work aimed at developing solutions for particular communities.

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Acting Locally, Sharing Globally: The Positive Ripple Effect of Cities

    German Marshall Fund

    An exploration of the role of cities and urban networks in combatting climate change and the impact of the rise of cities in shifting the traditional Transatlantic political and economic dynamic to one that is more fluid and global.

    See publication

  • Testimony of Adam Freed to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

    Committee hearing on "the Impacts of Rising Sea Levels on Domestic Infrastructures"

    See publication

  • Bright is the New Black

    Environmental Research Letters

    High-albedo white and cool roofing membranes are recognized as a fundamental strategy that dense urban areas can deploy on a large scale, at low cost, to mitigate the urban heat island effect. We are monitoring three generic white membranes within New York City that represent a cross section of the dominant white membrane options for US flat roofs: (1) an ethylene–propylene–diene monomer (EPDM) rubber membrane; (2) a thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) membrane; and (3) an asphaltic multi-ply…

    High-albedo white and cool roofing membranes are recognized as a fundamental strategy that dense urban areas can deploy on a large scale, at low cost, to mitigate the urban heat island effect. We are monitoring three generic white membranes within New York City that represent a cross section of the dominant white membrane options for US flat roofs: (1) an ethylene–propylene–diene monomer (EPDM) rubber membrane; (2) a thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) membrane; and (3) an asphaltic multi-ply built-up membrane coated with white elastomeric acrylic paint. The paint product is being used by New York City's government for the first major urban albedo enhancement program in its history. We report on the temperature and related albedo performance of these three membranes at three different sites over a multi-year period. The results indicate that the professionally installed white membranes are maintaining their temperature control effectively and are meeting the Energy Star Cool Roofing performance standards requiring a three-year aged albedo above 0.50. The EPDM membrane shows evidence of low emissivity; however this had the interesting effect of avoiding any 'winter heat penalty' for this building. The painted asphaltic surface shows high emissivity but lost about half of its initial albedo within two years of installation. Given that the acrylic approach is such an important 'do-it-yourself', low-cost, retrofit technique, and, as such, offers the most rapid technique for increasing urban albedo, further product performance research is recommended to identify conditions that optimize its long-term albedo control. Even so, its current multi-year performance still represents a significant albedo enhancement for urban heat island mitigation.

    Other authors
    • Stuart Gaffin
    See publication

  • PlaNYC 2011 Update

    City of New York

    Four-year update to NYC's globally-recognized comprehensive long-term sustainability plan (PlaNYC), which contains 132 initiatives to create a greener, greater New York.

    See publication

Honors & Awards

  • Sawhill Global Fellow

    The Nature Conservancy

    Competitively selected leadership training program for senior managers

  • MIT Mel King Community Fellow

    MIT

    The Mel King Community Fellows Program brings together leaders to learn and explore how to advance economic democracy in cities and regions. Mel King Fellows are recognized leaders in communities across the country and have experience in a range of social justice pursuits.

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