Orchid City is a framework for building regenerative cities, places that give back more than they take. On a per-capita basis the model runs about 140% net-positive on carbon, which is to say each resident leaves the climate a little better off than they found it.
I led it with more than 25 partners, designing across energy, food, mobility, housing, jobs, and waste as one interlocking system. It scales from 500 residents to over 100,000, and we modelled its feasibility in Brazil, the Netherlands, and Vietnam. A city of 15,000 works out to 7,500 homes, more than 8,000 jobs, 1.1 million trees, and around 4.5 billion euros of investment.
A city designed so that each resident's carbon footprint lands 40% better than neutral.