The Green Impact Report Quick take: From rural Peru to the skyline of Austin, Texas, Julio Carrillo shares how planners can be powerful sustainability changemakers. In this episode, learn how a LEED Fellow is pushing the green building movement beyond buildings — and into data-driven, community-scale transformation.
Meet Your Fellow Sustainability Champion
Julio Carrillo is a Peruvian-born architect, urban planner, and newly named LEED Fellow based in Austin, Texas.
With a passion for sustainable urbanism, Julio has helped launch the Peru Green Building Council, works at Parkhill as a planner tackling large-scale urban projects, and lectures at UT Austin on AI and planning.
His career is defined by actionable ideas, metric-driven innovation, and a relentless drive to move fast on meaningful change.
Breaking Ground on Better Building
In this episode, Julio Carrillo revolutionizes traditional construction and planning approaches:
Key Insight #1: Founding the Peru Green Building Council to ignite LEED adoption at a national level
The Challenge: Lack of local sustainability infrastructure and LEED awareness in Peru.
The Solution: Co-founding the Peru GBC and launching a consulting firm.
ROI: Grew from 1 to 100+ LEED projects in just two years; national transformation and market momentum.
Key Insight #2: Creating the Planning Challenge to scale sustainability across communities
The Challenge: Cities lacked tools to track decarbonization and climate goals.
The Solution: Built a dashboard platform inspired by Architecture 2030 to track 100+ metrics across 15+ cities.
ROI: Expanded nationally and internationally, empowering cities to benchmark and scale climate solutions.
Key Insight #3: Teaching planners to leverage AI for public good
The Challenge: AI is often personalized, not built for community impact.
The Solution: Developed and now teaches a UT Austin course on AI & planning.
ROI: Equips future planners with tools to use AI for equity, access, and sustainable development.
Sustainable Soundbite
Your Green Building Action Plan
Transform your next project with these steps:
This Week: Explore the LEED for Cities and Communities framework.
This Quarter: Begin tracking key sustainability metrics for your city or district.
This Year: Launch or support a data-driven sustainability initiative like the Planning Challenge.
Connect & Learn More
🌿 Access full episode resources: Green Building Matters Podcast
💚Join the Green Building Movement
📄 Read the transcript: HERE
🔗 Connect with Julio Carrillo:
Website:
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