Newsletter #22: La Leadership dei Doveri: What does responsibility mean today?

A few weeks ago, I came across a book that offered a new perspective—one that stayed with me. La Leadership dei Doveri by Tiziana Rubano, inspired by the thought of Simone Weil, reminded me that leadership is not about power or visibility. It’s about responsibility.

As a landscape architect—and as a gardener, too—I know how much care and attention it takes to cultivate life. You can’t rush it. You can’t fake it. And you can’t delegate your responsibility. Every day, something needs your eye, your hand, your presence. That’s why this book struck a chord. It speaks of an ethics of attention, of listening, of meeting the fundamental needs of others—what Simone Weil called les besoins de l’âme, the needs of the soul. A profound reminder that duty isn’t a burden—it’s the seed of meaningful transformation.

Education as the Heart of Responsibility

Over the years, LAND has expanded in scale, scope, and geographic reach. Perhaps less visible, but just as important, is our commitment to cultivating Human Capital. Because Reconnecting People with Nature also means reconnecting People—with themselves, with others, and with their potential to act.

In today’s ESG-driven world, the “S” often remains elusive or vague. However, at LAND, we view education as one of the clearest and most actionable expressions of Social Responsibility. Supporting the next generation of landscape professionals isn’t an accessory to our practice—it’s embedded in our identity.

Through our annual gathering, LANDconnects, we cultivate bridges across generations, disciplines, and geographies, enabling exchanges that spark collaboration and strengthen our culture. Later this month, we will gather from all our LAND offices to mark our 35th anniversary—not with a nostalgic look back, but with a renewed energy to move forward.

With That’s a Project, our internal format for in-depth peer-to-peer learning, we facilitate knowledge sharing among colleagues across all LAND offices—from Milan to Düsseldorf, from Riyadh to Montréal. Topics this year have spanned from Nature-positive research insights to deep dives on sports-centered landscape planning and innovative approaches to agroecology.

The LAND Academy, our educational platform, brings together academic partners such as Politecnico di Milano, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, PBS – FH Kiel, Scuola universitaria professionale della Svizzera italiana (SUPSI), and FAST – Federazione delle Associazioni Scientifiche e Tecniche to advance a shared curriculum on resilient planning, climate adaptation, and nature-positive design. We’re particularly proud to support applied learning formats like the upcoming FAST course on Resilient Cities and Nature-Positive Solutions in territorial and landscape planning—a direct investment in the training of professionals capable of navigating the climate emergency with vision and the necessary tools.

We know that real impact comes through people. That’s why we actively engage student workers, interns, and apprentices across our offices. In Switzerland, where we benefit from the dual education system, we have the privilege of accompanying young professionals through their hands-on training, supporting their growth as they enter the field.

This is how we view ESG: not as a reporting format, but as a framework of values, where equity, education, and ecological transition are intertwined.

From Celebration to Strategy: Shaping Tomorrow

Earlier this week, I joined the CEO Dinner at the Sustainable Switzerland Forum in Bern, hosted by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. As official partners of the NZZ Sustainable Switzerland platform, LAND is proud to bring its perspective to this national dialogue — where “Driving Change. Creating Impact” is more than a motto; it is a shared mission.

A central moment came with a simple, yet powerful question posed by Mathis Wackernagel: “What do we really want?” To which Jim Hagemann Snabe (Chairman, Siemens) responded: “Not to keep optimizing the last 150 years — but to reinvent new opportunities, and make the seemingly impossible possible.”

That is exactly our ambition at LAND. Nature must return to the top of the economic agenda — not only as a resource to be protected, but as a partner, an engine of innovation, and an active co-creator of a regenerative future. Leadership, in this sense, becomes the enabler of reinvention and creativity. And to translate this vision into practice, we joined forces with Josef Nierling of Porsche Consulting to launch the Nature Factory Manifesto: an invitation to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers to broaden their perspective and embrace the active production of nature — not just its preservation.

Looking Ahead: From Ethics to Action

Leadership—as the book about Simone Weil reminded me—isn’t about taking the spotlight. It’s about carrying a light forward. Over the past 35 years, we’ve learned that this light encompasses not just technical expertise and design talent. It’s a mindset of care. A willingness to stay with complexity, to cultivate presence, to listen before shaping space.

We look forward to bringing this spirit into our upcoming gathering in mid-September. This is an important internal moment, when colleagues from all LAND offices come together. To reconnect. To exchange. To grow roots for what comes next.

Because if we want landscape architecture to lead in tackling the climate crisis—and we believe it must—then we need to keep nurturing the culture of duty behind it.

Duty, in this sense, is not obligation—it is vision in action.

What seeds of duty are you cultivating this season? If you’re working in landscape, planning, governance or education, I invite you to share your ideas.