Disney’s Emily Dow, architecture and design studio executive and Caitlin Krasovic, sustainability and design strategy manager, Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), speak with blooloop about Disney’s progress in sustainable design, including recent innovations in projects across the globe.
Together, they also discuss the environmental elements implemented throughout the design and construction process, as well as the lessons learned to date.
Disney is committed to environmental goals across the areas of emissions, water, waste, materials, and sustainable design. This includes reducing absolute emissions from direct operations (Scope 1 & 2) by 46.2% by 2030, against a 2019 baseline, and achieving net zero emissions for direct operations by 2030.
Sustainable design at Disney: meet the experts
Emily Dow is the architecture & design studio executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, leading a team that creates the built worlds of Disney’s Parks, Resorts, and Cruise Ships. Her team encompasses Sustainability, Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Graphic Design, Theme Lighting Design, Design Management, and Engineering. Before this role, Dow was the global leader of design strategy for the Design + Planning Studio.
She was a senior design manager for the Shanghai Disney Resort, relocating to China to lead an international team in planning Mickey Avenue and Gardens of Imagination. In her 20-year career at WDI, she contributed as a designer and leader, bringing Disney stories to life and advocating for sustainable design.
Caitlin Krasovic is the sustainability and design strategy manager at Walt Disney Imagineering, focusing on The Walt Disney Company’s 2030 Environmental Goals in its global projects. She has 18 years of experience as a designer, architect, and leader at Disney. Her career began in the architectural department at Disneyland Resort, where she gained design and construction experience.
Krasovic led the Disneyland Resort’s CANstruction team for years, creating large sculptures from canned food to raise hunger awareness, with donations going to the OC Food Bank. She transitioned to Imagineering in 2018, where she partnered on leading the Architecture Studio, managed and mentored emerging professionals, and coordinated architectural talent resources for global projects.
In 2020, Krasovic began leading the sustainable design initiatives within Imagineering to support the Company’s 2030 Environmental Goals. She embeds sustainability throughout the project process, from design to construction, and develops strategies to reduce embodied carbon.
A Disney update
Dow begins by giving an update on some of the latest Disney projects, in order to illustrate WDI’s drive to create emotions, connections, and memories with guests: “By laser focusing on storytelling and guest experience, that’s how we make our impact in the world.”
It is, she says, an exciting time to be part of the themed entertainment industry.
With such a strong industry-wide focus on sustainability, climate resiliency, and innovation. There’s never been a better time to work together to embed sustainable design and climate resiliency into our parks, resorts, and experiences around the world.
“Our global sites are rapidly expanding, our guests are shifting and asking for more, and our experiences are becoming more immersive. Technology is shifting rapidly—it feels like we’re in a renaissance.
“With such a strong industry-wide focus on sustainability, climate resiliency, and innovation. There’s never been a better time to work together to embed sustainable design and climate resiliency into our parks, resorts, and experiences around the world.”
Dow and Krasovic first chatted with blooloop five years ago as WDI was launching its 2030 environmental goals, charting a vision during the pandemic. “Now, halfway through the goal period, Disney has made incredible strides,” says Dow. “Projects we launched then are now opening.”
For example, the Robert A. Iger Building in New York opened as a LEED Platinum, all-electric campus in 2024. It includes onsite solar, high-efficiency systems, and electric heat pumps—fully bringing Disney’s 2030 goals to life.
The Disney Cruise Line is also expanding. The Disney Adventure, the largest Disney ship yet, floated out in April and will launch from Singapore this December. “We’re researching low-carbon fuels and working to minimise waste,” adds Dow.
“In Hong Kong, we opened the first phase of a solar canopy in the Team Disney cast member parking lot—the largest car park solar project in the city, generating 200,000 kWh annually.”
The Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Villas and Bungalows
Another notable project featuring sustainable design is the Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Walt Disney World Resort. Inspired by original concept art, it features vertical massing to capture views and breezes, integrates sustainable design principles, and celebrates Polynesian culture.
“We drew inspiration from Moana and natural elements like earth, wind, water, and sky to blend Disney storytelling with real-world environmental themes,” says Dow.
Krasovic says: “We had a lot of fun with this project. It brings many layers of storytelling to celebrate the spirit of the islands, weaving Polynesian stories, conservation stories, and Disney stories throughout the resort.
“As the Imagineers looked to past visions for a terraced tower on this site, they wanted to embrace nature through the architecture. You can see one of the four terrace gardens they incorporated—two on each side of the hotel tower—bringing the outside in.”
The facade is rich with intricate patterns and geometries inspired by Polynesian artwork, tattoos, and nature. It celebrates the past and present, and the design complements the adjacent resort and longhouses nearby.
“As you enter the lobby, you see visuals, colours, and textures that evoke the spirit of the islands. Among many design details, there are four elemental columns surrounding the lobby, each carved with a unique pattern representing earth, water, wind, and fire—the elements that guided Polynesian Wayfinders.”
These experiences come to life through collaboration with architects, designers, engineers, creative directors, project and construction managers, food and beverage partners, and more. “They embraced our 2030 environmental goals from the earliest stages, helping us pilot new processes and implement strategies that now inform our current and future work.”
More energy-efficient design
To make the project more sustainable, the Disney teams started energy modelling early and refined it throughout. As a result, the project was designed to be 30% more energy efficient than a comparable hotel.
“We also electrified heating and cooling systems, leveraged prefabrication and modular construction to minimise waste, and created our first all-electric resort kitchen,” continues Krasovic.
In the guest-facing spaces, the team integrated recycled content, like rug fibres woven with recycled plastics and art crafted from reclaimed fishing nets.
The lobby features preserved moss and tapa cloth art pieces, as well as a biophilic chandelier crafted from sustainable plant materials, with subtle nods to island wildlife. At the Wailulu Bar & Grill, which has the all-electric kitchen, guests will see fish sculptures made from ghost nets, each with its unique character.
“During site preparation, we preserved and relocated a ficus aurea dating back to Walt Disney World‘s opening day. It’s now on the resort site, where guests can continue to enjoy it. Because of the site’s constraints—surrounded by the monorail, water, and nearby resorts—we used prefabrication to reduce construction impacts, waste, and emissions.
“This method worked well for hotel components and was enhanced by advanced modelling tools like BIM.”
In some of the exposed vertical areas of the façade, concrete was stamped to resemble wood, allowing it to be painted as a final finish instead of adding more materials. The four open-air terrace gardens each evoke the spirit of a different Polynesian island, offering views of the golf courses, Seven Seas Lagoon, and Magic Kingdom fireworks.
“Even in the guest rooms, we’ve woven in sustainability. The carpeting and rugs are made from recycled ocean plastics, with patterns inspired by coral and ocean waves and colours that celebrate the beaches. It feels as good as it looks.”
Sustainability is part of the message
“As Emily shared earlier, at Disney we always begin with story,” says Krasovic. “So when it came time to reveal the new Island Tower details to our guests, we were excited to feature the environmental and conservation stories alongside the Polynesian and Disney inspirations in our press materials.”
“Early on, we partnered with our communications and public affairs teams, along with key project members, to capture the sustainable design elements and weave them into the storytelling leading up to the opening.
“Some articles leaned into the environmental content, like the Disney Parks Blog post titled Creativity Meets Conservation at the Island Tower, but nearly every story, blog post, or media clip included a touch of sustainability.
“As we’ve shared throughout this case study, there was a wide range of sustainable design strategies, both onstage and backstage, helping us move toward Disney’s 2030 environmental goals. As one quote summed it up, these sustainable details are truly woven into the fabric of the tower.”
A digital twin case study
Dow also highlights a different case study, the digital twin project at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort. This is helping optimise energy use across the park.
The air conditioning system at Hong Kong Disneyland was designed and built more than 15 years ago, and it was intended to react solely to internal sensors.
“But with so many hot days per year, we’re seeing a significant rise in energy use and operational costs with our cooling system. So, two years ago, we embarked on a project and developed a digital twin model of our two central chiller plants, to optimise, analyse, and compare current and past performance, using AI to find ways to reduce our energy consumption.”
This model has an embedded AI agent, and the digital twin takes real-time data like weather forecasts, park activity, and hotel bookings and predicts the cooling demand. It then calculates the most efficient operational mode for that moment.
“Our full digital twin platform officially went live in April 2024. It had been running in pilot mode for about a year before that. Since launch, we’ve seen up to a 3% to 5% reduction in energy use – an incredible improvement at the scale of a park, and a big achievement for our operations team.
“What’s also been great is how this connects the design process with the operations and maintenance process. We’re using data visualisation and dashboards so the design and operations teams can collaborate to fully optimise the system.”
With the effectiveness of this pilot, Disney is studying opportunities for digital twin projects across many of its parks and resorts. The team can also take learnings from these projects and apply them directly to the design, construction, and operation of new utility and infrastructure projects globally.”
Internal communication around sustainable design at Disney
With such a large team spread out worldwide, internal communication can be a challenge, but making sure everyone is on the same page is vital, says Dow:
“Over the last five years, we’ve made a lot of refinements to how we think about our organisation as we try to take things on more globally. Now, all of our global teams around the world are connected to our global leadership. So no matter where you are in the world, you’re connected through a global area of practice and a global leader. And that has been an awesome way to keep that vision together.”
The team at any project site, both from an operations perspective and an Imagineering perspective, are embedded into the process from Blue Sky forward, because many of these sustainability or climate resiliency ideas have to be embedded into the project from day one.
“You can’t come back and add them on later. And that’s been a great way of innovating and even thinking through the lens of each of our different sites, and a lot of our teams have brought up things that we wouldn’t have even thought about.”
Making decisions
In addition to helping WDI meet its sustainability goals, choosing environmental techniques and materials often proves to be cheaper and faster.
“In the case of the island tower, site constraints were a big part of that decision-making,” says Krasovic. “So modular construction was the best way to not impact the monorail or adjacent resorts. It also kept that construction schedule as tight as possible, which, again, means we don’t cause so much noise and bother the guests.”
For energy optimisations, the team begin doing energy modelling as early as possible, helping model in the computer space the different suite of solutions that would make the most sense. “We’re looking at the business case and ensuring that we’re putting the right system together for that project, site and scope of work.”
“It’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all. Things that work well on one may not necessarily make sense for regionality or other things. So a lot of that ideation and iteration in the design and business case arguments are what we’re trying to look at to ensure that the investment we’re putting in at the front also benefits our operating partners.”
Dow adds that the budget is set at the blue sky phase:
“We know how much we’re going to spend to achieve the goals. That is sacred within our project development process.
“We use a lot of U.S. Green Building Council studies regarding payback periods and things like that. Sometimes, what we want to do environmentally actually reduces the life cycle costs of a project, so we highlight that within the pro forma. But sometimes we’re doing something to meet a longer-term goal, so it’s important to consider broader, holistic solutions and not just project-by-project initiatives.”
Reflecting on progress so far
It’s been five years since blooloop first started talking to the WDI team about their sustainability goals. Looking back at some of the lessons learned during this time, Krasovic says:
“Some of the conversations that are much easier today, maybe weren’t the easiest five years ago. It’s definitely been a learning journey. Leveraging our champions in all the different disciplines is key; it is so interdisciplinary. We’ve learned to empower each of our project teams; they all have a role to play and get excited about what they can bring to the project.
“Just because we’ve done it a certain way in the past, is that still what we want to do? So I think that opportunity has been invigorating for many of the teams, and that momentum has just continued to build.”
The team has also learned how vital the early discussion about how a project will go forward is, adds Dow: “The more that we can work in the pre-development and the Blue Sky time frame is just so incredibly important.”
In addition:
“What we’ve noticed in the past five years is that sometimes, different areas around the world are more or less focused on environmental goals in any year, but that allows us to take what we learn and bring together the best practices from our global sites.”
Sustainable design and Scope 3 at Disney
One key area of focus moving forward is Scope 3 emissions.
“This year, we continued our focus on researching low embodied carbon materials, means, and methods,” says Dow. “There is a growing number of low-carbon materials, but the industry is still inconsistent globally. One great find that we had in our global markets is the strong availability and competitive cost of low-carbon concrete.
“The availability and cost of steel globally, especially low embodied carbon steel, poses challenges depending on the grid, the manufacturing process, and other factors.”
“Relative to Scope 3, some really great, cost-effective answers in that space would be a game changer for us as we try to reduce the carbon Scope 3 emissions in our buildings.”
Krasovic says: “We’re trying to be cost effective on projects, so finding low embodied carbon materials that don’t impact cost is important, because there’s not really a life cycle ROI in the traditional sense like reducing operational energy emissions can deliver.
“That’s where we’re trying to innovate and find creative solutions to bring embodied carbon down in the most cost-effective and schedule-effective way.”
Storytelling, imagination and technical know-how
As we move into the second half of the decade, WDI is more committed than ever to sustainable design and climate resiliency, says Dow.
“Caitlin, the team, and I are energised by the strength of our current capital menu, the largest many of us have seen in our careers. It’s a spectacular time when we think about the diversity of locations, products, and types of work rolling out around the world. That also gives us a unique opportunity to approach our 2030 environmental goals at many different scales.”
As Walt said, curiosity and purpose drive many of us at Imagineering. We truly believe that when we combine our storytelling, creative imagination, and technical know-how, we can make a real impact on our industry and the world.
“With a capital program of this size, we’re taking a holistic approach that connects master planning, sustainable design strategies, utility planning, and building design. As we work to meet emissions goals, we’re doing it in the most optimised, efficient, and connected way possible.
“We continue to focus on climate resiliency, which will keep challenging all our projects. We’ve been doing a lot of work on thermal comfort and guest comfort, looking at how we solve those challenges not just by air-conditioning an entire park, but through passive cooling strategies that can deliver comfort without adding to our electrical load and emissions.”
The team is also heavily focusing on the research and development of lower embodied carbon materials and strategies. “It’s something we’ve been digging into for the past few years, working with the industry, suppliers, and doing our own R&D to figure out how to create lower embodied carbon theme parks, resorts, and cruise ships.
“As Walt said, curiosity and purpose drive many of us at Imagineering. We truly believe that when we combine our storytelling, creative imagination, and technical know-how, we can make a real impact on our industry and the world.”
Insights from greenloop 2025
This conversation on sustainable design at Disney was part of greenloop 2025, blooloop’s annual online conference for sustainability in visitor attractions, which took place on 13 &14 May 2025.
Reaching its fifth edition this year, the event aims to inform and inspire with top speakers, cutting-edge science, and practical insights.
