Imagine a built landscape that cleans the air, purifies the water, breathes new life and contributes to a healthy ecosystem.  Imagine people inspired by beautiful views, invigorated by fresh dew on wild grass, calmed by melodious bird song and stimulated by the touch of natural stone.  An every day reality in natural landscapes that are not yet impacted by human action, it is indeed possible to achieve this by intelligent, conscious and sensitive choices for built landscapes.

It has long been recognized that the sites component of LEED is weak and that it needs revision to ensure higher levels of sustainability.  With this in mind a huge effort called the Sustainable Sites Initiative is currently being developed to substantially change the way in which we approach and design sites.

According to Project Manager Heather Venhaus, the Sustainable Sites Initiative was founded “to create a mechanism that will guide, measure and recognize sustainable land practices on a site-by-site basis.  Like buildings, landscapes can conserve resources or degrade and waste them.  However, landscapes are unique in that they also have the additional capacity to enhance and regenerate natural resources.  Because a sustainable site can provide ecosystem services, it can actually improve environmental quality rather than simply minimizing the damage to natural systems.”

Site design can be improved to protect and regenerate the landscape’s ability to regulate the climate, clean air and water, and improve our quality of life. (www.sustainablesites.org)  

Healthy landscapes provide tremendous value to life on earth.  Expressed as “Ecosystem Services” they provide benefits that are ignored in our economic models, forecasts and projections.  How do you express the value of crops pollinated by bees; vegetation and soil that filtrate water; and wetlands that protects against floods?  

Here are some facts:

• The average combined value of all ecosystem services on the planet has been estimated at $33 trillion.
• New York City trees intercept about 890 million gallons of rainwater resulting in a saving of an estimated $35 million annually in stormwater management cost alone.
• Urban trees in Chicago filter an estimated 6,000 tons of air pollutants annually which provide $9.2 million in benefits.

Decisions on land use often ignore the value provided by healthy ecosystems.  Once destroyed, it is expensive and often impossible to duplicate ecosystem services.  Small scale actions can lead to huge scale impacts:

• Increased surface runoff and nutrient delivery throughout the Mississippi River watershed have created dissolved oxygen levels that caused fish and shrimp catches to drop to zero in parts of the Gulf of Mexico .
• Landscape irrigation in the US uses more than 7 billion gallons of water per day nationwide.
• In Utah 65 percent of potable water is used to maintain lawns and gardens.
• A residential lawn can be up to 40 percent impervious, which together with building, roads and walkways prevent landscapes from absorbing rainfall, resulting in increased ruoff and decreased groundwater replenishment.
• Yard and landscape trimmings contribute about 32 millions tons to the municipal waste stream, representing more than 13 percent of total municipal waste in the US .

Sustainable sites are typically modeled after healthy landscape systems and can thereby increase ecosystem services provided by these sites.  The goal is to maintain or re-establish the essential relationship between natural processes and human activity with improved practices that reflect and sustain the contribution of ecosystem services.  According to the Sustainable Sites Preliminary Report on Standards & Guidelines, the Sustainable Sites Initiative will provide the information and tools necessary to integrate the functions of healthy systems and natural processes into land development and management practices, relying on the best available science and credible professional practice.  These principles reflect the values of the initiative and should be used to guide future site development:

• Do No Harm
• Precautionary Principle
• Design with Nature and Culture
• Use a Decision-Making Hierarchy of Preservation, Conservation, and Regeneration
• Provide Regenerative Systems as Intergenerational Equity
• Support a Living Process
• Use a Systems Thinking Approach
• Use a Collaborative and Ethical Approach
• Maintain Integrity in Leadership and Research

The Sustainable Sites Initiative categorizes Ecosystem Services as it relates to land practices in five components: Soils, Hydrology, Vegetation, Materials, and Human well-being.  The same categories are used to define and describe the on-site opportunities to reduce resource consumption and waste, and increase ecosystem and human health.  This Initiative is of real practical value to all practitioners that aim to change traditional methods of land development and land management.  It provides the logic, the science and reason for protecting rather than destroying, for treading lightly, rather than bulldozing, and for respect rather than discarding. 

All landscape architects and site designers are urged to review the Standards and Guidelines for Sustainable Sites, and to respond per the online questionnaire.  

The Sustainable Sites Initiative released its first report November 1, 2007.  The Standards and Guidelines for Sustainable Sites (www.sustainablesites.org/report.html) provide a snapshot of the first findings of the initiative.  The goal is to incorporate these guidelines and standards into the future evolution of the LEED Green Building Rating System.  

It is critical to receive input from professionals and stakeholders to ensure that the products of the Sustainable Sites Initiative are relevant to those who influence land development and management practices.  Feedback on the preliminary report is now being solicited by filling out the online feedback form (www.sustainablesites.org/questionnaire.html) and submitting comments on the preliminary report.  The public comment period will be open until January 11, 2008.

As a landscape architect and member of the USGBC North Texas Chapter Board of Directors, Francois de Kock urges all landscape architects and site designers to review this important document and to respond per the online questionnaire.  This initiative provides us with the unique opportunity to have greater influence as professionals in the building industry to shape the future of our landscapes and leave a legacy for future generations whereby we will be judged for acting timely to prevent further destruction to ecosystems and to protect the very essence of what makes our environments unique and special.  

Background on the Sustainable Sites Initiative:

(Heather Venhaus; Project Manager of the Sustainable Sites Initiative)

The Sustainable Sites Initiative is an interdisciplinary partnership between the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center , the United States Botanic Garden and a diverse group of national stakeholder organizations to develop standards and guidelines for site sustainability.  This initiative grew from concerns that conventional land development and management practices often limit, rather than enhance, the ability of landscapes to benefit humankind and other organisms by providing valuable ecosystem services.

The guidelines and measuring standards developed through Sustainable Site will be based on the best available science and research, a thorough understanding of healthy systems and the best practices that permit built landscapes to support natural ecological functions.

The USGBC, a major stakeholder in the initiative, has committed to incorporating these guidelines and standards into the future evolution of the LEED Green Building Rating System.  Many local and regional efforts now provide guidelines for improved land development and management practices.  Sustainable Sites recognizes the importance and relevance of these programs and is interested in information sharing and partnering.   For more information go to www.sustainablesites.org .  

Francois de Kock is a Senior Project manager with Halff Associates, Inc. For additional information regarding this article, please contact Francois at Fdekock@Halff.com. All comments are the sole responsibility of the author.

This article was originally posted 12/18/07.