Smart Growth Resource Library

Sustainable Sites Initiative Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks

The Sustainable Sites Initiative Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks -- Draft 2008 focuses on measuring how a site can protect, restore and regenerate ecosystem services -- benefits provided by natural ecosystems such as cleaning air and water, climate regulation and human health benefits. This report contains over 50 draft prerequisites and credits that cover all stages of the site development process from site selection to landscape maintenance.

The Initiative worked to develop sustainable land practices that will enable built landscapes to support natural ecological functions by protecting existing ecosystems and regenerating ecological capacity where it has been lost. The guidelines in this report can be applied right away to support new sustainable practices wherever possible -- with the understanding that the benchmarks today are still a work in progress.

The Guidlines report is the product of more than two years of work by a diverse group of experts in soils, hydrology, vegetation, materials and human health and well-being. It is expanded and updated from the Preliminary Report which was released in November of 2007.

The Sustainable Sites Initiative was created to promote sustainable land development and management practices that can apply to sites with and without buildings. This effort began as separate projects of the Sustainable Design and Development Professional Practice Network of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. In 2005, the two groups joined forces to hold a Sustainable Sites Summit in Austin, Texas. In 2006, the United States Botanical Garden (USBG) joined as a major partner in the Initiative.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a stakeholder in the Initiative, anticipates incorporating these guidelines and performance benchmarks into future iterations of the LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System™.

Read more at the resource link below.

Resource: http://www.sustainablesites.org/report/

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