Sustainable Sites Initiative aims for landscape-specific standards

The American Society of Landscape Architects and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center joined in 2005 to create the “Sustainable Sites Initiative”[1] – a partnership aimed at promoting sustainable land development and management practices.[2] Joined by the U.S. Botanical Garden in 2006, the group has focused its aim on developing a set of standards for sustainable landscapes.[3]

According to the initiative’s preliminary guidelines report, sustainability is achievable through “design, construction, operations and maintenance practices that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”[4] To promote such practices in landscape development, the partnership will develop sustainability guidelines and eventually a rating system that will serve as an analogue to the standards for sustainable building reflected in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System.[5]

For now, the partnership has released preliminary guidelines that are instructive of their methodology: they look at the function of soils, hydrology, vegetation and materials in human and other ecosystems and point out unsustainable practices and improvement strategies for each. [6]

Authors Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan in their San Francisco Chronicle article on the initiative cited as an example one of the report’s conclusions on vegetation: “Designers often fail to give plants enough elbow room: ‘In site design, the needs of vegetation are often simply an afterthought, and the space dedicated to plants is inadequate to support them.’”[7] The report goes on to say:

“Street trees planted in confined areas may have no room for their roots and can be deprived of adequate water. These plants require more intense maintenance and can die prematurely. The average life span of sidewalk trees, for instance, is approximately 10 years.”[8]

The report provides corresponding impact conclusions for the other ecosystem services as well.[9]

The report also includes in its appendix a draft “Pre-design Site Assessment” checklist[10] and a draft “Detailed Site Assessment” checklist,[11] the former (as the name implies) to be used before the design phase and the latter to be used during design for more thorough analysis of the site.

Still–the preliminary reports are just that: preliminary. The article reminds us that more steps must be completed before the final report, which is expected by May 2009. The rating system will follow within two years, and pilot projects will begin thereafter to kick the guidelines’ and rating system’s tires.[12]

Eaton and Sullivan conclude, “[I]t’s a promising beginning and a process worth keeping an eye on.”[13] And others agree. As they point out earlier in the article, “Public agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and nonprofits such as the Nature Conservancy and the National Recreation and Park Association are onboard.”[14]


[1] See Joe Eaton & Ron Sullivan, Sustainable Sites Initiative aims for landscape-specific standards, S.F. Chron., Jan. 2, 2008.
[2] The Sustainable Sites Initiative, Scope, http://www.sustainablesites.org/scope.html (last visited Jan. 22, 2008).
[3] See Eaton, supra note 1.
[4] The Sustainable Sites Initiative, Standards & Guidelines: Preliminary Report (Nov. 1, 2007), http://www.sustainablesites.org/report.html.
[5] See Eaton, supra note 1.
[6] See Eaton, supra note 1.
[7] Eaton, supra note 1.
[8] Standards & Guidelines: Preliminary Report, supra note 4, at 14.
[9] See generally id.
[10] See id. at 66-74.
[11] See id. at 75-79.
[12] See Eaton, supra note 1.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.