Sustainability: LEED or Follow

The U.S. Green Building Council and its LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) accreditation/ certification programs should be applauded for their advancement of the green movement and sustainability in the built environment.  It’s interesting to begin to hear commercial real estate developers, seemingly fixed on the bottom line of the deal, realize there may be an intrinsic value in building green not always quantifiable.  We see the green movement creeping in to our collective consciousness in many different ways.

The system for certifying buildings to varying degrees of criteria and accrediting professionals as experts in applying that criteria (known as LEED) has helped elevate sustainability to more mainstream knowledge.  But so many of the principals and specific design strategies don’t have to full under such a contrived construct.  We are all free to make important choices affecting sustainability in our work and in our lives, virtually every day.

When it comes to site planning and design, many aspects of sustainability operate at smaller scales and are based on natural models.  This should not be some new paradigm for landscape architects, but more of a time-honored tradition.