Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Winter 2009 - (Page 11) “Sustainability will take a huge step forward when communities begin to factor ecosystem services into planning and development decisions.” Why is the Sustainable Sites Initiative necessary? Many of our cities and communi- ties are facing serious air and water quality issues, such as degraded urban watersheds, overuse of water, and air pollution and urban heat island effects – many of which are the direct result of unsustainable land use and land development practices. There is a strong and growing awareness of the need for more energy efficient and sustainable buildings. But there is much less public understanding of the broad range of natural resource issues involved with building sites and other designed landscapes. Also, there are no existing rating systems for designed landscapes without buildings. The Sites guidelines and performance benchmarks can be applied to any kind of site, with or without buildings – pedestrian and transit corridors, streetscapes, parks, corporate and academic campuses, parking lots, and even backyards and gardens. How did you become involved with Sites? and interdisciplinary if we are going to make our communities more sustainable and tackle climate change. Sites wouldn't be possible without the contributions of technical experts from many fields, including landscape architecture, civil engineering, ecology, horticulture, public health, planning, economics, and hydrology and soil sciences. How do you envision this tool being used? I guess you could say it came with the job – and I'm happy that it did. When we started our discussions within asla about the need for Sites, the asla’s elected leaders and I were all in strong agreement about its importance to protect land and our commitment to working on the project over the long haul-up to and beyond the publication of the guidelines and rating system. As asla’s representative on the Sustainable Sites Initiative Executive Committee, I focus primarily on the governance and communications aspects of the project. Our members are the technical experts. We have member representatives who serve along with representatives of many different disciplines on the Sites Steering Committee and technical subcommittees. It is those committees that have handled the rigorous review of the applicable science and technical data and developed the performance benchmarks. Q: We are seeing more and more interdisciplinary approaches toward sustainability. What is going on? We have to be collaborative We want to see Sites incorporated into existing green building standards and we also intend to make it available as a stand-alone rating system. The guidelines can be used by public and private owners, and by everyone involved with the design, construction, and/or maintenance of designed landscapes. They can be applied to greenfield, grayfield and brownfield projects of all types and sizes. We also understand that not every owner will be interested in pursuing certification or dealing with the documentation aspects that accompany a rating system. Even outside of the rating system, the concepts are usable as guides to make landscape projects more sustainable. What are some of the challenges of this project? A major challenge is meeting our goal of making Sites applicable to the broadest possible range of projects. When the first report was published last fall, we heard from many commentators about the need to address regional variations. For example, in some areas of the southwestern U.S., local water rights laws are in conflict with the overall Sites’ goal of maintaining the natural hydrology of a site. We also have many constituent groups and stakeholders-including ASLA's own members – who would have liked to have Sites completed and ready to use yesterday. A rigorous process that reviews the science and considers multiple points of view takes time, however. Why are we so divorced from nature? It's easy to ignore the damage that we're causing to eco-systems when it's incremental. One impervi- http://www.zinco-usa.com http://www.zinco-usa.com
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