ASLA’s Sustainable Sites Initiative Hits High Gear
With some initial funding in place, the initiative’s 12-member Product Development Committee sits down to establish the six areas of initial technical inquiry: soils, water, vegetation, materials and waste, energy, and bioregional framework.

September 18, 2006, marked the kickoff of technical work toward ASLA’s and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s standard for site sustainability. Last Monday through Wednesday, the 12-member Product Development Committee (PDC) met in Washington, D.C., and established the six areas of initial technical inquiry: soils, water, vegetation, materials and waste, energy, and bioregional framework.

The meeting was sponsored in part by a $15,000 matching grant from the United States Forest Service through the Urban and Community Forestry Program. The meeting was held at the United States Botanic Garden (USBG). The USBG, which provides leadership for public gardens nationally, is currently discussing with ASLA and the Wildflower Center the larger role that it may take in the initiative.

With initial funding in place, progress will accelerate. The next step in advancing the Sustainable Sites Initiative will be assembling teams of experts to investigate questions falling within the five subject areas of soils, water, vegetation, materials and waste, and energy. The sixth area of inquiry will identify ecoregion-specific reference points to inform performance targets, which will also vary for sites differing in their positions along the urban–rural continuum.

The methodology for identifying performance targets was proposed by Jim Omernik, a geographer with the USGS and a guest speaker at the meeting. Omernik has been mapping the ecoregions of North America for more than 30 years and has provided a framework for coordinating land management efforts among federal agencies and other authorities. The April 2005 issue of Landscape Architecture magazine presented Omernik’s work to the landscape architecture community.

ASLA’s Sustainable Design and Development Professional Practice Network officers, who initiated ASLA’s relationship with the U.S. Green Building Council and laid the groundwork for the Sustainable Sites Initiative, will communicate with the PDC through Deb Guenther, ASLA, chair-designate of the group and representative on the committee.

The PDC was conceived to broadly inform the development of the site design guidelines and standards and to broadly disseminate the information and tools produced through the effort. The PDC includes representatives from ASLA, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the U.S. Green Building Council, EPA’s GreenScapes Program, the National Recreation and Park Association, the Nature Conservancy, the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Sustainability, and the National Association of County and City Health Officials. These groups will provide networking capacity to engage critical resources and audiences.

The name “Sustainable Sites Initiative,” now the official name for the project, is short for “Systems Integration Tool for Environmentally Sustainable Sites (SITESS).” ASLA’s Annual Meeting will provide a session on Sunday, October 8 from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM for discussing the Sustainable Sites Initiative. Come to the session to learn more about the process and to offer your feedback.