ANLA: Bob's View :: by Bob Dolibois

Published:12/1/2007

SSI: Opportunity Knocks



Knock! Knock!


Who’s there?

SSI


What’s SSI?


Read on and you’ll find out.


I know. Pretty cheesy intro, but the rest of this is good stuff. Here are some additional questions and better answers.


SSI stands for what?


SSI stands for Sustainable Sites Initiative. This ambitious project is unfolding under the guidance of three organizations who share our industry’s interest in promoting more green and more sustainable landscapes, particularly in urban settings. The three organizations are the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the U.S. Botanical Garden. These organizations have committed notable resources to developing a set of voluntary standards and guidelines leading to more sustainable-managed landscapes. They've recruited involvement by additional related organizations, including the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA). ANLA has representation on the vegetation sub-committee.


How will the standards and guidelines work?


The standards and guidelines will address the full set of components involved in the design, installation and maintenance of landscapes around buildings, in parks and in park-like open areas in cities, suburbs and small towns. It's intended that these standards and guidelines could form the basis for a publicly-recognized and valued rating as a sustainable landscape.


Why on earth do we need something like this now?


This idea is not original. It is modeled after the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System. That program is gaining real momentum in the construction industry as a way for developers to create buildings that are more environmentally sensitive in their design, construction and maintenance. LEED-rated buildings are proving to be both desirable and profitable, despite the initial higher costs in development.


Why doesn’t SSI just become part of the LEED system?


Well, that’s the goal. In fact, the U.S. Green Building Council is lending its support to this initiative and indicates their intention to adopt the Sustainable Sites metrics into the LEED rating system. That’s what an Englishman would declare as “brilliant!”


What does SSI have to do with me, the reader?


SSI offers the opportunity for those businesses who want to build on the growing "green movement" to explore and adopt specific ways to make the connection between the burgeoning green building trend and the landscapes around (or on top) of these buildings.


This could be the next excellent, externally funded channel for our industry to conquer the last un-green frontier: the nation’s inner cities. Horticulture's green frontiers started with the farms and large estates in the late 1800s. After WWII, suburbia came with its millions of middle-class homeowners gardening and landscaping on their own. In the 1960s landscaping the highways occurred, followed in the '80s by commercial office parks, resorts and malls. The only place left now is the city—roofs, sidewalks, parks and greenbelts. Eureka!


What’s the end game here?


The end game is the long sought-after connection of developers, designers, builders and building owners to the real value of our industry’s plants as environmental necessities, not ornamental add-ons. The SSI creates the framework for site planning at the beginning of a building’s concept, not as an afterthought when there’s no money left.


It also forces the expectation on builders and owners to sustain these landscapes and for designers to specify site preparation and plant selection with an eye towards true sustainability over time (as in: right plant, right place).


Okay, what if I want to do something with this SSI?

Get involved. The first step is to read the draft SSI report available at: www.sustainablesites.org. Click on the standards “report” section. Read the draft report, and then by January 11, 2008, file your response coming from a business that stands to gain a lot if this SSI takes off. If we want this system to work to our advantage, then the industry needs to weigh in with its advice and counsel. Be sure to note the indispensable role plants—lots of them—play in truly sustainable sites.


And if I don’t file a response and become involved?


Don’t knock it.


Bob Dolibois is executive director of the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA), www.anla.org.

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