Design

While most Americans are adopting energy efficiency measures at home such as turning off lights and appliances and using energy-saving light bulbs, fewer have applied the same ideas to their gardens, according to a recent survey.

Of those questioned, 96% claim to follow energy savings actions at home, but only 58% use similar energy- and water-saving measures outside.

“The results clearly show a desire and willingness to use techniques that reduce utility bills at home, but few know what can be accomplished outside their homes,” says Nancy Somerville, executive vice president and CEO of American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), who commissioned the survey.

A new initiative from the ASLA, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the United States Botanic Garden hopes to change all that and take energy efficiency outside.

Planting shade trees can lower energy costs, using an old-fashioned rake instead of a leaf blower, or harvesting rainwater for watering plants can all save energy and water.

To show the level of savings that can be made by taking a sustainable approach, the Garden-Garden project in Santa Monica, California compared the costs and maintenance of a conventional and a ‘green’ garden.

Although the sustainable garden, using native plants, cost significantly more to install, it uses 77% less water, produces 66% less green waste and costs 68% less to maintain each year.

The new initiative, the Sustainable Sites Initiative, will create voluntary guidelines and a rating system for sustainable landscape design. The US Green Building Council is supporting the initiative and plans to adopt the ideas into future versions of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for buildings.

“[The] survey reinforces the need for the Sustainable Sites standards and guidelines,” says Susan Rieff of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

The proposed benchmarks and guidelines will be published in a report in November, which the three organisations hope will generate feedback from the community. The final guidelines will be tested on pilot projects in 2010-2011, with a final rating system unveiled in May 2011.

“Our goal is to ensure that the initiative is broad based [and] applicable to a wide audience,” says Holly Shimizu of the United States Botanic Garden.

For further information:
www.sustainablesites.org
www.asla.org
www.wildflower.org
www.usbg.gov
www.usgbc.org/
www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19