Sustainable development: origins & future. An examination of environmental design, LEED-ND, & sustainable codes
Creators: name: Akers, Frank H., III
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2009

description: Sustainable urbanism is nothing new. Its most recent iterations, however, cast enduring concepts in a new light or introduce innovative technologies and paradigms into our modern development practices. In the midst of the current green building cycle, the standards of how we measure sustainability represent the most significant new addition to the process. These adjustments reflect the rich history of thought and nuances carried through generations, if not centuries, of design and development. Our own country contains many examples of sustainable development, from Native American cliff dwellings to the colonial standards set forth in the Law of the West Indies. Over the years the approaches changed, morphing into more institutionalized if not sophisticated concepts. Within the American landscape various movements and vanguard individuals have carried the torch of sustainability, offering up unique interpretations and contributions along the way. Even seemingly like-minded individuals such as John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, considered the forefathers of the modern American environmental movement, differed in their belief regarding urban-natural relationships. Throughout the 20th century many others added their voice to the conversation. From Aldo Leopold to Ian McHarg to Lane Kendig, visionaries set forth new principles concerning design, human society and ecology. While the voices differed, the goals remained congruent. Perhaps most notably, the terminology evolved over the years. In fact, this paper makes use of several similar but unique terms. Douglas Farr offers a contemporary interpretation, describing sustainable urbanism as walkable and transit-served urbanism integrated with high-performance buildings and high-performance infrastructure (42). Others define the process of sustainable development more narrowly, such as a process that recycles or remediates contaminated land - specifically brownfields (Wedding 8). Extrapolating from these definitions, sustainable development combines economic growth with environmental concerns and new construction. Several groups have proposed much broader characterizations. For instance, the 1987 Bruntland Commission's now-famous declaration that sustainable development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs," reveals a deeper sense of sustainability that transcends project- or site-level concerns (Wedding 9). Along these lines, Wedding further writes that "The desired state of the world is not simply "sustainable" in the sense of just solvent or barely surviving; rather, it is set at a very high standard, that is, some optimal level," (9). This reasoning no doubt points towards an ecological framework, a living system of relationships composed of interactions, reactions and, ultimately, life cycles. Ecologically-based approaches to design and development feature a long and storied tradition within the American context. But, the nexus of ecology and identifiable standards, of quantifiably measuring our progress or the consequences of certain decisions versus others, represents a relatively new approach to sustainable development.