Increasingly, landscape architects need to understand the LEED Green Building Rating System, which evaluates environmental performance of buildings and sites for new commercial projects. LEED's Sustainable Sites section contains 22 percent of the rating system's possible points, and its Water Efficiency and Materials and Resources sections account for an additional 18 percent. Because LEED 2.0 is fast becoming a nationally accepted system, many are finding that it lends legitimacy to the practices of sustainable building. But some LEED users are concerned that it doesn't go far enough in asking landscape architects to address and build ecologically functional landscapes.
Sustainable design looks at the management of the whole resource.
Many LEED users feel that the system is not tough enough on projects built on inappropriate sites, such as those on ecologically sensitive, fire-prone, or prime agricultural land. And some landscape architects envision new LEED systems that would address site planning, multi-building developments, landscape and infrastructure projects, and related issues. Landscape architects have the opportunity to take a proactive role in developing LEED 3.0, which is planned for release in 2003. Landscape Architecture, May 01, p 36, by Meg Calkins. The fast-growing city of Frisco north of Dallas recently became the first in the nation to require that all new homes meet federal Energy Star efficiency standards.