“At the forefront of this movement toward “greening” our landscapes is the Sustainable SITES Initiative (SITES), a program based on the understanding that land is a crucial component of the built environment and can be planned, designed, developed, and maintained to avoid, mitigate, and even reverse the detrimental impacts of urbanization and development.
Energy-efficient buildings can’t fight the battle against climate change alone. Thankfully, landscape architecture professionals are joining the effort to enact mitigation strategies that will help reduce GHG emissions by 50 to 85 percent by 2050 and limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius if deployed at a mass scale, according to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), Washington.
Just like LEED transformed the built environment and the buildings market, SITES is intended to do the same thing for the landscapes and open spaces of the world we live in, in terms of driving sustainability in the design and development process.”
Insulfoam Geofoam plays a cruicial part in key elements of SITES certifications including using low maintenance materials, materials with recycled content, and landscapes that support natural species growth. Highlighted here is Chicago’s new Navy Pier, which Insulfoam Geofoam provided the foundation for. As void fill material, Geofoam includes recycled content, is stable and low maintenance for years to come, and provided a base for indigenous landscape plants to surround the huge area.
Read the full article in Retrofit Magazine, here to learn more about SITES, how it complements LEED and how Geofoam is helping Landscape designers create spaces that help offset green house gas emissions for the future.
Curious to learn how your next project can take advantage of Geofoam as a void fill, slope stabilization, soil remediation, retaining structure, concrete forming base, and more? Contact us today, we have hundreds of samples of how Geofoam has helped designers accomplish their landscape design goals (view some here)… we would love to share our expertise with you!
