Urban Trees Capture 25 Million Tons of Carbon a Year

The Sustainable Sites Initiative is a joint effort between the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanical Gardens. 

The initiative is the first national rating system for land development and management of sustainable landscapes for all site development from single family homes to malls, streets, parks, subdivisions, commercial and corporate properties, parks and transportation corridors.

The goal is to make site design as eco-friendly as green buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is expected to include Sustainable Site Initiative Guidelines into future LEED certification programs. LEED is short for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Site design that has less negative impact on the environment and more positive impacts are the projects objectives. Protecting existing vegetation and including significant new vegetation on land development projects is one way to help the environment.

Plants reduce carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, by capturing it and using it. In the U.S., urban trees capture 25 million tons of carbon a year. That's 25 Million Tons. And that's a lot of stuff we don't need to breathe.

The next time a land development or construction project falls on the desk of the Mentor Planning Commission, let us hope at least one member will have the sense to ask a few simple questions.

1 - How many existing trees are being destroyed?

2 - What size are they?

3 - What alternate design ideas were considered that might have lessened the tree destruction? Can the Commission see those alternate design drawings before rendering a decision?

4 – How many trees are being planted to replace the existing trees that will be lost?

5 – What is the replacement ratio?  Three trees to one?  Four trees to one?

6 – What size are the new trees?

7 - What bond is the City requiring to ensure the new trees will survive and be looked after?

Land development schemes that mean the loss of trees -- such as at the Center Street School site or Newell Creek, which was once one of the most beautiful properties in the city -- need to be re-designed. Saving trees is not a frivolous pursuit. Everybody breathes. Even Mentor Planning Commission and City Council members.

Green, sustainable construction – in structures as well as on sites – is the future. Destroying the environment is the past, sustainable site design will come to Mentor, one way or another.

For more on SITES, go to www.sustainablesites.org.

And for more not on SITES, get some this Friday on Mentor Patch.