Building greener, building smarter: the winds of change are blowing through the building community, fueled by consumer demand and discerning practitioners.

When Sarah Gutterman describes one of her environmentally friendly homes, she's doing more than selling recycled wood and a few shade trees. Her design/build company is creating sustainable homes that blend in with their natural surroundings.

"The best development intricately links nature with the built environment," Gutterman explains. "It doesn't make sense to install a hightech house that isn't energy efficient. Or one that is efficient inside but not outside."

It may be the best solution for homeowners who want their abode to reflect a commitment to nature--and the ecological services it provides. Trees, for example, help clean the air and water and cool urban temperatures. It's a philosophy Gutterman strives to capture in the work she and partner Ron Jones do in their design/build firm, Green Builder. Green Builder fosters responsible land use, ecosystem preservation, and habitat restoration through the use of sustainable products, materials, and technologies that return as many resources to nature as they take.

Their home designs use the natural landscape as well as permeable materials to capture and retain stormwater onsite. This replenishes the water table while it filters and reduces toxins that otherwise would be picked up from impervious surfaces and concentrated in stormwater runoff.

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Trees figure prominently in Green Builder's passive solar designs, along with efforts to make the best use of natural sunlight and southern orientation, skylights, and ventilation. These design specs boost energy efficiency in summer without blocking much-needed sun in winter in cooler climates.

Trees and other vegetation--collectively called green infrastructure--and their interaction with soil, air, and water play an important role at all scales of development, whether it's designing a single house, a neighborhood, or an entire community. And now, going greener has never been easier, thanks to several national movements, certification programs, and green building businesses that educate consumers and government officials alike.

Sprawl, the name for poorly designed growth characterized by long distances between home, stores, jobs, and recreation, has touched many U.S. communities. The negative environmental, social, and economic impacts are affecting more and more people on a daily basis. Long-distance commutes and traffic tie-ups contribute to worsening health-related issues, such as air pollution and increased asthma and other breathing-related illnesses. More impervious roadways, rooftops, driveways, and parking lots mean more flooding and water pollution, and runoff that has nowhere to go and plenty of toxins to pick up on its way.

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Yet unplanned growth and its effects are not high on the national policy agenda. "Many have the altitude toward [sprawl] development that we once had toward smoking: sure it's bad, but it won't be a problem for me," Anna Quindlen writes in Newsweek magazine. "Unchecked development ... doesn't surface as a national issue. It takes place town by town, building by building. And its net effect isn't usually noticed until it is already out of hand, when the wells run brown with mud."

Coming from the other end of the equation is The Care of Trees a national tree preservation company that specializes in land restoration, urban forest management planning, and site development.

"In conventional development, trees are thought of as a dot on a set of construction drawings, without regard to the soil and other natural systems that support the trees," says division manager David Zeitlin. "The goal is to preserve the entire habitat, most importantly the soil ecosystem."

The Care of Trees has worked to conserve mature trees on such prominent sites as the U.S. Supreme Court and Johns Hopkins University as well as in new developments.

"Our greatest success comes when we have a seat at the design table at the beginning of the process," Zeitlin says. "We can help shape the way the building is integrated into the landscape that the trees inhabit. Planning this way is most cost-effective and minimizes damage to the trees."

As good as that sounds, it will take more than just good intentions to change the status quo and drive the market to think and act greener. Both Gutterman and Zeitlin agree that the demand for greener homes is driven by people recognizing the value green infrastructure brings to their communities. Gutterman believes that demand comes when consumers learn more about saving old-growth forests, maximizing ecosystem services, and reducing climate change--and when they discover that sustainable building materials are readily available.

Preserving nature before it disappears is another important market force, Zeitlan adds. "As nature recedes from our communities, the value placed on bringing nature back and connecting it to where people live is in greater demand than ever before."

Anne's Choice, a 525-person retirement community in suburban Philadelphia, is a good example. A majestic stand of 75-year-old Chinese chestnut trees became the centerpiece of its courtyard design. The Care of Trees undertook a comprehensive approach to protecting the more than two dozen trees, starting by educating the construction crews before any work began. They also pruned tree crowns, removed dead limbs, conditioned the soil, and mulched tree bases. "On-going monitoring is key to the trees' health," Zeitlan says.

As the demand grows for green infrastructure, the increased volume and next generation of sustainable materials and technologies should drive the price down, helping make green building practices more mainstream.

But a greener world doesn't start and end with better building practices on individual sites. A region's air and water quality are greatly affected by just how and where growth occurs.

Following in the footsteps of previous generations of growth management strategies, the Smart Growth movement, started in the early 1990s, focuses on the three E's: equity, economy, and environment. The Smart Growth Network, a national coalition of 36 organizations and government agencies that promote smart growth approaches within their constituencies, provides a forum for promoting these principles and sharing information and strategies.

The Smart Growth movement raises public awareness of the problems of sprawling development, finds solutions, and develops policies and programs that communities can use for better land development. There are 10 Smart Growth principles that summarize good land development; three address the conservation of natural resources:

* Foster distinctive, attractive communities with a strong sense of place.

* Preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty, and critical environmental areas.

* Strengthen and direct development towards existing communities.

Having grounded itself in land conservation, the Smart Growth movement next hopes to answer the question, "What would a proactive Smart Growth community look like? How would it put its resources to best use?" according to Nadejda Mishkovsky, project manager at the International City/County Management Association, which manages membership for the Smart Growth Network.

As the movement goes about identifying an answer to that question, Mishkovsky sees a role for tools AMERICAN FORESTS has created to quantify the ecosystem services that green infrastructure provides. Being able to assign a dollar value to the natural benefits tree canopy provides will help local governments put their trees and other natural resources to best use, she says.

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"Mayors, city managers, and environmental engineers are always weighing the costs and benefits of decisions they make," Mishkovsky says. "They are increasingly constrained financially and take on more responsibilities from the state and federal government. If they can financially justify the case for conservation, they will have another reason to embrace it."

Changing public policy, Mishkovsky observes, is a difficult, time-consuming, and costly process. "Sometimes, it takes either a local crisis like a water shortage, a political change, or a commitment to a new approach that pushes green infrastructure to the top of the city's priority list."

The Smart Growth movement helps with the argument for a new approach by providing an ecological, economic health, and social rational and by demonstrating new strategies for where and how to grow. Meanwhile, the U.S. Green Building Council, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Congress for New Urbanism are collaborating on a new certification program that will provide incentives for growth to happen in the right places.

Their joint program is called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), and patterned after the Green Building Council's successful LEED certification for buildings.

While the certification criteria is still under development, Doug Farr, a Chicago architect who chairs the project, envisions LEED-ND projects to be "compact, walkable, high-performing environmental neighborhoods. Streets are interconnected and have a robust public right of way that uses vegetation to handle stormwater runoff within the neighborhood wherever possible."

Farr envisions targeted goals and the parameters for reaching them being set for stormwater runoff and the reduction of heat islands--temperature increases prevalent in urban centers and a source of high smog levels.

"The real estate industry is starting to find that certifying their projects as green buildings under the LEED process is desirable," Farr says.

"Certification creates a prestigious way for those in the building industry to distinguish themselves in the marketplace and attract press and visitor traffic which leads to quicker sales and leases," he adds.

Even though LEED-ND is still on the drafting board, Farr envisions creating a family of environmental certification ratings developed in partnership with other organizations. "Perhaps a LEED for existing neighborhoods, where infrastructure is already in place; a LEED for large open space areas such as state parks; and a LEED for agricultural lands that rewards environmental excellence for water quality, erosion prevention, and nontoxic chemical use."

In addition to his work with the LEED rating system, Farr is writing a book on green urbanism, and plans to include some design metrics, or rules of thumb, to aid land planners in design. He enthusiastically supports using tree canopy goals as a way to connect trees to the ecology of the land.

Those greener goals are more attainable for communities now that the technical means are readily available to help them adopt a greener approach to revitalizing abandoned urban cores and building new more robust, livable, and ecologically sound communities.

All this reflects Green Builder's Gutterman's belief that "the act of building should be a testament to stewardship of the land." It is a philosophy that more people are striving for as evidenced by increased demand for her services.

Market-driven demand for green building is fueling the land development and building industries--from homeowners looking to see nature from the living room, to discerning consumers who want to protect the environment, to a business-savvy developer who wishes to distinguish himself from the competition. Quantifying the environmental and economic benefits of trees and other green infrastructure can further fuel the green building movement.

When communities make the best use of green infrastructure to improve air, water, energy, and soil systems, not only will cities will become more distinctive and attractive places to live, they will become more environmentally sustainable and cost-effective. And that's good news for everyone.

RELATED ARTICLE: INNOVATIVE LAND DEVELOPMENT

One of the best ways to integrate ecosystem services into cities is through a partnership with innovative land development. Planners, developers, architects, and urban foresters greatly influence how and where communities get built. Within the last few decades, new philosophies of "building greener" and "smarter" are replacing patterns of unplanned development.

In 1999 Pennsylvania instituted a "Growing Greener" approach to land development. The idea was to enforce more stringent zoning regulations for future growth and to identify areas for permanent protection. David Ruskey, of the geoenvironmental sciences and engineering department at Wilkes University, set out to verify that the new approach actually did significantly decrease stormwater runoff. The existing community is concerned both with flooding and increased sediment loading from the new development.

Ruskey's green space audit revealed the more environmentally friendly design of a new 11-acre development in the state's Luzerne County. Under the Growing Greener guidelines, the proposed 16-house site would retain forest patches between homes, reduce impervious surfaces on roadways and driveways, and locate swaths of forest to intercept stormwater flow. The resulting design provides a balance between community goals and private landowner interests.

Ruskey compared the planned green development with nearby Fairway Hills, an existing 24-acre residential site. Both feed into Hick's Creek, which ultimately flows into the Susquehanna River.

Using aerial imagery, GIS, and AMERICAN FORESTS' CITYgreen software, Ruskey measured the impact of stormwater runoff from the two sites. Modeling the specifications for the Growing Greener community via the CITYgreen software, Ruskey determined the design would save 104,500 gallons of water on the proposed site over traditional development design.

James Urban, principal of Urban Trees and Soils, whose award-winning urban designs feature large healthy trees, believes that communities can be both dense and green. Writing in New Urban News, he argues, "I am convinced that we can achieve very high canopy rates in very dense areas if we treat trees as infrastructure and give them what they need for soil."

By combining new trees with "green" roofs (vegetation grown on rooftops to absorb stormwater and cool buildings) and other ways of softening our cities, along with large urban parks, he writes, "I am fairly confident we can make cities very viable from an ecological standpoint."

Urban also believes it is possible for communities to adopt designs for vibrant compact, walkable, mixed-use cities and towns and still achieve a 40 percent canopy coverage.

AMERICAN FORESTS also recommends that each community set an overall tree goal (www.americanforests.org/resources/urbanforests/treedeficit.php), to help protect and conserve both new and existing canopy. With that, communities can begin to take steps to ensure their trees are put to the best use in providing ecosystem services for managing stormwater runoff and improving air and water quality.

AMERICAN FORESTS' CITYgreen software is a planning tool that allows communities to measure their existing tree canopy and weigh the environmental and economic impacts of future land development decisions. Communities can now estimate their tree canopy by using National Land Cover Data from the U.S. Geological Survey's National Map (see Greening the National Map, page 41).

--Cheryl Kollin

Cheryl Kollin is director of AMERICAN FORESTS' Urban Forestry department and co-chair of the 2005 National Conference on Urban Ecosystems.