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SPECIAL REPORT
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Credit language
© Copyright U.S. Green Building Council, Inc. All rights reserved.
Intent
To provide environmentally sensitive site management practices that protect and enhance habitat, reduce pollutants and waste, protect soils and hydrology and reduce site domestic water use.
Requirements
Conduct a site assessment to identify and document natural areas providing habitat.
Have in place a site management plan that demonstrates how the following best practices are met:
- Monitor and eradicate invasive and exotic plant species from natural habitat areas.
- Manage snow and ice in ways that limit degradation of water quality, surrounding plants and soil health from chemical deicer applications.
- Prevent erosion by maintaining vegetative cover, and restore any eroded soils.
- Reduce noise and air pollution resulting from gasoline powered equipment.
- Divert from landfills 100% of plant material waste for composting reuse.
- Reduce fertilizer use to only as needed for plant health applications based on soil testing. Eliminate preventive applications of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides applying only as needed for occurrences.
- Prepare an Integrated Pest Management plan.
- Add one or more inches of organic matter mulch, such as compost, to soil surfaces in planting areas annually.
- Irrigate vegetation, other than planted containers, only with automatic controlled systems utilizing either rain shutoff, moisture sensing or weather based controls.
- Monitor irrigation systems at least bi-weekly during the operating season and correct any leaks, breaks, inappropriate water usage, or incorrect timing.
- Store materials and equipment to prevent air and site contamination.
What does it cost?
Cost estimates for this credit
On each BD+C v4 credit, LEEDuser offers the wisdom of a team of architects, engineers, cost estimators, and LEED experts with hundreds of LEED projects between then. They analyzed the sustainable design strategies associated with each LEED credit, but also to assign actual costs to those strategies.
Our tab contains overall cost guidance, notes on what “soft costs” to expect, and a strategy-by-strategy breakdown of what to consider and what it might cost, in percentage premiums, actual costs, or both.
This information is also available in a full PDF download in The Cost of LEED v4 report.
Learn more about The Cost of LEED v4 »Frequently asked questions
See all forum discussions about this credit »Documentation toolkit
The motherlode of cheat sheets
LEEDuser’s Documentation Toolkit is loaded with calculators to help assess credit compliance, tracking spreadsheets for materials, sample templates to help guide your narratives and LEED Online submissions, and examples of actual submissions from certified LEED projects for you to check your work against. To get your plaque, start with the right toolkit.
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Our editors have written a detailed analysis of nearly every LEED credit, and LEEDuser premium members get full access. We’ll tell you whether the credit is easy to accomplish or better left alone, and we provide insider tips on how to document it successfully.
© Copyright U.S. Green Building Council, Inc. All rights reserved.
Intent
To provide environmentally sensitive site management practices that protect and enhance habitat, reduce pollutants and waste, protect soils and hydrology and reduce site domestic water use.
Requirements
Conduct a site assessment to identify and document natural areas providing habitat.
Have in place a site management plan that demonstrates how the following best practices are met:
- Monitor and eradicate invasive and exotic plant species from natural habitat areas.
- Manage snow and ice in ways that limit degradation of water quality, surrounding plants and soil health from chemical deicer applications.
- Prevent erosion by maintaining vegetative cover, and restore any eroded soils.
- Reduce noise and air pollution resulting from gasoline powered equipment.
- Divert from landfills 100% of plant material waste for composting reuse.
- Reduce fertilizer use to only as needed for plant health applications based on soil testing. Eliminate preventive applications of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides applying only as needed for occurrences.
- Prepare an Integrated Pest Management plan.
- Add one or more inches of organic matter mulch, such as compost, to soil surfaces in planting areas annually.
- Irrigate vegetation, other than planted containers, only with automatic controlled systems utilizing either rain shutoff, moisture sensing or weather based controls.
- Monitor irrigation systems at least bi-weekly during the operating season and correct any leaks, breaks, inappropriate water usage, or incorrect timing.
- Store materials and equipment to prevent air and site contamination.
In the end, LEED is all about documentation. LEEDuser’s Documentation Toolkit, for premium members only, saves you time and helps you avoid mistakes with:
- Calculators to help assess credit compliance.
- Tracking spreadsheets for materials purchases.
- Spreadsheets and forms to give to subs and other team members.
- Guidance documents on arcane LEED issues.
- Sample templates to help guide your narratives and LEED Online submissions.
- Examples of actual submissions from certified LEED projects.
