Natural vegetation

Absolutely include the non-irrigated natural vegetation Michael. In a perfect world, EBOM would inspire all building owners to keep their vegetated areas with natural vegetation that does not require irrigation. The fact that it is not actively maintained or 'landscaped' is a positive, not a negative.

Hope that helps,

Dan

Yikes - I dare say the folks at LEEDuser should retract my expert status given a review comment like that one. My apologies Mike. I spoke to someone at GBCI about this topic recently and I think I failed to consider the various scenarios by which 'natural vegetation' might be present on site. If an area has been in a natural vegetative state for an extended period of time, GBCI doesn't believe that simply preserving the status quo merits credit in terms of irrigation water use. On the other hand, if that area were restored to a natural state from an alternative use, particularly a conventional landscaping scheme, it would be eligible for consideration. There's obviously some gray area there for case-by-case evaluation and the question of when things took place becomes relevant, but I hope this sheds a bit more light both on GBCI's reasoning around the issue and my unhelpful response.

Dan

I think we'll just replace your photo with a grain of salt, Dan.