This credit is intended to provide sites with large areas of vegetated open space that promote biodiversity and recreation—which can also add an amenity to your project, help with natural stormwater management, and mitigate the urban heat island effect.
This credit promotes biodiversity by encouraging project teams to protect existing native habitat or restore the site with native species.
How you go about earning this credit will depend on the existing conditions of your project site. If you have a greenfield site—one that has not been built, graded, or otherwise altered by direct human activity—you are required to limit site disturbance during construction.
| It could be worse. |
Development usually comes with increased stormwater runoff due to impervious surfaces like roofs and parking lots. To earn this credit with previously undeveloped sites, you’ll need to avoid any increase in runoff, while on mostly impervious developed sites, you’ll need to reduce runoff. You will probably need to go beyond standard practice to achieve this credit, and you might see increased costs, although an integrated approach can make this credit cost-effective.
Global warming deniers have garnered a lot of attention in recent years. From opinion columns and letters in our local newspaper to heated reporting on Fox News (whose trademarked slogan "Fair & Balanced" is often anything but), those who doubt the underlying science of global warming are receiving unprecedented access to the American public and to policymakers.