On February 18 the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Network on Smart and Sustainable Cities (ANSSC) will host its monthly webinar from 2-3:30 pm EST on the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) - a comprehensive program for guiding and measuring landscape sustainability. The featured speaker will be Danielle Pieranunzi, director of SITES.
The SITES program is a collaboration between the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the United States Botanic Garden, and the American Society of Landscape Architects. Originally modeled after the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Rating System, the program fills a need for design and construction guidelines and a system for rating and recognizing exemplary sustainable landscapes based on their performance in improving the environment and human health. After seven years of research and development, with input from over 70 technical advisors, the SITES v2 Rating System: For Sustainable Land Design and Development was released in June 2014. It is the first rating system available for the public to use to pursue certification as a sustainable landscape. SITES certification can be applied to projects of all sizes and locations with or without buildings.
Ms. Pieranunzi has a decade of experience in the sustainability field, having worked on the development of SITES since 2006. She managed a two-year pilot program that included more than 150 global projects that tested and refined the previous version (2009) of the SITES rating system. Ms. Pieranunzi has spoken nationally and internationally on SITES and high-performance landscapes. She has taught at the University of Texas at Austin and coordinated the Conservation Development program for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. She is a LEED Accredited Professional (U.S. Green Building Council) and has an M.S. in sustainable design from the University of Texas at Austin.
The February webinar is open to members of ANSSC, a forum for information sharing among members of the standardization community, representatives of local governments, and experts in sustainable urban infrastructure planning and development. To register for the ANSSC and participate in the webinar, please visit www.ansi.org/cities.