Today, green building certification pays scant attention to landscaping, but it should, according to the Sustainable Sites Initiative, which has just released the world's first rating system for the design, construction and maintenance of sustainable landscapes (with or without buildings).

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) was created by the U.S. Green Building Council to provide a standard for environmentally sustainable buildings, but only gives a few points of credit for green landscaping. The Sustainable Sites Initiative plans to change that by incorporating state-of-the-art green landscaping principles into next version of LEED in 2012.

"The Sustainable Sites Initiative has developed a LEED for landscapes," said Ray Mims, horticulturist at U.S. Botanic Garden (D.C.) "If you follow our guidelines, you can do better than the carbon-neutral status of the best buildings--you can actually improve the ecosystem's health and the health of whole surrounding community."

The landscape rating system has recently emerged from the public comment period and is now entering the final stage where it will be debugged in the field. For the next two years the program will be tried out on 200 plots nationwide in order to fine-tune the landscaping standards that will be incorporated into LEED.

Qualifying plots can be included in the pilot program by applying at SustainableSites.org. Landscaping around any type of building will be considered, as well as many sites with no buildings at all--from corporate campuses to transportation corridors to public parks to single-family residences.

"A building can only be 'less bad.' By that I mean that no matter how green a building is made, it is going to have some negative impact on the environment. Landscapes, on the other hand, can actually be regenerative and give back to the planet. Landscapes can clean the air, produce oxygen, slow the water down and not only be good for the environment, but be good to humans too," said Mims.

The rating system was designed by a partnership between the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, The University of Texas (Austin) and the U.S. Botanic Garden (D.C.) For four years, more than a dozen sustainability experts, scientists and designers have evaluated input from hundreds of sources to derive the guidelines for creating sustainable landscapes.

Points will be awarded for various elements of landscapes, resulting in one, two, three or four "green stars." Points are awarded for the types of green spaces included in landscapes, as well as for the biodiversity of the species residing there.

More information is available in two reports issued from the Sustainable Sites Initiative: The Sustainable Sites Initiative: Guidelines and Performance Benchmarks 2009 and The Case for Sustainable Landscapes and Guidelines.