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- Title
SEED: SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT--A CALL TO INCORPORATE VERIFIABLE SUSTAINABILITY RATINGS INTO NEPA REVIEWS.
- Authors
CARLSON, KYLE
- Abstract
This Article's "SEED Proposal" suggests a framework for incorporating sustainability ratings into National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental reviews of infrastructure projects. The SEED Proposal can be implemented administratively and seeks to foster a more cooperative relationship between private project developers, the public, and agency decisionmakers. Policymakers must confront the twin challenges of maintaining economic growth while protecting environmental quality. Humanity has depleted or overused many of the world's resources. Meanwhile, we must employ these dwindling resources to address large population increases and widespread poverty. The environmental movement has long proposed sustainable environmental and economic development as a solution to these challenges. The United States federal government has begun to incorporate sustainable development into many Executive Orders, procurement decisions, and agency operations. However, NEPA decisionmakers could greatly advance the goal of sustainable development by incorporating sustainability ratings into environmental reviews. The United States Green Building Council's LEED certification for green buildings serves as a proof of concept for many of the cooperative, voluntary measures within the SEED Proposal. At its heart is a sustainability ratings system with a third-party verification process designed by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design: the Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System.
- Subjects
UNITED States; SUSTAINABLE development; UNITED States. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969; SUSTAINABILITY; ENVIRONMENTAL law; U.S. Green Building Council; ENVIRONMENTALISM; LEADERSHIP in Energy &; Environmental Design; ECONOMIC development &; the environment
- Publication
Environmental Law (Lewis & Clark Law School), 2013, Vol 43, Issue 1, p145
- ISSN
2831-9028
- Publication type
Article