Renewable Natural Resources Foundation Honors LEED-ND
CNU, NRDC, and USGBC Receive Outstanding Achievement Award
Submitted on 11/7/2011. Tags for this image:The Renewable Natural Resources Foundation (RNRF) has awarded CNU’s LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system with its Outstanding Achievement Award for 2011. Every year, the award recognizes a project, publication, piece of legislation, or similar concrete accomplishment in the natural resources field. CNU shares the award with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), co-creators of the LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System. Sarah Lewis and Stephanie Bothwell will receive the award on CNU’s behalf at an awards ceremony on November 10th.
The LEED for Neighborhood Development green communities rating system integrates green building into community development to reduce sprawl, increase transportation choices, decrease automobile dependence, encourage healthy living, and protect threatened species. The system acknowledges the correlation between transit-oriented development and proximity to services, amenities, and jobs to human health benefits and economic capital. Projects constitute portions of neighborhoods, whole neighborhoods, or multiple neighborhoods and are most often mixed-use and complementary to existing neighborhoods. There are already 68 LEED certified neighborhood developments in the U.S. and abroad.
Previous winners of the RNRF Outstanding Achievement Award include: Michigan’s Water Withdrawal Assessment Process of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (2010), Dig It! The Secrets of Soil, an exhibition in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (2009), Integrated Ecosystem Restoration and Hurricane Protection: Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (2008), and National Coastal Assessment of the U.S. EPA- Gulf Ecology Division (2007).