Sustainability

Aging Initiative. A wealth of information about EPA's efforts to protect the environmental health of older persons.

Base Closures and Redevelopment. EPA coordinates environmental cleanup activities at closed military bases and Superfund sites.

Brownfields Cleanup and Redevelopment. A brownfield site is a property whose expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

Building America. This Department of Energy program works with the residential building industry to develop and implement innovative building processes and technologies that save builders and homeowners millions of dollars in construction and energy.

Environmentally Responsible Redevelopment and Reuse (ER3) This Initiative uses enforcement and other EPA incentives to promote sustainable redevelopment of contaminated sites.

Green Buildings. This EPA program creates healthier and more resource-efficient models of construction, renovation, maintenance, and demolition.

Green Construction and Sustainability. Sustainable development considers a building's total economic and environmental impact and performance, from raw material extraction and product manufacture to building design, construction, operations and maintenance, and reuse or disposal.

Green Engineering Outreach disseminates new Green Engineering information to university faculty and students.

Greenkit: On the Path to Becoming a Green Community. This technical assistance training kit helps to (1) promote innovative tools for successful community-based environmental protection, (2) establish partnerships, (3) help build community capacity and knowledge for creating more livable communities, and (4) provide technical assistance.

Growth and Water Resources This online distance-learning training module on EPA's Watershed Academy Web site explains how changes in land use affect water resources, and presents national data on trends in development patterns and activities on land that have become an increasing challenge to achieving water quality standards.

Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E). This voluntary program helps healthcare facilities enhance workplace safety, reduce waste and waste disposal costs, and become better environmental stewards and neighbors.

International Urban Environment Partnerships focus on brownfields redevelopment, smart growth, sustainable transportation and land use, urban watershed management, green buildings, and solid waste recycling.

Land Revitalization Initiative restores waste sites that have been cleaned up for greenspace or productive economic use.

Land Revitalization - Forging Partnerships to Promote Sustainability. EPA partners with the Wildlife Habitat Council and the Department of the Interior's National Park Service Rivers & Trails program to restore contaminated lands and establish Groundwork Trusts.

Land Revitalization - Fostering Sustainability. EPA is promoting sustainable redevelopment through enforcement policies and through the use of green building and greenspace designs for property redevelopment and reuse.

Low-Impact Development (LID) is a site-design strategy with a goal of maintaining or replicating the predevelopment hydrologic regime by using design techniques to create a functionally equivalent hydrologic landscape.

Market Incentive Programs for Transportation and Air Quality. These programs use the market, rather than regulatory directives, to encourage sustainability by reducing activities that pollute or increasing the use of less-polluting alternatives.

Model Ordinances to Protect Local Resources can serve as templates for decision-making concerning growth and environmental protection.

One Cleanup Program Initiative is EPA's vision for how different clean-up programs at all levels of government can work together - and ensure that resources, activities, and results are effectively coordinated and communicated to the public.

Protecting Children's Health Worldwide. Several recent international agreements have highlighted the need to develop children's environmental health indicators.

Resource Conservation Challenge is a major national effort to find flexible yet more protective ways to conserve our valuable resources through waste reduction and energy recovery activities.

Sector Strategies Program. Environmental gains have been achieved through innovative actions that EPA has taken with a number of manufacturing and service sectors.

Smart Growth is development that serves the economy, the community, and the environment, moving the development debate away from the traditional question of "Growth or no growth?" to "How and where should new development be planned?"

Smart Growth and Schools. This site provides information on using the principles of smart growth to plan educational facilities.

Smart Growth Leadership Institute (SGLI). This institute helps state and local elected, civic and business leaders design and implement effective smart growth strategies.

Superfund ("Federal Facility") Sites. Links to maps, reports, and other resources about locations where EPA's Office of Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse is working on clean-up projects.

Superfund Redevelopment Program. helps communities return some of the nation's worst hazardous waste sites to safe and productive uses.

Sustainability Champions. This site lists for every year since 2002 EPA's "Sustainability Champions" -- the winners of leadership awards in sustainability, who have demonstrated exceptional effort and achievement in energy and water efficiency and other sustainability areas.

Urban Nonpoint Source Controls for Water. This site lists EPA and other resources for information on nonpoint source controls for water.

Urban Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP) Study. This study covers BMP performance measures and measurable goals, measurement methods, design criteria, monitoring issues, cost minimization opportunities, and the benefits and economic impact of BMPs.