Sustainability

Aging Initiative. This site presents 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 costs.

Energy Star. This joint EPA-Department of Energy program promotes energy efficiency in homes and businesses.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) helps the federal government "buy green," using the government's enormous purchasing power to stimulate market demand for environmentally friendly products and services.

Environmentally Responsible Redevelopment and Reuse (ER3). This EPA initiative uses enforcement and 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. Sustainable construction 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.

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

GreenScapes Alliance. This site is designed to help preserve natural resources and prevent waste and pollution by encouraging companies, government agencies, and other entities to make more holistic decisions regarding the use of land, water, pesticides, energy, and the generation and disposal of waste.

Growth and Water Resources. This online distance-learning training module explains how changes in land use affect water resources and presents data on trends in development patterns and activities that constitute a growing challenge to the achievement of water quality standards.

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

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.

Land Revitalization Initiative. This EPA program restores land and other natural resources into sustainable community assets that maximize beneficial economic, ecological and social uses and ensure protection of human health and the environment.

Low-Impact Development (LID). This site-design strategy seeks to maintain or replicate pre-development hydrologic regimes through design techniques to create functionally equivalent hydrologic landscapes.

Model Ordinances to Protect Local Resources. These ordinances serve as templates for making decisions concerning growth and environmental protection.

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 to design and implement effective smart growth strategies.

Smart Growth Network. EPA and the International City/County Management Association provide local and state officials, development professionals, and public interest organizations with the latest information and resources on smart growth.

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

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

Sustainable Skylines.  Through this initiative EPA  work with U.S. areas to integrate transportation, energy, land use and air quality planning.  This effort will provide a framework that can achieve measurable emission reductions and promote sustainability in urban environments

Urban Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP) Study. This study uses literature and data on controlling urban stormwater runoff, including BMP performance measures and goals, measurement methods, design criteria, monitoring issues, cost minimization opportunities, and the benefits and economic impacts of using BMPs.

Watersheds. We all live in watersheds – areas that drain to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, estuary, wetland, or even the ocean - that can be directly affected by our individual actions. This page links to resources explaining how using a watershed approach can help protect our nation's water resources.