Landscape Waste Prevention Demonstration Project

Sustainable Environmental Design Education

From March 2002 to May 2004, the California Integrated Waste Management Board developed the Sustainable Environmental Design Education (SEDE) project together with the Renewable Energy Institute at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to improve the adoption of sustainable environmental design principles in higher education and industry.

The SEDE project develops cross-disciplinary educational materials for designing sustainable buildings and landscapes that are compatible with their surrounding environments. The program focuses on educating students in college-level building and landscape architecture degree programs, as well as current practitioners through industry continuing education programs. The new and revised educational materials were developed based on information obtained from a national survey and needs assessment. This web site marks the beginning of a resource package that is hope will evolve into a living resource and human network for sustainable design.

• Background
• Contacts
• Links

Background

The Board developed the SEDE program because sustainable building and landscape design is key for reducing waste and pollution, conserving water and energy, and creating new and expanded markets for recycled-content products. The Board believes that actively promoting sustainable environmental design to current practitioners and students preparing to enter the building and landscape architecture professions is the best way ensure that sustainability becomes an integral design element in future buildings and landscape installations.

In the future, the Board also will advocate with the government agencies responsible for licensing architects, and the industry associations that administer continuing education programs, to respectively revise their licensing exams and continuing education requirements to include questions and coursework pertaining to sustainable environmental design principles with the goal of making sustainable environmental design a standard industry practice.

The SEDE program supports the goal of sustainable building in California, as outlined in Executive Order D-16-00, and reinforces the importance of creating a sustainable design curriculum that addresses the needs of postsecondary education in both the building and landscape architecture disciplines.

Contacts

If you have any questions about the SEDE program, please contact:

• Ken Decio, CIWMB Organic Materials Management Section
• Margot McDonald, Associate Professor, Cal Poly Architecture Department, at mmcdonal@calpoly.edu.

Links

The following resources will also provide useful information related to sustainable environmental design:

CIWMB

• Green Building Design and Construction, www.ciwmb.ca.gov/GreenBuilding/
• Organics Materials Management, www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Organics/
• Sustainable Building Task Force, www.ciwmb.ca.gov/GreenBuilding/TaskForce/

Cal Poly

• College of Architecture and Environmental Design, www.calpoly.edu/~caed/
• Sustainable Environments Emphasis Group, http://suntzu.larc.calpoly.edu/
• Renewable Energy Institute, www.calpoly.edu/~rgp/Research/rei.html

Other

• Sustainability Project of Santa Barbara, www.sustainabilityproject.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?pageid=11

Last updated: October 21, 2008