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Decarbonizing Specifications v2 is the American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) professional guide for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions through landscape architecture design, construction specifications and procurement. Released August 13, 2026, it organizes advice around seven design principles and 24 specification areas. It is useful to landscape architects, designers, specifiers, contractors, manufacturers and industry leaders who need a repeatable way to ask for lower-emission products and practices.
The update adds five specification sections and significantly revises five others. It does not certify a product, guarantee a project’s emissions outcome or name one universally best material. Instead, it gives project teams a common framework for setting requirements, requesting credible environmental data and weighing embodied, operational, maintenance and site-performance impacts. The official ASLA guide page is the starting point for the current version.
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What is Decarbonizing Specifications v2?
Decarbonizing Specifications v2 is a thematic overview of specification practices intended to help landscape professionals reduce greenhouse-gas emissions associated with projects. ASLA presents it as a practical resource for decisions about materials, soils, grading, planting, equipment, site furnishings and other exterior improvements. The guide’s stated scope is seven design principles covering 24 areas of specification.
“Decarbonizing” in this context is broader than choosing a product advertised as low carbon. A specification can influence extraction and manufacturing, transportation, installation, replacement, maintenance, energy use and end-of-life handling. It can also protect or increase carbon stored in soils and vegetation. The guide therefore belongs in the project’s design and procurement workflow, not as a last-minute sustainability paragraph added after products have already been selected.
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ASLA Senior Associate Chris Hardy, ASLA, PLA, describes the scope this way: “The materials we specify, how we grade and protect soils, and what we plant all produce greenhouse gas emissions. As landscape architects, we can also plant for carbon sequestration and biodiversity, turning sites into part of the solution.” The statement is a rationale for taking responsibility for decisions; it is not a claim that applying the guide produces a fixed percentage reduction.
Who should use the guide?
The intended audience includes landscape architects and designers, specification writers, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers and industry leaders. Each group can use the same resource at a different point in the project:
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- Landscape architects and designers: translate goals into drawings, outline specifications, details and performance requirements.
- Specifiers: write submittal requirements, substitutions language and documentation requests that make environmental claims reviewable.
- Contractors: ask manufacturers and distributors for product data, identify feasible alternatives and preserve approved materials through procurement.
- Manufacturers and suppliers: provide transparent, third-party-verified information and improve production where the market is asking for it.
- Industry leaders: align office standards, purchasing policies and education with the broader climate and biodiversity effort.
The guide can support a small streetscape, a public park, a campus or a major development. The level of documentation should match the project’s scale, risk and client requirements rather than assuming every job needs the same analysis.
What changed in the 2026 update?
ASLA’s August 13, 2026 announcement identifies ten changes: five new sections and five significantly revised sections. The announcement does not present these as a product ranking or as proof of measured savings. They are signals about where the guide now expects teams to consider emissions and lifecycle effects.
| Change in v2 | Specification area | Why it matters in a project workflow |
|---|---|---|
| New | Playground and sports equipment | Equipment decisions can be evaluated alongside durability, replacement cycles, safety and installation requirements. |
| New | Operation and maintenance of exterior improvements | Specifications can address the emissions and resource demands that continue after construction. |
| New | Synthetic resilient surfacing | Teams can ask for product composition, service life, maintenance and end-of-life information before selection. |
| New | Site furnishings, including fences and gates | Furniture and enclosure packages can be included in the same evidence and substitution process as major site materials. |
| New | Vegetated roof systems | Roof planting systems require coordinated decisions about structure, growing media, drainage, planting and long-term care. |
| Significantly revised | Division 1 key sections | Administrative and procedural language can make environmental requirements enforceable through submittals and approvals. |
| Significantly revised | Flexible (bituminous) paving | Paving choices can be assessed for material impacts, construction, maintenance and expected service life. |
| Significantly revised | Soils, including earthworks | Grading, soil handling and protection affect both project emissions and the carbon stored in functioning soils. |
| Significantly revised | Trees and plants | Planting decisions connect procurement and installation with survival, maintenance, biodiversity and sequestration potential. |
| Significantly revised | Turf, including synthetic grass surfacing | Teams can consider establishment, irrigation, mowing, replacement and disposal rather than judging turf only at installation. |
The public overview confirms the seven-principle, 24-area structure but does not reproduce every section or clause. Use the full guide before copying detailed language or asserting a material threshold, comparative result or mandatory requirement.
How does v2 relate to ASLA’s 2040 climate goal?
Decarbonizing Specifications v2 supports ASLA’s Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan. That plan sets organizational goals for landscape architecture projects to achieve zero greenhouse-gas emissions and double carbon sequestration from business as usual by 2040, alongside biodiversity, economic and equity goals.
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Those are plan targets, not demonstrated results for every project using v2. A project team should describe its own baseline, boundaries, assumptions and progress rather than claim that the guide itself delivers zero emissions. The distinction matters in client reporting, public statements and permitting documents.
The plan also calls on landscape architects to advocate for lower-embodied-carbon products and asks manufacturers and suppliers for transparent, third-party-verified product information and production improvements. It encourages cradle-to-cradle life-cycle assessments and publication of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). These are recommended evidence practices, not proof that every listed product has an EPD or that an EPD alone establishes the lowest impact.
How can a project team apply the guide?
Use v2 as a decision process. The following sequence turns a thematic guide into responsibilities that can be assigned in an owner–designer–contractor team.
- Set the project boundary. Decide whether the brief covers only construction materials or also transport, installation, maintenance, replacement, energy use, water and end of life. Record the geographic, operational and time assumptions.
- Map the specification package. List the project’s relevant areas—such as paving, soils, plants, turf, furnishings, equipment, roofs and maintenance—and identify who controls each decision. Include Division 1 language so requirements survive procurement.
- Write performance requirements before naming products. State the functional needs: safety, accessibility, structural capacity, drainage, play performance, durability, appearance, habitat value or maintenance limits. This preserves competition while allowing lower-emission solutions to be proposed.
- Define acceptable evidence. Ask for an EPD or other third-party-verified information where available, plus the declared unit, life-cycle stages, manufacturing location, validity dates, assumptions and product identity. Do not compare documents with incompatible boundaries as if they were equivalent.
- Evaluate whole-life impacts. Consider embodied emissions together with expected service life, repairability, replacement frequency, maintenance inputs, operational energy and disposal. For a plant or soil system, include establishment and care assumptions; for a furnishing, include coating, repair and replacement.
- Review substitutions deliberately. Require the contractor to submit environmental and performance information for proposed substitutions. A lower-impact claim that fails durability, safety or site requirements is not an automatic improvement.
- Carry decisions into construction. Protect existing and imported soils, verify approved products, document deviations and give the maintenance team the information needed to preserve intended performance.
- Close the loop. At handover, record products, quantities, maintenance requirements and unresolved data gaps. This creates a better baseline for future projects without presenting estimates as measured savings.
What information should contractors request from suppliers?
ASLA’s guide page provides copy-and-paste email templates for communicating decarbonization goals to manufacturers and suppliers. The 2026 announcement also describes a complementary template for discussing lower-carbon concrete options. Check the current ASLA resource for the exact wording rather than reproducing an outdated version.
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A useful request identifies the project and product, then asks focused questions:
- What is the exact product name, model, formulation and manufacturing location?
- Is there a current, product-specific EPD or life-cycle assessment, and who verified it?
- What declared or functional unit and life-cycle stages does the document cover?
- What service life, maintenance, repair and replacement assumptions were used?
- What recycled, renewable or locally sourced content is claimed, and how is it verified?
- What installation, cleaning, energy or disposal requirements affect whole-life impacts?
- Can the supplier explain data limitations, averages, estimates and validity dates?
Requesting data is not the same as promising that one product will be selected. It gives the design and construction team a defensible basis for comparison and shows suppliers that transparent information affects purchasing decisions.
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How should teams compare materials and products?
V2 does not identify a single best material. Compare options against the project’s functional requirements and the quality of the available evidence.
| Evaluation axis | Questions to ask |
|---|---|
| Embodied emissions | What manufacturing, extraction, transport and installation impacts are documented, and are the boundaries comparable? |
| Operational impacts | Will the option require electricity, irrigation, fuel, heating, cooling or intensive maintenance during use? |
| Durability and replacement | How long is the expected service life under this site’s exposure, and can components be repaired or replaced separately? |
| Soil and ecological performance | Does the choice protect functioning soil, support plant survival, biodiversity and carbon storage, or create avoidable disturbance? |
| Transparency | Are claims supported by current, product-specific, third-party-verified information? |
| Construction practicality | Can the contractor source, install, protect and inspect the option without creating new risks or rework? |
| End of life | Can the product be reused, recycled, disassembled or responsibly disposed of in the project’s location? |
Do not add the numbers from unrelated EPDs or declare a winner when service-life assumptions differ. If evidence is incomplete, state the limitation and use a documented qualitative decision instead of false precision.
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ASLA notes that lighting is a landscape system in which both embodied carbon and operational emissions need evaluation to understand most of the design’s net impacts. A fixture with a lower manufacturing footprint may perform poorly if it consumes more energy or is replaced frequently; an efficient system can still carry significant manufacturing and replacement impacts.
For a lighting package, document fixture quantities, controls, operating schedule, expected life, maintenance access, replacement components and electricity assumptions. Coordinate the review with the electrical engineer and owner’s operations team. The goal is a lifecycle decision appropriate to the site, not a generic claim that one lamp type is always lower carbon.
What do the revised soils, planting and turf sections change in practice?
The revised areas encourage teams to treat living systems and earthwork as infrastructure with carbon consequences. During design, minimize unnecessary soil removal and replacement, define protection zones, and coordinate grading with the preservation of functioning soils. During construction, make soil protection and restoration requirements visible in the drawings, specifications and inspection plan.
For trees and plants, evaluate sourcing, transport, establishment, expected survival, irrigation, pruning and replacement. A plant list alone cannot demonstrate sequestration; the outcome depends on site conditions and long-term care. For turf—including synthetic grass—compare establishment, mowing, irrigation, infill or surface replacement, cleaning, heat and end-of-life considerations against the project’s actual use.
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The overview does not publish detailed thresholds or universal formulas for these topics. Consult the full guide and project-specific technical documentation before turning these principles into numeric requirements.
What role do maintenance and new equipment sections play?
The new operation-and-maintenance section widens the specification horizon beyond substantial completion. Owners should receive clear requirements for irrigation, mowing, fertilization, cleaning, lighting controls, surface care, inspections and replacement parts where those activities affect emissions or resource use. A maintenance plan that cannot be funded or performed will not preserve the design intent.
Playground and sports equipment, resilient surfacing, site furnishings, fences and gates can represent substantial quantities of material and recurring replacement work. Include them in the same submittal, durability and end-of-life review as paving and planting. For vegetated roofs, coordinate structural loading, waterproofing, drainage, growing media, plant establishment and maintenance so that a carbon objective does not undermine roof performance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What are the most common specification pitfalls?
- Using “low carbon” without a definition. Specify the evidence and boundary required, not an unreviewable marketing phrase.
- Relying on an EPD as a verdict. An EPD improves transparency but does not, by itself, prove that a product is best for this project.
- Comparing unlike documents. Check units, life-cycle modules, declared service life, geography and verification status.
- Ignoring operations. Include energy, irrigation, mowing, cleaning and replacement where they are material to the system.
- Leaving maintenance out of the contract. Assign responsibilities, frequencies and access requirements before handover.
- Overprescribing a named product. Write performance and documentation requirements so compliant alternatives can be evaluated fairly.
- Claiming achieved reductions from a target. Describe ASLA’s 2040 goal as a goal, then report project-specific calculations or limitations separately.
- Copying a clause without checking the current guide. The public overview is condensed; verify detailed language in the live ASLA resource.
Is Decarbonizing Specifications v2 a certification or rating system?
No. It is a professional guidance resource, not a product label, project certification or emissions calculator. Compliance language should come from the owner’s contract and the project’s documented criteria, while v2 supplies a framework for making those criteria more climate-aware.
Can smaller construction projects use the same approach?
Yes. The effort can be scaled: a small project might document a few high-impact packages and request supplier evidence, while a large project may complete a fuller lifecycle assessment. ASLA committee chair Aida Curtis describes the resource as guidance that can be put into practice on projects “large or small,” but the appropriate level of analysis remains project-specific.
What should a project team do next?
Download the current Decarbonizing Specifications v2 resource, identify the specification areas that apply, and assign an owner for each evidence request. Add clear documentation and substitution requirements to the procurement package, coordinate embodied and operational reviews for systems such as lighting, and give maintenance staff the information needed to preserve performance.
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ASLA’s broader Climate and Biodiversity Action Plan provides the organizational context. Treat its 2040 objectives as direction for better decisions, then make project claims only from the boundaries, data and assumptions the team can show.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Decarbonizing Specifications v2 free to use?
ASLA presents it as a digital professional resource on its public guide page. Confirm the current access terms and any updates directly on that page, because availability details can change.
Does every product need an Environmental Product Declaration?
No universal requirement is stated in the available data. ASLA encourages transparent, third-party-verified information and EPDs where appropriate; when an EPD is unavailable, document the alternative evidence and its limitations.
Where can I find supplier communication language?
The ASLA guide page includes copy-and-paste email templates for discussing decarbonization with manufacturers and suppliers. The 2026 announcement also references a template for lower-carbon concrete conversations.
How should a contractor handle a proposed lower-carbon substitution?
Request product-specific environmental evidence alongside the normal technical submittal, then check functional performance, durability, maintenance, availability and lifecycle assumptions. Approval should follow the project’s substitution procedure rather than the carbon claim alone.
Does the guide provide a carbon-reduction percentage for each material?
No verified percentage savings or product ranking is provided in the public overview. Any quantified project result requires a defined baseline, comparable lifecycle data and project-specific calculations.
