SITES improves quality of life by making health, equity, and ecological performance explicit design goals for outdoor spaces. The rating system guides teams to create landscapes that people can reach and understand, use safely, move through, rest in, and share with others. It also asks projects to protect air and water, manage stormwater, reduce heat, and support biodiversity. Those environmental functions shape the conditions in which people live, work, and spend time outdoors.
SITES is a framework for planning, designing, developing, and managing landscapes—not a clinical intervention. Certification indicates that a project met the requirements of the SITES v2 Rating System through third-party review; it does not prove that every certified site causes a particular health result for every visitor.
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What SITES is and why it matters for health
SITES is a sustainability rating and certification system for landscapes and outdoor spaces, including projects that do not contain a building. Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) owns and administers the program, provides third-party certification to SITES v2, and offers the SITES Accredited Professional credential. The initiative was developed through a collaboration led by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and the U.S. Botanic Garden. GBCI acquired the program in 2015.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsBecause SITES evaluates the land around and between buildings, it fills a different role from a building-focused system. It can be used for parks, campuses, streetscapes, civic landscapes, institutional grounds, residential developments, and other outdoor projects. It complements LEED rather than replacing it: a project may address building performance through LEED while addressing site and landscape performance through SITES.
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The health connection is practical. A landscape can remove barriers to use, make people feel safer, offer a quiet place to recover from stress, encourage everyday movement, and provide settings for social contact. At the same time, vegetation, soils, water systems, and shade can moderate heat, filter pollutants, slow runoff, and provide habitat. SITES brings those human and ecological considerations into one project process.
Five SITES strategies that shape quality of life
The Human Health and Well-Being section of SITES v2 translates broad goals into design and management decisions. The credits below are framework strategies: they identify conditions a project should provide, while the actual experience depends on design quality, operations, local context, and ongoing maintenance.
1. Make access, safety, and wayfinding understandable (Credit 6.2)
People are more likely to use an outdoor space when they can reach it without unnecessary obstacles and can understand how it works once they arrive. A health-supportive site therefore begins with the basics:
- Continuous, accessible routes that connect entrances, amenities, transit stops, and gathering areas.
- Grades, surfaces, widths, crossings, and seating planned for people with varied mobility, strength, and stamina.
- Lighting, visibility, sight lines, and edge conditions that support a sense of security without creating glare or excessive light pollution.
- Signs, maps, landmarks, and consistent naming that help first-time visitors navigate.
- Entrances and paths that are visible from surrounding streets or occupied areas where appropriate.
The SITES discussion links safe access and navigation with reduced fear of crime, social connection, and broader use. These are design intentions, not guarantees: perceived safety also depends on programming, maintenance, surrounding activity, and how the space is managed.
2. Plan for equitable site use (Credit 6.3)
Equity starts before the drawing is finalized. Teams identify who uses the site, who is missing, what barriers people face, and which stakeholders need a meaningful role in decisions. The resulting program can include public access to events, facilities, amenities, or recurring activities rather than reserving the best spaces for a narrow group.
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Useful questions include:
- Can children, older adults, people with disabilities, workers, nearby residents, and visitors all reach and use the principal amenities?
- Are there options for different cultural practices, schedules, languages, and comfort levels?
- Do operating hours, fees, permits, or security rules unintentionally exclude people?
- Are community members involved early enough to influence priorities, not merely react to a finished plan?
Equitable use is a management commitment as well as a physical-design decision. A beautifully designed plaza that is inaccessible, unaffordable, or closed whenever people need it does not deliver equitable benefit.
3. Provide places for mental restoration (Credit 6.4)
Restoration means giving people an opportunity to recover from stress or mental fatigue. SITES calls for accessible quiet outdoor spaces and unobstructed views of vegetation. A restorative area might be a planted courtyard, a shaded garden, a sheltered overlook, or a calm edge of a larger park.
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Designers can strengthen that experience by separating quiet areas from noisy service routes, providing comfortable places to sit, using layered vegetation for visual interest, and preserving views rather than blocking them with signs or equipment. The space should be reachable by the same accessible network as other major destinations, so restoration is not reserved for people who can manage difficult terrain.
4. Build physical activity into the site (Credit 6.5)
Movement does not have to mean a dedicated sports facility. A connected path network, attractive stairs, safe walking loops, play areas, outdoor exercise elements, and destinations spaced along a route can make ordinary activity easier to choose. The strongest plans offer multiple levels of effort: a short, level loop for a quick walk; longer routes for regular exercise; and places to pause.
Routes need practical support to remain usable: shade or weather protection where appropriate, seating at sensible intervals, clear surfaces, crossings that prioritize pedestrians, and lighting suited to operating hours. Programming can add opportunities for movement, but the underlying circulation system should work on an ordinary day when no event is scheduled.
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5. Support social connection (Credit 6.6)
People connect when a site offers reasons to stay and settings that make interaction comfortable. SITES examples include seating, games, picnic areas, playgrounds, outdoor auditoriums, and farmers markets. A successful plan usually mixes small, informal settings with larger shared areas:
- Moveable or fixed seats that accommodate individuals, pairs, and groups.
- Tables, shade, drinking water, and convenient waste service near gathering areas.
- Play and recreation spaces that allow different ages and abilities to participate.
- Flexible open areas for performances, markets, classes, or community events.
- Edges that allow people to watch activity without having to join it.
Social infrastructure works best when it is distributed rather than concentrated in one hard-to-reach destination. Connections to sidewalks, transit, adjacent buildings, and neighborhood routes help make the site part of daily life.
How ecological performance contributes to well-being
SITES treats human well-being and ecosystem services as related objectives. Protecting existing vegetation and soils can retain habitat and reduce the disturbance associated with construction. Planting strategies can support biodiversity while providing shade and attractive views. Healthy soils and planted areas can help absorb and filter rainfall, reducing pressure on drainage systems and lowering the likelihood of polluted runoff reaching waterways.
Heat management is another direct quality-of-life concern. Tree canopy, soil-based planting, and appropriately selected materials can create cooler routes and gathering areas than exposed paving. Air and water quality protections benefit everyone, including people who may be more vulnerable to heat, pollution, or flooding. These benefits are site- and climate-dependent; a project must select species, irrigation, soil practices, and maintenance methods that fit local conditions.
The framework therefore asks teams to look beyond a single amenity. A shaded path that also connects transit, supports walking, protects soil, and links habitat can provide more durable value than an isolated decorative feature.
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A practical SITES workflow for a construction project
SITES is most useful when it influences decisions before construction documents are complete. The following sequence adapts the framework to a typical landscape or site-development project.
- Set the project boundary and goals. Define which land and outdoor spaces are included, identify the intended users, and establish priorities for access, restoration, activity, gathering, water, heat, and habitat.
- Assemble the right team. Include landscape architecture, civil engineering, architecture, ecology, accessibility expertise, operations, and community representatives as the project requires. Assign responsibility for each SITES requirement instead of leaving documentation to one person at the end.
- Study existing conditions. Map soils, hydrology, vegetation, shade, heat exposure, circulation barriers, neighboring uses, transit connections, utilities, and culturally important features. Record who currently uses the site and when.
- Engage users and stakeholders. Ask about safety, routes, desired activities, quiet places, cultural needs, and operating constraints. Use more than one format where possible—such as meetings, walks, surveys, or workshops—to reach people who cannot attend a single session.
- Translate needs into a connected plan. Place accessible routes, destinations, quiet areas, active spaces, social settings, shade, drainage, and habitat as a coordinated network. Check that one intervention does not undermine another—for example, that a stormwater area does not cut off an accessible route.
- Protect and build the ecological systems. Preserve valuable soils and vegetation where feasible, specify resilient plant communities, design stormwater treatment, and plan materials and construction practices that limit pollution and unnecessary disturbance.
- Document the design and construction decisions. Keep drawings, specifications, calculations, engagement records, product information, and field changes organized against the applicable SITES v2 requirements. Documentation should show what was intended and what was actually built.
- Plan operations before opening. Assign responsibility for irrigation, vegetation establishment, litter removal, lighting, path repairs, event scheduling, and accessibility checks. Include seasonal and long-term maintenance costs in the operating plan.
- Submit for third-party review. GBCI evaluates the project against SITES v2 requirements. The project team should resolve review comments with evidence rather than treating certification as a marketing claim detached from performance.
- Monitor use and adapt. After opening, observe which routes and spaces are used, listen for access or safety problems, and adjust programming and maintenance. Certification does not remove the need for management.
SITES and LEED: what each system covers
The two systems can work together, but they answer different primary questions. The comparison below stays within the distinctions established by the framework descriptions.
| Question | SITES | LEED |
|---|---|---|
| Primary scope | Landscape and outdoor-space planning, design, development, and management | Green building performance |
| Can it apply where there is no building? | Yes; SITES includes outdoor projects without buildings | Building-focused applications generally require a building or building project context |
| Human and community concerns highlighted here | Access and wayfinding, equitable use, mental restoration, physical activity, and social connection | Not detailed in the reviewed SITES material; use the applicable LEED rating system for its own requirements |
| Certification administration | Third-party certification by GBCI to SITES v2 | Administered through the LEED program and its applicable certification processes |
| Relationship | Can complement building certification by addressing the site | Can complement SITES by addressing building performance |
There is no single “better” system in this comparison. A building project with substantial outdoor space may need both scopes addressed; a park or landscape without a building may be a natural SITES candidate.
What the example projects show—and what they do not prove
Atlanta BeltLine
The Atlanta BeltLine is described as a sustainable development project whose guidelines require SITES for its designed parks, with parks required to reach SITES Silver or Gold. Kevin Burke, FASLA, Director of Design for the Atlanta BeltLine, said: “In this day and age, we focus too often on the here and now. What Atlanta BeltLine seeks to do is, at its core, create a legacy project that will serve the residents and visitors to Atlanta for the coming decades and beyond,” explains Kevin Burke, FASLA, Director of Design for the Atlanta BeltLine. “That is why we adopted SITES for the Atlanta BeltLine. SITES ensures we optimize the parks for the community providing both short and long term benefits.”
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West Laurel Hill Nature Sanctuary and Cemetery
West Laurel Hill in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, is presented as a project combining landscape requirements with human well-being and educational opportunities. It demonstrates that restorative settings, ecological stewardship, and learning can coexist in a working landscape. The description is illustrative, not an independent impact evaluation.
What the available evidence can—and cannot—say
A 2019 article by Sonja Trierweiler in the American Society of Landscape Architects’ publication The Field discusses research and public-health guidance behind the Human Health and Well-Being credits. It is useful for explaining why access, vegetation, activity, and social settings matter, but it is not a systematic review. A design feature that is associated with better experiences in one context may perform differently in another because of climate, management, surrounding land uses, or who can reach the site.
The article reports one prominent statistic from the U.S. Green Building Council Living Standard Report, Volume I: 11 percent of surveyed people associated terms such as “green space” and “green building” with creating an environment that lets people live longer and healthier lives. Participants selected the three words or phrases they considered most and least related to that idea. The article does not state the report year, sample size, or detailed methodology in the text reviewed. Therefore, 11 percent is a dated perception finding—not a current population estimate and not evidence that a SITES-certified project produces a specific health outcome.
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- Adding health features late: A few benches or planters cannot repair an inaccessible circulation network. Set access, quiet, activity, and social goals during site analysis and concept design.
- Counting amenities instead of testing usability: A path may exist but still be too steep, confusing, hot, or disconnected. Walk the proposed routes with users who have different mobility and sensory needs.
- Treating engagement as a meeting: One presentation is not equitable participation. Document who was reached, what changed, and how people who are often absent from planning were included.
- Separating ecology from human use: A stormwater or habitat area that blocks a key route can create a new barrier. Coordinate grading, drainage, planting, and circulation as one system.
- Ignoring operations: Dead plants, broken lights, closed restrooms, or inaccessible paths quickly erase intended benefits. Fund maintenance, assign ownership, and schedule regular checks.
- Overstating certification: SITES is evidence of conformance with a rating system, not a medical guarantee. Describe the design strategies and documented performance without promising longer life, reduced illness, or universal psychological benefits.
Professional pathway
People who routinely plan, design, build, or manage sustainable landscapes can consider the SITES Accredited Professional credential offered through GBCI. Credential requirements and exam details can change, so prospective applicants should confirm current information with GBCI before enrolling or planning a project role. A credential can strengthen technical capacity; it does not replace local engagement, accessibility expertise, or a project-specific operations plan.
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