Writing for the BBC, U.S. landscape architect Martha Schwartz states that the current focus on green building ignores the fact that we need a holistic approach to sustainable design. She suggests that we should focus more on well-designed cities than on individual buildings, because “the most sustainable form of human habitation is the city…. Encouraging people to live side by side more closely will help the local ecology to flourish, because the community can utilise superior water stations and sewage treatment plants, as well as improving electricity consumption patterns.” Link.

I’d be willing to bet that if you take a holistic point of view, you’d find that a LEEDS certified building that is erected in a greenfields development on the site of a former farm harms the environment far more than a conventional building in the middle of a city….