How & Why

Earth is a closed system. More than a home, Earth nurtures our existence. What we do to the environment, we do to ourselves.

MELA is an association of green industry professionals dedicated to adopting sustainable designs, methods and materials as standard practice. Our focus is the built landscape and the green industry that supports it.

We are dedicated to sustainability in the built environment because we believe that we can no longer operate in a linear "take, make, waste" fashion. Deforestation, desertification, topsoil loss, species eradication, greenhouse gas production and habitat destruction are just a few of the indicators of decline in the natural world.

The built landscape lives at the intersection of the built environment and the natural world. It is unique among human endeavors. It is alive. Its largest class of materials is drawn directly from the plant kingdom. It relies on the rules of nature to survive and thrive.

Sustainability means living today without borrowing from tomorrow. It’s the midpoint between degradation and renewal. Sustainability is only a goal. Nature regenerates. We must become a partner with nature. To get us there, we need measurable steps that yield positive results.

The triple bottom line—people, planet and profits—is beginning to temper the industrial-age economic model with ecology and equity. It’s people, planet and profits that, in balance, will help shift our evolution back toward the support and regeneration of nature.

To read more, check out the articles posted here.