University of South Florida (Tampa)
OP-9: Landscape Management

Institution’s grounds include areas that are managed in accordance with:

1)     An Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program;

Or

2)     An organic land care standard or landscape management program that has eliminated the use of inorganic fertilizers and chemical pesticides, fungicides and herbicides in favor of ecologically preferable materials.

To count, an IPM program must use a four-tiered approach as outlined in G. Standards and Terms. Management programs that employ some IPM principles or techniques but do not include a four-tiered approach should be counted as conventional programs.

This credit applies to all institutions with managed grounds comprising one or more percent of the total area of the campus.

Institutions earn the maximum of 2 points available for this credit when 100 percent of campus grounds are managed in accordance with a program that has eliminated the use of inorganic fertilizers and chemical pesticides, fungicides and herbicides in favor of ecologically preferable materials. Incremental points are available based on the percentage of grounds managed in accordance with an IPM program and/or an organic program. Scoring for this credit is based on the total area of managed grounds: the sum of areas managed under conventional, IPM and organic programs.

Points for this credit are calculated automatically in the STARS Reporting Tool as follows:

Timeframe

Report on current program(s) and practices at the time of submission.

Sampling and Data Standards

An institution may exclude the footprint of buildings and impervious surfaces, experimental agricultural land, and land that is not regularly managed or maintained from the area of managed grounds as long as such areas are excluded consistently.

To simplify reporting, an institution may elect to account for the footprint of a building or facility and associated impervious surfaces such as sidewalks and parking areas based on how the entire site is managed as long as the same methodology is used consistently for all managed areas. For example, if the Housing Department uses integrated pest management to maintain four acres that include residence halls and paved surfaces as well as associated grounds, all four acres may be counted toward the “area managed in accordance with an IPM program” as long as all managed areas are counted the same way.