Sustainability has been a business buzzword for a decade or longer. However, sustainable growth is increasingly a concern for burgeoning municipalities, and even homeowners in the Carolinas are increasingly looking at how they can do their part. Urban growth taxes resources, often in unexpected ways. Sustainable hardscape design can help lighten the load borne by aging infrastructure, and Unit Paving Inc can help point a way forward.
What is Hardscaping?
Landscaping is made up of softscapes and hardscapes. Softscaping refers to the organic matter that fills a space, and can include (but is not limited to) grasses, shrubs, flowers, trees, and other things that grow. Hardscaping refers to non-organic, and often man-made, features that complete the landscape. These can include walls, footpaths, bike paths, fountains, man made ponds, and roads.
What Makes Hardscaping “Green”?
Hardscaping can be made more environmentally friendly. The EPA recommends a number of best practices for “greenscaping,” the practice of environmentally-sustainable landscaping. Many of their recommendations refer specifically to hardscape landscaping. They suggest that sustainable hardscape designs should “[r]educe nonpermeable hardscape wherever possible to minimize rainwater runoff and erosion.”
Municipal hardscaping has other environmental benefits as well. By definition, it requires no water or fertilizer. When installed properly, it also aids with water sequestration and filtration, limiting runoff, reducing load on sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants, and filtering off pollutants.
Basic Principles of Sustainable Hardscapes
Sustainable hardscaping borrows some of its tenets from sustainable landscaping. In brief:
- Water is finite. It should be treated as a resource, and the hardscape designed in such a way that returns water to the soil, not the sewer.
- Material resources are finite. Materials used should be recycled and/or locally sourced to the greatest extent possible.
- Soil and plant life should be preserved. Hardscaping should complement the natural environment and assist in its preservation.
In addition to the design and installation techniques used by Unit Paving, we also offer a range of pavers made of natural materials that follow best practices for sustainability. Among the paving products we offer are permeable pavers, clay, and natural stone pavers, backed with careful installation that is intended to bear up under heavy traffic while also capturing and filtering stormwater runoff.
A Note for Homeowners
By and large, we’ve concerned ourselves with municipal hardscaping in this article. However, it bears mention that homeowners can benefit from sustainable hardscape practices. The principles and benefits are the same; only the scale is changed.
South Carolina Hardscape Contractors
Sustainable hardscape design is equal parts art and science. On the one hand, you’ll want the urban spaces you’re hardscaping to be attractive, and special attention should be paid if the hardscape landscaping is undertaken in an area with a particular historical character.
On the other hand, there are a number of practical concerns — drainage, runoff management, and much more — which have more to do with function than esthetics. While Unit Paving Inc has helped our fair share of homeowners in the Carolinas, we have the experience to design and deliver at scale. That experience is invaluable when it comes to providing hardscaping services to a diverse clientele that includes businesses, towns, and cities. We invite you to contact Unit Paving for a paving consultation.