Gulf State Park Lodge Achieves Platinum Sustainable SITES Certification

The first official Sustainable SITES certification given in Alabama has been awarded to the Lodge at Gulf State Park, also earning the title as the first SITES hospitality project in the world.

Thanksgiving is an opportunity to turn off the ongoing negative newsfeed, and focus on all that we have to be grateful for.

I spent the week prior to Thanksgiving at Greenbuild Atlanta 2019, in an intense bubble of change-makers. This Thanksgiving, I am particularly grateful for all of the determined and persistent dreamers working to design and build a better world. I am even more grateful for all of the building owners, demanding that we do better!

Right in the middle of the conference, the day before our panel on the Gulf State Park project, “Ecotourism in Alabama’s Dunes, LEED, SITES, and Fortified” we learned that the The Lodge at Gulf State Park had achieved Sustainable SITES, PLATINUM certification.

SITES is a program of the Sustainable SITES Initiative, and is like LEED, for landscapes. There are less than 60 certified SITES projects in the world, and Platinum is the highest level of certification that a project can achieve. The Gulf State Park Lodge is the first Sustainable SITES project in Alabama, and the first SITES hospitality project in the world. It has also been awarded the first Fortified™ Commercial building in the world and the Interpretive Center is on target to receive the Living Building designation from the International Living Future Institute.

We all hear too many statistics where Alabama is leading in a crises of some type. I am grateful to shine a light on the fact that we are a regional and global leader in biodiversity, and to have had this opportunity to restore, protect, and celebrate that biodiversity at the Gulf State Park.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and joyful Thanksgiving- may we all count our blessings!