Ed MacMullan to Speak to the ESP Conference

Posted on July 25, 2012 in by Ann Hollingshead

Ed MacMullan will address the economics of natural capital, ecosystem services, and SITES credits.

In a presentation to the 5th Annual ESP Conference in Portland, Oregon, Senior Economist Ed MacMullan will address the economic and ecosystem service benefits of prerequisites and credits issued by the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES), an interdisciplinary effort to create "voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices." Ed will address the complex relationship between natural capital, ecosystem goods and services, and human well-being and will introduce the ECONorthwest framework for analyzing these issues.

Ed will join Danielle Pieranunzi, Director of the Sustainable Sites Initaitve, as co-host of the Working Group "SITES Rating System: Influencing Landscape Performance using an Ecosystem Serivces Framework."

The conference will be held at the Hilton Doubletree in Portland, Oregon from July 31st - August 4th. Ed will co-host a Working Group on Wednesday, August 1st, from 10:00 onwards.

For more information, or to register for the conference, visit http://www.espconference.org.

Ed MacMullan is a nationally recognized expert on ecosystem services and the economics of low impact development. He currently serves on the Hydrology Subcommittee of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, where he helped develop the guidelines and performance benchmarks for the SITES rating system. In his project work and alongside other staff at ECONorthwest, Ed regularly helps regulators, decisionmakers, and stakeholders at the local, state and national level understand the economic aspects of stormwater management and green infrastructure.