Ensure that at least 50% of hardscapes (e.g., sidewalks, patios,
driveways, parking lots and roofs) on the project site meet one of the
following requirements:

Locate trees or other plantings to provide shading of hardscapes. Shading should be cal-culated for noon on June 21, when the sun is directly overhead, based on five years’ growth.

OR

Install light-colored, high-albedoAlbedo is synonymous with solar reflectance. materials or vegetation for hardscapes. Acceptable strategies include the following:

• white concrete;
• reflective roofing;
• ENERGY STAR qualified roof products used in appropriately sloped application;
• open pavers (counting only the vegetation, not the pavers), or an engineered grass paver; and
• any material with a solar reflectanceAlso known as albedo: the fraction of solar energy that is reflected by a surface on a scale of 0 to 1. Black paint has a solar reflectance of 0; white paint (titanium dioxide) has a solar reflectance of 1. The standard technique for its determination uses spectrophotometric measurements, with an integrating sphere to determine the reflectance at each wavelength. The average reflectance is then determined by an averaging process, using a standard solar spectrum, as documented by ASTM Standards E903 and E892 index (SRI) meeting the following criteria in Table 1.

Table 1.

Reflective materials having a lower SRI value than those listed above may be used if the weighted SRI average meets the following criteria: