• Planning across scales: This means considering everything from regional- to site-specific issues, with involvement by staff and stakeholders at all levels.
• Layering the systems: This term was coined by Patrick Condon of the Design Center for Sustainability to describe the process of involving experts from various disciplines, such as road planners, storm water engineers, energy experts, and landscape architects.
• Ecological inventories: Planning should include ecological inventories. Where there is already a lot of development, this might be just a simple tree inventory and assessment. For an environmentally sensitive site, the planners might need a full-blown inventory of soils, vegetation communities, habitat types, wildlife, and heritage and wildlife trees. 
• Charettes: Design charrettes give people from different disciplines an effective way to identify and capitalize on points of synergy between the systems they each know best

An excellent example of this approach is Southeast False Creek in Vancouver, British Columbia, where more than half the site is green. An island, constructed with fill from site excavations, provides wildlife habitat. Streets are designed to manage run-off, and there is plan for urban agriculture. Buildings must achieve LEED Silver certification.  Finally, a district energy utility will supply heating and cooling.