In 2010, the first year of the Transformation Initiative (TI), the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Fiscal Year 2010 Appropriations Act made as much as 1 percent of program funds available for (1) research, evaluation, and program metrics; (2) program demonstrations; (3) technical assistance (TA); and (4) information technology. One 2-year program that Congress mandated through the TI was the Sustainable Construction in Indian Country (SCinIC) initiative. This initiative fulfilled many TI goals and brought increased attention to the issue of sustainable construction practices within Indian Country. TI is part of a reinvention of HUD that leverages technology and a new way of doing business to respond to the need for increased transparency and improved service delivery.

Sustainable construction within the Native American world, as elsewhere, is implemented for cost savings, energy savings, enhanced durability, and environmental benefit. The practice of sustainability in American Indian tribes, however, also carries with it a strong cultural component that is both contemporary and traditional. Most North American Indian tribes practiced environmental sustainability, or respect for the environment. Environmental sustainability is the “philosophy and practice in which people do not extract more resources from the environment than necessary, leaving resources available for future generations.”