The Trust for Sustainable Development is an inter-disciplinary group of professionals committed to envisioning, designing and building sustainable communities (towns and buildings). A small core staff works full-time at the Trust in research, education and project pre-development.
The founder of the Trust, David Butterfield has guided his TSD team through a cutting-edge process combining in-depth scientific, economic, social and financial analysis with extensive public and government consultation, making him one of the world's prominent experts in "sustainable community development" technology.
The Trust has planned, designed, and with development partners, financed and built several highly successful projects ranging from brownfield re-development to sustainable New Towns. For example, the Trust, working with the City of Tucson, oversaw the creation of an urban prototype for sustainable communities, which has been executed in the award-winning Community of Civano in Tucson, Arizona. The Trust also oversaw the award winning mixed-use, sustainable building called Shoal Point, on a brownfield site in Victoria, British Columbia. With the Federal Government of Mexico, the Trust with development partners, developed and the first neighborhood of The Villages of Loreto Bay, a sustainable community in Baja California Sur (South) Mexico. Working for the City of McCallen, Texas, the Trust planned the new 37 acre McCallen Town Center.