The latest project to come out of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is its teaming up with Germany’s Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMVBS) to promote more sustainability in the United States.

As it turns out, we Americans aren’t the only ones trying out this whole sustainable living idea. In the formal way that all governments are, the United States and Germany signed a Joint Declaration of Intent, which basically is a really fancy way of saying, “Let’s work together.”

Here are some of the things the two country’s hope to accomplish together:

• Urban land use, including green space planning, urban farming and agriculture, temporary greening, brown field rehabilitation, as well as the quality of public spaces, urban man-made landscapes and architecture and their role as locational factors
• Construction technology and the development of building codes for safer, more affordable housing, with particular regard to residential energy efficiency, urban energy use, and solar, wind and geothermal housing advances
• Housing finance policy, including both homeownership and rental programs, and government monitoring of mortgage capital markets
• Housing rent subsidy programs: design, development and administration

You can learn about HUD’s partnership with Germany here.