A Green Vision

By Bob Buddemeier

A new partnership between residents and the RVM administration is taking shape on campus.  The Green Team – a group of residents concerned with conservation, sustainability and resilience to climate and environmental change – is reorganizing to support the administration by investigating and proposing actions that would enhance RVM’s position as a business, a resident and staff community, and a member of the larger community.

According to Gini Armstrong, Chair, the Green Team has been asked by Administration to assist their sustainability efforts in three important areas.

1. Energy, specifically the use of solar as a source of electricity on campus. A policy will need to be developed to cover possible retrofitting existing cottages, new cottage construction, and creation of a solar farm. While residents will not be writing the policy, we will provide input.
2. Waste stream management, including recycling as well as composting (both landscaping and food waste). Our role will be to evaluate cost-effective ways to increase resident understanding, participation, and communication to reduce what must end up in our landfill.
3. Water conservation, with efforts to research and recommend ways to reduce water use on campus. The Green Team will work in conjunction with the landscape and grounds advisory committee to create and maintain a beautiful yet water-wise campus.

All of these are areas in which both technology and the need for new and different approaches are increasing rapidly.

As befits a business entity, RVM strives to keep its costs (and therefore its charges to residents) as low as possible.  This means that there is very limited staff time that can be diverted to long-range planning or review of future needs.  By contrast, the resident community combines a volunteer ethic with a wide range of expertise, interest and experience.  The potential result: a synergy in which the Green Team is a resident focus for providing the review and research that RVM needs but cannot produce unaided.

The joint effort links RVM’s mission and vision – identifying actions to take now in the interests of assuring a desirable future.  All three of the topics defined by RVM as desirable targets for cooperation represent areas that involve significant and/or increasing costs and needs for independence, security, and marketing effectiveness.

At a meeting on Jan 31, Executive Director Dave Keaton and Facilities Services Drew Gilliland briefed the Green Team on current activities and desires for future cooperative efforts. Specific tasks were defined during the ensuing discussions, and the group then identified the key individuals who would lead the tasks:

• Energy
  Solar Energy Generation – Jim Ellis and Mike Keller
  Energy Conservation – Mike Keller
• Water
  Irrigation, Native Plants – Sue Polich
• Recycling – Phyllis Douglas, Alysse Furukawa
  Containers/Plastic – Judy Blue, Roberta Rinker-Ludloff
• Publicity – Gini Armstrong

Some initial work has been done on the various tasks, and the task teams will have Facilities Services staff assigned as resource providers. A food waste/composting project has been undertaken by RVM Administration as part of the Manor kitchen renovation, and is now nearing the implementation phase.

In addition to providing the Administration with input for their policy and planning considerations, the Green Team will provide a base for informing residents about the desirability of the actions being considered, information about how they can be implemeted, and support for further development of a collaborative stewardship ethic at RVM.

Questions?  Comments?  Suggestions? Enter them in the Reply section below, and we will forward them to the appropriate Green Team and/or staff members.