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Rolling green
Santropol Roulant gives itself an
eco-friendly makeover
Tracey Lindeman, Montreal Mirror
The grass—and attitude—is always greener at Santropol Roulant, especially since the community meals-on-wheels program embarked on a long-term “EcoChallenge” designed to make the organization, and the surrounding community, a whole lot more sustainable.
“From the start, there’s always been an environmental ethos to us, to the point that it’s in our mission statement, but we only started identifying it a few years back,” says Elana Ludman, Santropol Roulant’s director of development and communications. These days, the Roulant is looking to implement a strong and well-rounded model of sustainability—economic and social, as well as environmental—for the benefit of the organization and all those who come into contact with it.
Santropol Roulant stands at the corner of St-Urbain and Duluth, a busy, vibrant intersection at the foot of the mountain. Inside, volunteers prepare the day’s meals to be delivered mostly by bike to seniors who have lost some degree of autonomy. The intergenerational meals-on-wheels program serves up between 80 and 100 meals daily, five days a week.
“We really can provide that personal close relationship with our clients, and cater to their needs, which empowers people to feel that they have choice in the food that they’re getting,” Ludman says. Built from the ground up in 1995, the Roulant has been working to help people meet their basic needs in terms of food and quality of life.
Santropol Roulant’s sustainability framework was developed by The Natural Step (TNS), an international organization that normally helps communities become more sustainable. The Roulant enlisted TNS’s help last summer to tailor a long-term vision of sustainability catering to their needs and realities, becoming the first non-profit organization the Canadian TNS branch has worked with. It was a good match—as a volunteer-based, participative program, the Roulant wanted to include staff and some of its 200 volunteers in the process of analyzing its consumption and waste. ..
(9 Aug 2007)
How to Pursue Sustainability at Community Colleges
Scott Carlson, Chronicle of Higher Education
Ithaca, N.Y. — One might not think of community colleges as places where sustainability would take root. But two community-college presidents outlined ways that their institutions have pursued sustainability during a conference that began today here at the Institute for Community College Development at Cornell University.
Mary F.T. Spilde, of Lane Community College, in Oregon, and Kathleen Schatzberg, of Cape Cod Community College, said underfunded commuter campuses can use cooperation, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and good old grit to make progress in energy efficiency, recycling, water conservation, and other environmental programs.
Ms. Spilde, whose institution is in the very green Northwest, said a number of people on her campus are pushing for sustainability. But while the college has a wealth of enthusiasm, it has a dearth of money.
“I’ve been cutting budget for 9 of the 12 years I’ve been at Lane,” she told the crowd. So the college reinvests money it saves through recycling and energy-efficiency programs.
She talked about “seeding” sustainability efforts throughout the college — creating little programs here and there that add up to an effective whole. If a college starts small in many areas, it can get a lot done without worrying about tackling big projects, which can seem overwhelming. ..
(6 Aug 2007)
Transition Town Totnes Explored on BBC Radio Scotland
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
On Monday morning, one of the best pieces of radio journalism about Transition Initiatives, and about Totnes in particular, was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland’s The Investigation programme.
The reporter, Mark Stephen, had travelled to Totnes a couple of months ago, and done a wide range of interviews, which are woven into the piece. You can read his report here and you can listen to the piece by clicking the ‘Listen to this Programme’ icon on the top right hand side. You can also hear the piece and the subsequent phone-in together by clicking here.
The phone-in gives a real sense of how the Transition concept is taking off, people from all over Scotland ringing in to say what a wonderful idea. If you are feeling despondent and cynical today, and that change isn’t possible because no-one ever wants to change, check out the phone in as well as the main piece.
(8 August 2007)
A good radio program, as Rob says, though journalist Mark Stephen seems to have a fixation about hippies. -BA
New Transition Film on You Tube
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
Jim and Mary Beth Heddle of the EON, the Ecological Options Network, have just posted on YouTube the film they made when they were in Totnes during the winter, which consists largely of the interviews we already posted the transcripts of, interspersed with little vignettes of me walking around the town.
As a single film that covers the broad territory of the Transition concept, it is one of the best that we have. Have a look. It does fail to answer the question though, that why it is that every time a film crew or radio reporter comes to Totnes it pours with rain… (as you might have noticed in the Radio Scotland piece posted yesterday).
(X August 2007)
Mainstreaming Clean Energy in Rizhao, China
Worldchanging
On June 15, the city of Rizhao, China, received a 2007 World Clean Energy Award (WCEA) in the category of “Policy and Lawmaking” for its popularization of clean energy. The award’s presenters noted that in a nation known for its heavy dependence on coal, Rizhao represents an inspiring example of the mainstreaming of renewable energy sources.
Large-scale solar power and marsh gas applications in the city directly benefit more than 1.5 million residents, dramatically reducing their yearly energy costs while providing other environmental and health benefits.
Policy and lawmaking by Rizhao’s local administration have been instrumental in bringing about the city’s energy revolution. Since his appointment in 2001, Mayor Lizhaoqian and the Rizhao Municipal Government have adopted several measures and policies aimed at popularizing clean energy technology, including the Regulations on Implementing Solar Energy and Construction Integration that standardize the use of solar energy—particularly solar water heaters—in new buildings.
Building examiners must approve all construction procedures before the buildings are sanctioned, and any blueprints that lack built-in solar water heaters will fail to pass final approval.
Solar water heaters are currently installed in 99 percent of all buildings in Rizhao’s urban area, and in more than 30 percent of residences in rural areas. Additionally, more than 6,000 families in Rizhao use solar cookers in their kitchens.
During the fallow months, a transparent, biodegradable film is used to cover approximately 470 million square meters of the city’s farmland to allow for an increase in the land temperature and faster maturation of crops in the spring. The city is also home to more than 560,000 square meters of solar photovoltaic panels, which have effectively reduced conventional electricity usage by 348 million kilowatthours per year.
More than 15,000 residential units in Rizhao use technologies that allow them to generate marsh gas from agricultural waste water, with the units capable of generating up to 230,000 cubic meters daily. Currently, the city’s annual marsh gas production is 4.5 million cubic meters, which replaces the use of some 3,100 tons of coal annually. Installed marsh gas power generators have a total production capacity of 13,500 kilowatthours, which would reduce the use of coal this year by 36,000 tons. ..
(31 Jul 2007)
