| Sustainability
Committee
By Pat Vaughn, from the September 2005
Newsletter
Many ideas
and hours of research are coming together now with hard physical
work to transform our new store in the next month.
The Sustainability Committee has worked through time and resource
constraints to help apply the principles of ‘reduce, re-use
and recycle’ in this project. You will soon begin to see
the fruition of their efforts.
The waterless urinals and dual-flush toilets have been ordered,
and may even have been procured and installed by the time you
read this. You have probably seen (and hopefully contributed to)
the
grassroots fund-raising effort to procure solar light tubes. The final choices on paint colors are now in the hands of the
design team. A lot of complex information had to be assimilated.
Two products,
AFM Safecoat and Rodda, will be used for the interior. Everything
from VOC, chemical composition, material safety data sheets and
available tints had to be considered. Committee members questioned
vendors to the point of pushing into proprietary information
to ensure that all the comparable characteristics are known.
Counter tops and sides in the store will be made of some interesting
new by-products that are available. You will see a very durable
paper board counter in the store, a sunflower board made from
hulls installed at the deli, and a wheat straw board gracing
the wellness
area.
In August the committee posted a concept plan for bike racks
to get input from Co-op members. Committee member Chris Duguay
had
developed three different variations for consideration. They
have received lots of feedback. Currently the plan is to have bike
parking
in the front center of the new store, between the two doors.
The committee and design team would like to get a local source
to fabricate
the racks.
The committee
has held fast to the goal of having a “green
area” at the new store location. The plan is to retain two
handicap-accessible parking spaces at the left and right front
of the parking lot, by the doors, and to develop the front-center
of the lot into green space. For now some drought-tolerant plants
and pots will separate the area from automobile parking. Eventually
a landscape design plan will be developed to give us a beautiful,
natural space.
As promised,
the committee is keeping all of the information they have garnered
while planning for the remodel. They will collate
all the research into a notebook and have it available in the new
store so that we can have access to sustainable options and resources
for our own private and public “green living” choices.
In the coming
weeks, the committee is going to review its “wish
list” of sustainable initiatives for our new Co-op store.
Over the past few months they have developed and researched a multitude
of ideas ranging from climate control, energy efficiency and water
conservation to air quality and community-enhancement. Many of
the concepts have been integrated into the current remodel effort.
Many more face time, funding and availability constraints. The
committee wants to prioritize these ideas so that our Co-op’s
fundamental vision of sustainability does not end with the opening
of the new store. The committee will continue to work with the
design team, management, and the general membership to help ensure
sustainable alternatives are incorporated as we grow into our new
downtown store.
Pat Vaughan is excited to witness the continuing vibrant and people-centered
offerings of downtown Moscow. |
