Sustainability is important to your community
As institutions vary greatly in culture and intention, PlaceMatters customizes sustainability solutions for your school to meet you where you are.
PlaceMatters analyzes the total environmental setting of your school and develops strategies and actions for future benefit. We ease the integration of sustainability goals into daily practices.
We also go beyond institutional boundaries and identify engaging issues in the community that parallel issues on campus. We establish and maintain community contacts so that the students are served with the appropriate resources to problem-solve environmental issues in their community.
Our services include the following:
We assess your school’s place on the spectrum from grey to green.
PlaceMatters interviews key players in the community to gain an understanding of the school and the role sustainability plays in its culture. We review its long-term institutional, curricular and physical plant goals.We assess school operations in the following areas, depending on your needs:
- Grounds and Landscape
- Transportation
- Buildings and Energy Consumption
- Reuse and Recycling
- Procurement
- Food Service
- Long Term Planning
Using our four-step “Grey to Green” method, we develop an Action Plan that prioritizes actions to allow your institution to align future actions with sustainability goals. We also establish a timeline for implementation with budget pricing.
PlaceMatters will carry the Action Plan’s sustainability recommendations into implementation. PlaceMatters’ experience includes projects including courtyards with rainwater harvesting to reforestation plans, from cultural heritage gardens to whole campus landscape plans. We get your green projects designed and constructed through our 20-plus years of campus experience.
Our licensed LEED and design professionals will ensure that these projects align with your design, fiscal, and maintenance needs.
We have award-winning project experience making the connection between community and the academy.
PlaceMatters looks beyond boundaries and identifies engaging issues in the community that parallel the environmental issues learned on campus. We establish community contacts to serve students with the appropriate educational resources.
Our formats include:
- short-courses with field sessions
- service-learning programs
- field trips
- lecture series
- family workshops
We also establish connections with policy-makers and designers of solutions to the environmental challenges in your region.
Our work engages students in their own setting. We strive to make students life-long learners and engaged participants in the communities in which they live.
PlaceMatters reviews the school’s curricular goals and units of learning. With your faculty, we propose a sustainability plan to complement existing units of learning. We find examples on your campus or within adjacent neighborhoods in our teaching modules.
PlaceMatters integrates curricular units with the Action Plan, to ensure reciprocity between the classroom setting and the world outside the campus.
We can also serve your school as guest teachers. Our experience includes many levels of educational instruction, from primary schools through the university setting.
PlaceMatters offer workshops that engage and allow the school community to review its current situation and examine first-hand the issues that a sustainability plan addresses.
Our workshops are interactive, fun, and stimulating, and are guided by our Four-Step “Grey to Green” method that allows your campus to find its way to green.
PlaceMatters’ environmental presentations meet you at your institution’s current level of green. We are experienced lecturers and have run programs at schools from Family Sustainability Nights to Campus Landscape Walks for alumni events.
We also prepare sustainability presentations for assemblies, grade level meetings, alumni reunions, or faculty in-service days. Our presentation topics range from Recycling Stormwater for Reuse on Campus, Planting for Wildlife and Habitat, or Designing a Greener Campus Commons.
