Buildings & Systems
Farm & Wilderness is committed to increasing our environmental efficiency and organizational effectiveness. We are creating a Master Plan for the Woodward Campus, with the focus on reducing our global and local environmental footprint. Although this plan is in process, we have already begun undertaking aspects of it.
One vital part of our Master Plan is reducing our carbon outputs with the intent to produce less carbon than we sequester, that is, to become carbon neutral. Components of our carbon reduction plan include reduction of our overall fleet mileage. We are increasing our use of bicycles and electric vehicles where practical. We are currently researching the feasibility of using bio-diesel fuel in our non-electric camp vehicles.
We use on-site (usually storm damaged) trees for heating as much as possible. Another way we have reduced carbon output is by conversion of outdoor showers to include solar water heat, and using compact fluorescent bulbs in all lighting fixtures.
Our local footprint is as important to us as our global footprint, and we are striving to reduce not only the amount of buildings on the campus but also the impacts of those buildings and our activities. We follow Built Green or LEED Standards with all major new buildings. We harvest, mill and use wood on our property as much as possible (estimated at 40% total use), and we use many recycled building materials such as recycled plastic lumber and recycled metal roofing.
In order to make our organizational operations more efficient and environmentally friendly, we are planning a new Resource Center building (a project funded by our recent Capital Campaign). The Resource Center will consolidate our vehicle, storage, delivery and maintenance activities, removing them from the program areas and reducing the number of structures on the property.
Waste reduction has always been practiced at Farm & Wilderness. Through the use of outhouses (we call them “kybos”), we consolidate our human waste and save water. The kybo waste is composted over a period of years and safely used as fertilizer in our forests. Other waste management projects include the construction of new animal manure bunkers which will reduce incidental nutrient outflow, and the construction of new food scrap composting which will reduce incidental nutrient outflow and animal contact. We plan to remove less effective septic systems on the campus to create one integrated septic line and leachfield to reduce nutrient loading into Woodward Reservoir.
