Green is the New Black

GREENis the New Black

Harpeth Hall sustainability initiatives encourage students to make meaningful contributions to their communities and the world

by Jessie Morris Adams ’00

Every few minutes, someone in the group inevitably paused to remark, “I just can’t believe the water was this high.”

On a sunny spring day, a group of Upper School students and faculty gathered to tend to an area that suffered damage after recent floods and heavy rains. They picked remnants of plastic bags out of trees and tried to envision how tables and cars were picked up and moved hundreds of yards by rushing water. After a thorough round of trash collection, the group moved on to planting dozens of tiny saplings with the hope that enough would survive and grow into sufficiently strong trees to prevent future erosion of the creek banks. In one afternoon, they not only tackled the tangible consequences of damage already done, but also took steps to strengthen the area against future impacts. While not all Harpeth Hall club outings provide such tidy lessons, this experience encompassed our students’ understanding of our collective impact on our environment — whether that is Harpeth Hall’s 40-acre campus, the Nashville area, or the entire world.

Interest in sustainable practices and environmental education has grown steadily over recent decades as the limits of the resources we rely on become increasingly apparent. As an educational institution and a hub of the Nashville community, Harpeth Hall realizes its duty to graduate 21st-century leaders equipped with the skills and knowledge to tackle the challenges their generation may face. Our commitment to sustainability has strong roots in our devotion to community. Holding close our mission to “develop responsible citizens with global perspectives who make meaningful contributions to their communities and to the world,” we recognize that a critical first step to impacting the outside community is to build our internal community. By harnessing students’ passion to do good for others, we also strengthen their bonds to each other and to the school. We see the impact of that connection not only during the spring days that students gather for disaster relief, but also in the bins on campus brimming with compostable items during lunchtime and in the student clothing swap initiative meant to reduce the number of shirts and sweaters that end up in a landfill. We experience the power of purposeful sustainability as we upgrade the energy efficiency of our school buildings and create dedicated green spaces on campus, like the Dr. Stephanie Balmer Garden for Student Engagement. “We’re all working together as a community to have an impact,” said Annie Stewart ’21, who this past school year was co-president of Harpeth Hall’s Green Team, an Upper School club. “We all act as individuals, but our collective actions really add up.” From green lunch containers to green landscapes Even daily rituals such as lunch on campus can include small actions with a purpose. Students experience tangible reminders of our partnership with Compost Nashville as they compost remnants of sandwiches and single-use utensils in bins around campus. In 2020, this program diverted 14,931 pounds of food waste and organic material from the landfill. Further, our compost output quadrupled since the beginning of “COVID lunch,” owing to the tremendous efforts of our dining hall, maintenance, and cleaning staffs. Not only do we compost food scraps, but those teams have also sourced industrially compostable containers, utensils, napkins, and wrappers. In conjunction with the commitment to reusable takeaway lunch containers, the amount of trash we are not creating is visible to all the members of our school community every day. From green lunch containers to green spaces, our school landscape is another example of eco-friendly actions. In 2017, Upper School teacher Polly Linden and Middle School teacher Amy Emerson approached the Head of School, Dr. Balmer, about a school garden, and she

enthusiastically embraced their passion for this project. When the Harpeth Hall community lost our vibrant and energetic leader in February 2018, students, parents, faculty, alumnae, friends, and colleagues responded with heartfelt remembrances. The vision for a more substantial teaching garden, combining function and beauty, evolved as the Stephanie Balmer Honor Committee explored lasting ways to remember her on campus. For the past few years, an early-stage garden has become part of the 5th grade curriculum and Winterim classes. Students have designed beds and placed pollinator plants, as well as grown and harvested vegetables that the school has served in the dining hall. Students have and will continue to donate produce and partner with local organizations such as The Nashville Food Project in support of its mission to alleviate hunger in our city. Next school year, students will expand their green thumb expertise in the fresh soil of the beautiful new Dr. Stephanie Balmer Garden for Student Engagement. Repurposing items to benefit others While our outdoor spaces showcase the greenery, inside our buildings the hallways also hold ever-present evidence of students’ commitment to sustainability. Racks of clothing with signs proclaiming “Free!” stood in the junior lobby, Bullard corridor, and upper Patton during the duration of Green Team’s clothing swap initiative this school year. Emerging out of a collaboration between students who had taken “Fast Fashion Alternatives” and “Green is the New Black” Winterim courses, a constellation of student teams, committees, and clubs keep our efforts in view every day.

Rising senior Katherine Hu took the “Fast Fashion Alternatives” class during her Winterim 2020 experience, which sparked her interest in continuing the work and highlighted for her the intersection of environmentalism and unjust labor practices. She founded the Upcycle Club and has not bought a new piece of clothing in two years. Now working under the umbrella of the Green Team, Upcycle Club members have also found ways to repurpose previously loved items into new products that can be of benefit to others. Some of those old T-shirts are torn into strips and woven into rugs that are donated to organizations that provide transitional housing for women. Single-use plastic grocery bags, one of the worst environmental offenders around, are ripped into strands of “plarn,” or plastic yarn, which students then crochet into waterproof mats that can be used by people experiencing homelessness. “I’m really captivated by the idea of turning things that get thrown away into something that benefits someone else,” said rising junior Maddie Meyer, a member of the Green Team and the Public Purpose Council. “I think if more people knew how easy it is to turn it into something useful, they’d be even more empowered to help.” Elisabeth Nelson, a rising senior, agrees: “I think people at this point are very aware of problems, but they’re less aware of solutions. We need to direct that concern about our environmental impact into these positive solutions.” Committed to Sustainability Upper School teacher Lori Grow is excited for the girls to take ownership of becoming a sustainable school. “I want Harpeth Hall to be there,” she said, “but I want them to take the lead on that, and to say, ‘This is who we want to be.’ ” Her colleague Carmen Noel affirmed this adding that part of that leadership initiative will set a tone for what comes even after they graduate. “They need to pass this commitment down to future students.”

And that commitment must extend beyond what they see and do every day. In fact, a large part of Harpeth Hall’s effort to be a good environmental steward is mostly invisible to students and visitors. In recent years, repairs and updates to our buildings and grounds have been completed with best practices in mind. Many of our lighting fixtures have been changed to LED lights, which use less energy, provide better lighting, and require less frequent changing. At night, a control system monitors building temperatures to further save energy so that the HVAC system does not run at full power when no one is on campus. In addition, the school’s cleaning team uses eco-friendly materials to keep our buildings clean without using harsh chemicals. We are mindful of our responsibility to the wetlands that neighbor our campus, and we use eco-friendly fertilizers to protect the water supply. The upcoming renovation of Bullard Gymnasium into the Bullard Bright IDEA Lab is also implementing several sustainable practices. Foremost, the project is an adaptive reuse of an existing space, which prevents the building structure from going to the landfill. The latest and most sustainable lighting fixtures are being used, and they will be controlled by motion sensors and turn off when no one is in a room. The HVAC system for Bullard is also being replaced with new, highly efficient units. While the shell of Bullard will be a more than 70-year-old project, the new and reimagined interior will be a modern and sustainable space. “I think Harpeth Hall could be a model for getting young people committed to sustainability,” Katherine Hu said. “How we are getting students to think about these issues as early as middle school is great and can set a precedent for other schools. I hope we can use our position as a place where young people’s minds are influenced to ensure sustainability is at the forefront.”