Center for sustainability

HB 9

Story by Torrey McMillan ’90 • Illustrations by Brian Andrew Jasinski • Photos by Vanessa Butler

When I tell people that I run the Center for Sustainability at Hathaway Brown School, I typically get one of two responses ...

“HB has a whole Center for Sustainability?!

That’s amazing.” or “Center for what?

What does that mean?”

The answer to that second question can take me 30 seconds or 30 minutes to deliver, depending on the level of interest and the time the interrogator has.

The 30-second version is simple. I start by posing a few questions of my own: “What do we want to have around in our world now and in the future? That is, what is it that we want to sustain, build or rebuild?” At a pretty fundamental level, most of us can agree that we want healthy people, healthy communities, and healthy ecosystems. My work in sustainability revolves around building a world where having these three things is not only possible, but it’s also highly probable.

Giving a more detailed description of sustainability and my work at HB can be a little bit messier. But I’m a person who helps 10-year-olds sort through food scraps to create the most effective compost piles. Messy is my forte.

Let’s start with the (really) big picture. Some people have equated trying to define sustainability with trying to define other ideas that are hard to nail down, words like justice, freedom, and equality. When it comes to concepts such as these, definitions rarely satisfy us. In some ways, it’s easier to point to those situations when these things are absent or broken than it is to say, “that is justice,” or “here we see freedom.” When present, these states of being are likely to be expressed in different ways, dependent on place and context.

Sustainability is like that. It is, I think, far easier to point at something and say, “that is not sustainable ... that system or process or thing will not help us to have healthy people, communities and ecosystems now and in the future,” than it is to look at something and say with conviction, “this is sustainable.” This difficulty arises partly because we live in a world of complex, interconnected systems. Humans are limited in our ability to understand the upstream causes and downstream consequences of so much of what we do. To further complicate matters, the physical and cultural environment of Northeast Ohio will necessitate very different solutions to the challenges of building sustainable systems than we would find were we living in the desert of Arizona or in the bustle of Beijing.

So, striving for sustainability is hard work that forces us to test out solutions, discover what works and what does not, remain humble in the face of our trials and errors, and always to continue to learn. But isn’t that our motto here at HB? We learn not for school but for life. In very real ways, the quest for sustainability is, in fact, the quest for ongoing, healthy, meaningful life on earth.

Which brings me to HB’s Center for Sustainability. A core group of faculty, staff, administrators, and students spent some time this fall articulating a plan for what who we will be and what we will do to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability. Here’s the Vision Statement we came up with: We are a school and community with a hopeful vision of a thriving planet – a planet with whole and healthy people, communities, and natural systems. We pursue this vision with joy, intense creativity, humility and courage in the face of challenge and change. A force of good in the world, we strive to live out this vision not just in school, but in life.

This all sounds very good and inspiring, but it’s very pie-inthe sky. You still probably don’t really have a sense of what the Center for Sustainability is exactly, and you might be interested in some concrete examples of what the institution is actually doing to make the vision a reality.

Some people have equated trying to define sustainability with trying to define other ideas that are hard to nail down, words like justice, freedom, and equality.

On the next several pages, you’ll find stories, photographs, and data points that should make the picture a little clearer. I hope you’ll also take a moment to visit www.hb.edu/sustainability to get a sense of what this all means for HB as we travel the pathway to sustainability.

The road ahead of us promises to be a long and winding, but the journey will be rich with learning. This work is our imperative. So let’s embrace the challenge in true HB fashion, finding opportunity where others see threats, and applying all the talent and creativity of our collective community to create a world where social, economic, and environmental systems thrive in synchronicity with one another. The ultimate goal is for all of us to be able to say of HB: “Yes, this is a place that supports healthy people, healthy communities and a healthy environment. I can see it in everything they do.”

I have no doubt that our team is well-suited for this task. Our school family is one that’s grounded, yet ambitious. I like to say that Anne Hathaway Brown, in her infinite wisdom, even picked our school colors with sustainability in mind.

We are brown, rooted in the earth. We are gold, reaching for the sun.

Carbon Footprint During the 2010-11 school year, as an institution, HB was responsible for 4276.8 metric tons of carbon equivalents.

The numbers below represent some points of comparison to give you an idea about what that number means. HB’s yearly climate impact is approximately equal to:

As a ďŹ rst step to understanding HB’s energy use and climate mpacts, the Center for Sustainability conducted a Greenhouse Gas Inventory, tracking the school’s energy use in ďŹ ve key areas from the 2004-05 school year through the 2010-11 school year.

Our largest sources of emissions are generated by electricity, followed by heating and commuting. We’ve identiďŹ ed several areas for improvement, and we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

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Credit: Brian Andrew Jasinski

Moving a community and an institution toward sustainability is never the work of just one person. It takes a committed team with the passion to make change. Those with expertise in their fields, must work together to shift an entire system. Meet a few of the key players who collaborate with the Center for Sustainability to ensure that resource conservation and other important initiatives are an everyday part of HB life.

Terry Churchill, Director of Plant Operations Joined HB in 1985

How sustainability concerns guide his work: Terry Churchill and his team are an institution at HB. His commitment to maintaining a beautiful campus and learning environment is clear to anyone who walks through the doors.

Harder to see is his commitment to making our buildings resource efficient, while always keeping the bottom line in mind. This year, when an HB grandparent proposed partnering with his lighting company to replace every light fixture in the school with LED bulbs, Churchill’s response to the Board of Trustees was, “this is a no-brainer. Not only does this have a two- to three-year payback time, but it will save my team and me countless hours currently spent replacing light bulbs that we can then devote to other projects on our list. The LED bulbs, while more expensive, last more than twice as long as the fluorescents.” His knowledge of the school’s facilities is deep and he is extremely savvy in assessing how dollars are most efficiently spent to maximize functionality and efficiency.

In his words:

Sustainability initiatives undertaken during his tenure: 2006 New energy-efficient windows installed in

the Prime and Classic buildings

2008 Began upgrading lighting from incandescent

and T12 fluorescents bulbs to T8 bulbs in the Classic Building

2012 Now reviewing proposals for an all-school

LED- lighting upgrade

“Since day one, I’ve treated this place as though it’s my home.

So it’s not really a job for me; I’m just taking care of my second home. I’ve also been very lucky to have a staff that has the same love for this place that I do. Three of us have been here for 27 years, and Joel Bartel’s been here for 28. He is the only employee from the original crew that I inherited. John Castle came next, at 26 years. We all have great chemistry and it’s just fun to come to work most days.”

How he imagines HB’s facilities and grounds 10 years from now: We’ll have all new energy-efficient lighting across campus.

For more from Behind the Scenes, see pages 16 and 18.

Linda Shi

Cambridge, Massachusetts

HB Class of 2000 Bachelor of Arts, Yale University, 2004 Master of Engineering Management, Yale University, 2005 Master of Urban Planning, Harvard University, 2008 Research Associate at the Institute for International Urban Development (I2UD)

I saw a comment recently that came in response to a New York Times article about environmental resources. “I’ve never understood why people in water-rich regions should be so concerned with water conservation,” the person said. Situated on Lake Erie, Cleveland is blessed with an abundance of freshwater and will not witness a significant decrease in rainfall under climate change, unlike most other parts of the country. So it’s a fair question. Why should we care? Beyond water for the house and yard, everything we eat, wear, use and inhabit all needs water to be created and transported – much of it from places that are already or will be much more water scarce. In the United States, 40 percent of all the freshwater we use goes toward making electricity, and a good deal of energy is used to produce and treat water. As the cost of energy increases and water scarcity affects more parts of the world, the prices of both will increase. Learn more about the actual amount of water we consume by checking out this excellent infographic: http://bit.ly/J8EAFE.

Save without sacrificing Water-conserving homes can cut their water consumption by half (to 150 gallons a day from 300 gallons a day) without cutting out creature comforts. Many of the solutions that save water will also save energy and reduce wastewater and stormwater. For instance, a front-loading washing machine that uses 40 percent less water will also use less energy to heat and spin the water. Storing rainwater from rooftops reduces stormwater runoff and summer water bills. Calculate your impact and get tips on how to live green at Low Impact Living: http://bit.ly/lALaF.

The cycle is endless Treating wastewater costs five times as much as purifying the same amount of drinking water. The more wastewater we produce, the more money the Northeast Ohio Sewer District has to spend treating it – and the more wastewater gets flushed into our rivers and lakes during rain storms in older neighborhoods that have combined sewers and stormwater drainage systems. Although wastewater treatment is less a problem now in the United States than it was 40 years ago, wastewater and stormwater continue to have impacts here, and especially in poorer countries. For more, see Rose George’s entertaining and enlightening The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map, which describes how an epidemic in London first led scientists to realize the existence of waterborne diseases.

For more Notes from the Field, see pages 15,17, and 19.

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It doesn’t matter where you live

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A Symbiotic Relationship Amelia Visnauskas ’14 and Arianna Kitzberger ’14 signed up for HB’s Science Research & Engineering Program class last fall, but found that their interests in ecology and natural sciences did not line up well with the traditional lab placements that program director Patty Hunt normally arranges. When they learned about the concept of biomimicry, a design approach that looks to nature for solutions to human design challenges, though, the girls found a fit for their interests.

So rather than going to research labs, Visnauskas and Kitzberger spent time last year in the Industrial Design studio of Professor Doug Paige at the Cleveland Institute of Art. There, they assisted with a design project that reimagined the shipping channel at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River so that it would better support healthy fish populations. The HB juniors also entered a biomimicry design competition, using their newfound skills in primary literature research and translating biology into design principles to propose a green roof design that would support native biodiversity for Hathaway Brown’s Link Building.

The Lorax, HB’s Upper School environmental club, was founded in 1989 by Josi O’Brien’90 and Torrey McMillan ’90. It carries on today under the leadership of Joyce Guo ’13, pictured here.

This year, The Lorax challenged students to make small but meaningful changes to their daily behaviors during Earth Week in April, ranging from carpooling or riding a bike to school, to going vegetarian, to bringing reusable mugs to their favorite coffee shops.

A wide array of additional content related to the work of the Center for Sustainability – including curricular information, Internet resources, charts and graphs, and other materials – is available online at www.hb.edu/magazine.

Cassandra Lynn Johnson Cleveland, Ohio

HB Class of 1984 Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, Columbia University, 1988 Director of Construction, University Hospitals

Start early

Think critically A Growing Ecosystem Growing sustainability at HB is about more than greening the buildings and operations. It is about building a whole web of related, interconnected ideas, practices, and values that support the goals of healthy people, communities and ecosystems. Watching this take root, so to speak, is like watching an ecosystem emerge and evolve. Some concepts and practices are already deeply rooted in the school’s approach, while others are emerging as young seedlings. Still other ideas remain seeds in the ground, waiting for fertile soil and the right conditions to emerge into being. We cross-pollinate and bring in new ideas by connecting with others active in the field in northeast Ohio and beyond. And sustainability at HB is not a program that stands alone. It is one of many trees in HB’s forest, each helping to support the other like the intertwined roots of neighboring oaks.

The process for identifying potential points for project LEED Certification needs to be strategic in order to meet program requirements and to stay within budget parameters. Beyond the prerequisite points required for certification, other points can be obtained in a variety of ways. The team needs to think through which points have the biggest impact on the facility in terms of building operations and return on investment.

Work together The best solutions come from collaboration, with LEED APs from varying disciplines. The discussion teams can become large, requiring more efficient management, yet solutions and strategic decisions are generated much more rapidly in this way.

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The sustainability effort needs to be a part of the project from the earliest stages of planning and design. The later in the project process that the sustainability initiatives are introduced, the further away from a cost-neutral position the project becomes. The most successful projects incorporate sustainability at the onset.

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Ruth Wylie, Director of Food Services Joined HB in 1991

How she collaborates with the Center for Sustainability: HB’s 2011 Education Innovation Summit was focused on how to make change for sustainability in our schools. With sustainability as the focal point of the event, it was important that the event itself reflected the school’s best efforts at sustainability. Torrey McMillan approached Ruth Wylie about the food that would be served, prepared to make her case. But she didn’t have to. To each request, Wylie cheerfully answered, “We can try that.” So it took all of 30 seconds to get Wylie commit to serving the 100 summit attendees an all-vegetarian menu highlighting locally produced foods.

After 10 more minutes of discussion, the two found a way to reduce the event’s waste stream. They set the non-recyclable, non-compostable wastes from the meals at zero, which allowed them to remove the trash cans from the dining room completely before the guests arrived.

Sustainability initiatives undertaken during her tenure: 2007 Began efforts to source local foods

Replaced plastic plates and silverware used for events with compostable disposables

Removed trays from the Margery Stouffer Biggar ’47 and Family Dining Hall, cutting down on food waste and dishwashing

2010 Began pre-consumer and Early Childhood

food composting program

2011 Moved to serving whole-grain breads

and pasta to the entire school

2012 Expanded composting program to include

post-consumer food scraps from all divisions

Enrolled HB in Sodexo’s SMART program (sustainability management and reporting tool)

Collaborated on the Focus on Food month in April, bringing locally available featured foods to the Dining Hall each week

In her words: “Whether at work or in my personal life, I am always looking for opportunities to live a more sustainable lifestyle. I am concerned about preserving the planet and our natural resources and I am focused on ensuring that future generations enjoy our planet as much as I have. I make an effort to keep up with national sustainability efforts and best practices in order to constantly improve our work at HB. Although I am limited at times by my operating budget, I am proud of the way we can maximize our available resources to improve the sustainability of our operations at school.”

How she imagines HB’s food service program 10 years from now: We’ll have more local and sustainable food options that appeal to people with diverse dietary needs.

Carolyn Coquillette San Francisco, California HB Class of 1996 Bachelor of Science, University of Michigan, 2000 Owner and Lead Technician, Luscious Garage, an environmentally-conscious auto repair shop

Words matter

Though not yet fully formed fruits, these ideas have surfaced this year.

They are ideas that are waiting in the soil for the right conditions to grow.

We hope that they will begin to blossom in the next year or two.

Green roof on the Link Building Investing HB’s endowment with social and environmental impacts and policies of the companies in mind Planning for Zero Waste and Carbon Neutrality

Find the right fit Everyone has a choice: do nothing or do something. The “something” depends on how strongly you care – there is no way to fake it. The authenticity of a business’ message, on “green” or any topic, inevitably speaks to the quality of its root product or service. Thus it’s better to do nothing than pretend otherwise.

Take action Business owners: Check out B-Corp certification (www. bcorporation.net). “B” stands for “benefit,” with the idea that businesses are far better agents to solve problems than government regulation. The certification process is rigorous and holistic, where “green,” “sustainable,” and even “organic” designations fall short.

Personally: Just do the best you can. In San Francisco, it’s pretty easy for me to ride a bike, eat local, and keep consumption down. Everyone is different, but every step toward reducing your impact will challenge you to do more.

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In the Seed Bank

I’ve never been a big subscriber to the terms “green” or “sustainable,” personally or professionally. For shorthand they’re indispensable; in practice they’re dangerous. Lacking specific benchmarks, both words can (and often are) used without any necessary commitment. They also risk selfcongratulation, suggesting that we’re doing something good, when really we’re doing something less bad.

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Vanessa Butler, Director of Marketing Joined HB in 2007

Sustainability initiatives undertaken during her tenure: 2007 Began printing the school magazine and

many other institutional publications on FSC-certified paper

Selected Oliver Printing and JakPrints to produce the school’s paper publications

Began the ongoing process of shifting from paper to electronic publications where possible

2012 Transitioning all copy and computer

paper used internally to 100 percent recycled and chlorine-free

How she makes sustainability a part of her personal and professional life: On a typical Saturday in the summer, you can find Vanessa Butler riding her Dutch cargo bike home from the farmers’ market, with plenty of fresh produce and her 2-year-old twins, Jude and Vaughn, in tow. At HB, her commitment to sustainability has translated into reducing paper use by creating more digital marketing materials, changing the type of paper we use for our publications, and carefully selecting the vendors we use for collateral materials. Butler contracts with Oliver Printing, a fourth generation family-owned Cleveland company, for the school’s high-end publications. She made that choice because she has seen that the company is committed to taking care of their employees, their community, and the environment. Oliver conducts operations at a level beyond that required by the rigorous Forest Stewardship Council for certification (the company was the first FSC-certified printer in Ohio). JakPrints, the printer Butler works with on smaller printing jobs with tight deadlines, also has a strong environmental ethic, choosing to limit their paper selection in order to reduce shipping and transportation costs. They also only use vegetable-based inks and have instituted incentives for their customers to recycle paper, and they run their own stellar in-house recycling program.

In her words: “It’s important for us always to think about the mission of the school.

Our mission is closely aligned with sustainability in the sense that we want to be a change agent, and I think our alumnae expect it of us. At home and at work, we need to remember to practice what we preach.

Before I came to HB, I spent eight years working for advertising agencies and as the brand manager for Cuyahoga County Public Library system. Because that was a county government position, vendors and contractors bid on the jobs and we most often went with the company that had the cheapest price. This often frustrated me because the companies that had the lowest prices were not necessarily the ones that were the most responsible stewards of the environment, their employees’ wages, etc. So I sort of made a promise to myself that once I was in a position to choose vendors, I would pay more attention to those matters, because they really mean a lot in the grand scheme of things.”

How she imagines HB’s communications office 10 years from now: We’ll be nearly paperless, with all publications distributed electronically.

Katherine Ann Freygang Cornwall, Connecticut and New York, New York HB Class of 1970 Bachelor of Arts in Human Ecology & Art, Connecticut College, 1974

The seed idea of having a community vegetable garden on campus has been floating around for a couple of years, and this spring it literally sprouted. Under the leadership of Megan Callanan ’14 and Caroline Doll ’14, HB has constructed five raised beds at the south end of the tennis courts next to the Pony Barn. Swing by the garden and take a peek if you are on campus for a sporting event, meeting, or just because you love to see a garden growing. Callanan and Doll are organizing a student leadership committee for the garden that will ensure that it is well cared for and utilized by a broad cross-section of classes at HB. They plan to donate a portion of the harvest to the Heights Food Pantry and imagine that in the future, the garden will produce a signature product for sale at the Brown Bag. Kale chips anyone?

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture, Rhode Island School of Design, 1981 Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design, Rhode Island School of Design, 1982

HB

The Community That Grows Together

Exhibition Designer, Educator, Ecologist, Artist

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Educate yourself Sustainability refers to a cultural shift that recognizes our natural resources as finite and precious, to be used wisely at any given time. This is not a foreboding message, but an invitation challenging our ingenuity to create behaviors that better consider and conserve what we have, because, as it turns out, there are limits.

Go online There’s plenty of help and fun afoot to co-create new behaviors, technologies and educational programs. My favorite links are: Ecological Impact Explained http://bit.ly/094L4L47 The Story of Stuff Project http://bit.ly/97hwa2 Center for Ecoliteracy http://bit.ly/P9RCuj Global Warming Solutions http://bit.ly/c8hI3

Pay attention It’s essential to notice the impacts of conservation practices (even on your electricity bill) and to become politically active, alerting legislators to support clean energy, education, state incentives and financing programs.

Gina Rubin Cody ’80, Elizabeth Chandler ’83, pictured with their children on the Mixon Family Playground at HB.

in foods and food production. Her concerns about chemical exposure have led her also to become active with the Shaker Heights group Beyond Pesticides Ohio.

Having children changes everything. So does having cancer.

The intimate presence of each as part of daily life brings to the surface some of the tough questions that we so often set aside as we contend with the day-to-day to-do list. At least, that’s what happened for two Hathaway Brown alumnae and parents, Gina Rubin Cody ’80 and Elizabeth Chandler ’83.

Gina and her husband, Bill Cody, both were diagnosed with cancer last year. With twins Blake and Sara in Pre-K at HB and son William entering the Early Childhood program, the two had to confront head-on the questions of why and how cancer came into their lives. They had to ask themselves if there might have been something in the environment that triggered the disease. And they had to consider whether their children might have been exposed, too.

Elizabeth and her husband, Carl Greppin, have a daughter, Katie, who is a third grader at HB. Their son, Chase, attended HB’s Early Childhood program and now is in the first grade at University School. He has several food allergies that led Elizabeth to pay even closer attention to the ingredient content

Both Elizabeth and Gina became involved with HB’s Center for Sustainability because they had questions and concerns about what kinds of pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals their kids might be exposed to at school. We asked them for their thoughts about improving the health and safety of the campus environment.

Why should others in the HB community care about the products the school uses on its playing fields, grounds and in the buildings?

Elizabeth: Children take in more pesticides relative to body weight than adults and they have developing organ systems that make them more vulnerable and less able to detoxify toxins. They have higher rates of respiration and more skin surface area per unit of body weight. Studies have shown that lawn pesticide product formulations show effects on learning ability, aggressiveness, memory, motor skills, and immune system function. Why at a place like HB would we not want to do what we can during these windows of vulnerability in our children’s lives to mitigate risk factors that could potentially compromise their mental and physical health, not to mention that of HB’s staff or our own?

Gina: Because it is a girls’ school raising smart young women to make educated choices at all stages of their lives. Because so much of what you read about pesticides and common household products says have serious toxins that are linked to endocrine, reproductive and developmental issues, not to mention increased risk for cancer. Think back to when we were growing up – was there this much cancer, food allergies, asthma, autism? If babies are being born with an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants already in their tiny bodies, doesn’t it make sense to start to be aware of these things and limit our exposure?

What barriers do you see to making more of these changes at HB? How can we overcome them?

Elizabeth: Barriers include perceived cost, skepticism of an alternative program’s effectiveness and ability to achieve desired results, low tolerance for less-than-perfect grounds (especially at the onset), and lack of awareness. Education of the HB community would help it to overcome these barriers and make change in these areas more of a priority. Just take these few facts: Of the 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 19 have studies pointing toward carcinogens, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 15 with neurotoxicity, 26 with liver or kidney damage, 27 are sensitizers and/or irritants, and 11 have the potential to disrupt the endocrine (hormonal) system. Old ways harm microorganisms, beneficial insects, and earthworms essential to maintaining healthy soil and turf. They contribute to soil that restricts air and water movement and moisture retention. Fields without toxic chemicals can perform as well as any chemically maintained turf, with greater resiliency, safer playing surface, less water consumption, and greater drought resistance. Then consider how often HB kids are on the grass: terrace lunches, outdoor class, doing calisthenics before sports practice, playing sports, running around at recess, throwing water bottles, equipment, and clothing on the ground and the transfer to kids when they drink or use the equipment or clothing … this doesn’t even include their exposure to indoor chemicals and pesticides when they eat lunch or snacks, wash their hands several times a day, walk the halls, sit in class, study, or play with toys.

What would you like to ask others in the HB community to do? How can they help be part of the change?

Elizabeth: Take the time to educate yourself and your children and be an advocate. It starts with you and what you do in your own home. Let your school and communities know that you care about these issues and that they are important to you. Be open to new ways of doing things and change. Collect ideas and best practices and share them. Wherever you reside, join this learning process that we all are in together.

Gina: HB has a wealth of knowledge in our faculty, staff, parents and alumnae to start with. There is a repository of experience that starts in the home that we could bring to the school in a process-oriented way. It would at least create a hot list of things that we are collectively concerned about. This should be followed by a product audit in all areas of the school. I see this as jointly done by staff, parents and students. We need to research what other educational institutions are doing in this regard – there is no reason to reinvent the wheel or approach this in a vacuum. If others have a leg up and have made some strides in the same areas, we can build on and improve upon those.

We can do this and be leaders in the Greater Cleveland area.

I would like to see a committee formed to gather information and construct a plan of action. No doubt it will be a multi-step execution plan, but I think it would leave us with a “road to run on,” so to speak. Facts, combined with research of the broader community and listening to the specific needs of our families, faculty, staff and students will make for a great initiative that we can be proud of. I’d like to see HB, as it has so often done, set the bar for other institutions to live up to.

If you have questions, concerns, or would like to get involved, please email tmcmillan@hb.edu or call 216.932.4214 x7227

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Industry, science, health care and public agencies are all looking closely at how these products are making their way into our lives. It is no longer the case that we don’t know the problems caused by these products. It is also no longer appropriate to use cost as an excuse for not taking protective action. We need to grab hold of the situation and seize control of our microcosm so that we can proactively protect those dearest to us: our children. I’d like to see HB and its greater community lead the way.

Gina: I see the barriers in a similar way. There is always the perception – and sometimes actual increases in cost – when it comes to undertaking some of these kinds of changes.

Innovative changes are always this way. We need to push through this perception, while negotiating for best cost, and lead with the notion that the cost to our children’s lives is inestimable and that we should leave no stone unturned when it comes to their health now and in the future. I think HB’s progressive attitude and innovative mindset is already primed for pushing through common obstacles and barriers. We can’t wait for the EPA and FDA to take care of us; we need to do it now for our own good and let common sense lead the way.

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