After incorporating sustainability measures into its new buildings, Retirement Unlimited Inc. looked at its existing buildings to determine what procedures it could implement across the board to make a difference in its communities.
RUI Vice President of Asset Management and Development Matt Winningham and Chief Accounting Officer Ryan Wilson wanted to take a strong approach to sustainability, from the Roanoke, VA-based senior living company’s corporate offices down to the community level. So Winningham called on an old friend at Virginia Tech to help the company examine current practices and develop a plan going forward.
“What could we interject and take actual systems and methods and put them in place that was appropriate for us but also help the community and the environment,” Winningham told McKnight’s Senior Living.
‘Food waste is a big thing’
Through seed funding from the Institute for Society, Culture and Environment, Jennifer Russell, an assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, and her students in 2021 conducted a material flow analysis of waste flowing out of three southern Virginia senior living communities — The Barrington at Hioaks in Richmond, the Hidenwood in Newport News and Woodland Hills in Roanoke.
Not surprisingly, Winningham said, the analysis revealed a large amount of food waste. In fact, the analysis showed that 45% to 70% of total waste was generated from food, with large food portions going straight into the garbage. The pandemic, he added, led to the adoption of single-use plastics and other items that also found their way to the trash.
That discovery, Winningham said, led RUI to look into a point-of-sale system to track each community and try to reduce food waste.
“Food waste is a big thing,” Winningham said, adding that RUI also provides meals to all staff members, adding to food waste generated in communities and its corporate office. “One thing we did with all buildings was, we required everyone to have a recycling program with their waste company.”
Russell and her students not only presented the findings from the first analysis to company administrators, but they also participated in RUI University, a lifelong learning program for residents of RUI’s Virginia and Florida senior living communities. Virginia Tech students participated in a virtual class series about sustainability in which residents learned about the methodology and findings from the material waste analysis.
RUI Vice President of Marketing and Communications Beth Kolnok said that RUI University Academic Advisor Mary-Kate Hansford and Winningham worked closely with Virginia Tech to incorporate residents into their findings and give them an opportunity to get involved and “figure out what sustainability meant.”
“Residents were really engaged in that,” Kolnok said. “They wanted to be a part of that. They threw in their suggestions and ideas and took ownership in the program as well.”
Partnerships bring ‘fresh perspectives’
Kolnok said that RUI is building on its relationships with Virginia Tech to bring new concepts and ideas to its communities through fresh perspectives.
“Prior to this project, Matt recognized that there was an area for improvement. We just didn’t realize how much,” Kolnok said. “It’s been very interesting to see what type of waste we have, what we can implement to make processes better and clearer.”
This summer, the investigatory team expanded its research into energy use at three Virginia senior living communities — Paul Spring in Alexandria, the Wellington at Lake Manassas in Gainesville and Woodland Hills, which was part of the 2021 waste analysis — to assess how much electricity was consumed on site, and where.
The results of the energy use analysis, along with a second waste analysis conducted over the summer, are expected by the end of the year. But RUI already is using some of the preliminary data to guide renovation decisions at its Paul Spring building, Winningham said.
Plans exist to hold additional RUI University classes for residents, to, once again, share the results, Kolnok said.
