Learn about the initiatives from our past Elaina’s Sustainability Fund grant recipients
The purpose of Elaina’s Sustainability Fund is to encourage innovation or adoption of sustainability and occupant wellness initiatives that impact the buildings where we live, work, shop, and play. Our 2022 recipients are doing work around the globe to make their communities, homes, and businesses more sustainable, and foster happy and healthy living. Read about the projects our recipients are going to use their funds for below.
2022 recipients
Innovate: EcoRise (Austin, TX)
EcoRise encourages students to propose innovative solutions to environmental issues on or near their school campus. Funding students’ green projects creates memorable, real world learning experiences that inspire students to act as sustainability leaders and creative changemakers in their communities. EcoRise will support 10 student-led projects that make schools and communities more sustainable. It will directly benefit at least 7,000 students and community members via school building improvements, cost savings, and environmental benefits. EcoRise works with schools that typically lack access to grant funding and that are disproportionately impacted by environmental stressors.
Innovate: Demi (Chicago, IL)
Demi is on a mission to make composting the new normal. Composting offers a way for small choices to create big impact, but unfortunately, only 3% of American food waste is composted. Demi partners with residential building managers to provide an integrated solution while also reducing waste management costs, enhancing sustainability goals, and attracting new tenants. Demi provides residents with sleek, attractive, compostable containers with a QR code that tracks the users composted waste. Residents drop off the entire container for compost – so they don't have to empty or wash the bins, and building managers benefit from stackable bins that contain the mess and smell. Demi picks up the containers, scans the QR codes, and allows users to track metrics from the mobile app to gamify and incentivize adoption of composting.
Adopt: Small Tourism Accommodation Owners of Trinidad and Tobago (STAOTT)
STAOTT promotes sustainable tourism and energy efficiency amongst the broader tourism business and is working toward green certification readiness for the tourist accommodation facilities through energy usage assessments and energy efficiency upgrades. Tourism is a large source of revenue for many Caribbean Islands. Increasing investments have been made to strengthen the tourism sector, and currently of 590 accommodations, 10 are global hotel chains that have made upgrades to make their infrastructure greener. Though large chains have made progress, there has been little movement with the remaining small tourism accommodation. Research shows this slow adoption is due to awareness and location.
Innovate: Apple Patch Community (Louisville, KY)
The mission of Apple Patch Community is to provide support to people with disabilities by promoting opportunity, choice, and connection to the community. Apple Patch Community serves over 250 people with developmental and intellectual disabilities by providing day programs, case management, positive behavior support as well as residential services. Apple Patch Community owns 17 homes, which house three residents, and are seamlessly integrated into two neighborhoods. Apple Patch Community is responsible for the maintenance and comfort of these homes. A grant will support a weatherization pilot in one of 17 homes, creating a more comfortable environment and increasing sustainability through air sealing. Following the results and savings earned from the first home, Apple Patch will replicate the project in the rest of the community.
Adopt: Plant it Forward (Houston, TX)
Plant It Forward’s mission is to empower refugees to develop sustainable farming businesses that produce fresh, healthy food for the local community. The Plant It Forward Food Hub is a 1,000 square foot warehouse that provides physical space for cold storage, triple-wash sinks, work surfaces, and packaging and distribution supplies to help farmers bring their product to market. Existing cold storage facilities are inefficient, unreliable, and offer insufficient temperature control. The grant will support the purchase of two high efficiency walk-in cold storage units. This will reduce the overall energy consumption of the facilities, which helps prevent food waste and embedded energy. The project will also strengthen the ability of small, family farmers to distribute fresh produce to a local delivery radius of 15-250 miles compared to the average 1,500 miles for average supermarket produce.