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Resort and Retirement Communities Going Green

The Highlands, Highland Green, OceanView at Falmouth Embark on Transition to Sustainability

August 29, 2006

Highland Green and The Highlands of Topsham and OceanView at Falmouth - three master-planned communities owned and operated by John Wasileski and Sea Coast Management Company - have begun a transition to becoming more sustainable. Their “green” initiative includes adopting new in-house strategies ranging from utilizing 5% bio-diesel in maintenance vehicles and aggressive recycling programs to building more energy efficient homes that offer the latest solar technology and environmentally friendly building products.
 
Wasileski is a leader in Maine’s retirement community industry and former Environmental Studies major at McGill University in Montreal and served as an intern for The Environmental Careers Organization. As owner of The Highlands and Highland Green of Topsham and OceanView at Falmouth, one of Wasileski’s first steps was to sign up for the Governor’s Carbon Challenge (GCC) – a voluntary program administered by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) that requires participating companies to sign a pledge to inventory, track and reduce their carbon emissions.
 
“The inventory forces you to confront the reality of the carbon footprint that you are expanding daily,” said John Deans, an environmental intern for Sea Coast Management Company. Deans attends College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine and performed a similar emission audits for the college last year.
 
Shortly after signing the challenge, Wasileski and his staff met with several representatives from Interface Fabrics to learn how his residential communities could learn from their success.
The company-wide sustainability initiative includes using 5% bio-diesel – a vegetable oil-based fuel that reduces net carbon dioxide emissions – in all of their diesel equipment. The communities will also be reducing their impact on the waste stream by comprehensive recycling and composting systems that will step up their current efforts. Wasileski believes in clean sources of energy such as solar panels and natural gas, and would even like to experiment with generating his own electricity.
 
Highland Green, an active adult resort community, is an emerald in the development world. It is 650-acre anti-sprawl community that values community and preservation. Wasileski has preserved 230 acres in a conservation easement held by the Brunswick Topsham Land Trust that forever protects a section of the Cathance River and offers hiking trails to the residents and community at large.
 
Wasileski also helped start the Cathance River Education Alliance (CREA) that seeks to encourage environmental education in the local community by using the preserve as a curriculum and outreach tool. Highland Green’s new community center, scheduled to come on line in mid-August, boasts solar panels that will supplement the energy receive from the grid. The building will have an informational kiosk that explains the system in an effort to educate about clean energy. One of the facets of the Highland Green jewel is its nine-hole golf course that is applying for the Audubon International Cooperative Sanctuary program. This program reduces the ecological impact of the golf course, while simultaneously preserving the quality, challenge, and playability of the course.
 
Nancy Brown moved to Highland Green from Washington, D.C. two years ago, and had a solar hot water system installed when she built her home. Her southern exposure provides plenty of light to meet all of her domestic hot water needs, “You can wash your dishes, take a shower, and do your laundry all at once and there is plenty of hot water. It’s an incredible system.”

Brown believes in renewable energy and would love to see more of these installations at Highland Green. This technology, along with a growing array of environmentally friendly options including solar electricity, FSC certified sustainable lumber, non-toxic materials, high-efficiency appliances and plumbing systems, and other customizable options will become more available at Highland Green in the future.
 
“We have a unique opportunity to help lead by example by transitioning our company to become more sustainable and also by educating our customers about the renewable energy and other green options that are currently available,” said Wasileski, owner of The Highlands, Highland Green and OceanView at Falmouth. “In the end I think we’ll find that doing good turns out to be good for the bottom line as well.”

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