Piper Shores is a LIfePlan (CCRC) retirement community of around 400 residents, just south of Portland, ME. It is a community that puts a premium on sustainability, and it has just published an impressive “Sustainability Plan” that could serve as a model for other retirement communities—including Kendal-Crosslands. Although there are colleges and universities that are working on similar comprehensive goals, I’m not aware of another retirement community that has as ambitious a plan as Piper Shores. (If you know of one, please let me know in the Comments, below.)

At the center of the Piper Shores plans are four aggressive energy-related goals:

  • to procure 80% clean electricity by 2030 (100% by 2040),
  • to transition to all-electric fleet vehicles by 2040,
  • to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, and
  • to transition to a fossil fuel free campus by 2045.

In this blog post, I’ll describe some of the highlights of the 63-page plan. You can download the entire plan from the Piper Shores website here.

The plan was developed for Piper Shores by Thornton Tomasetti, an engineering firm with offices worldwide. One of Thornton Tomasetti’s 23 US offices is in Portland, ME, near Piper Shores.

Near the beginning of the sustainability plan, right after the Executive Summary, is a list of three “Key Priorities”. These are: appointing a Sustainability Coordinator (which could be a parttime assignment for an existing staff position or perhaps a graduate student internship); establishing a carbon-footprint baseline, and implementing a “Top Ten List” of immediate steps to reduce the use of energy and make progress on environmental goals.

The Top Ten list includes a variety of adjustments and upgrades to existing systems, such as HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) and water heating, that could provide a quick return. The list also includes easy-to-implement steps that don’t create financial savings themselves, but that address Piper Shores’ environmental goals. These items include creating a “Sustainable Site Maintenance Plan” covering landscaping and plantings and an annual transportation survey to help understand how to address residents’ transportation needs.  

The heart of the plan. The bulk of the sustainability plan is divided into eight sections, dealing with Energy, Water, Transportation, Waste & Purchasing, Site & Landscape, Food, and Education & Awareness.

The Energy section is the first section. It lists five “Proposed Next Steps”. These are:

  • establishing a baseline of current carbon emissions,
  • allocating dedicated funds for energy efficiency (perhaps with a revolving funding mechanism),
  • procuring clean energy,
  • devising guidelines for building efficiency, and
  • purchasing carbon offsets where complete elimination of carbon emissions is not feasible.

The plan provides far more detail on possible steps for energy conservation in its Appendix B (see below).

Following the Energy section, priorities for the other seven sections are listed. Each of them contains between four and seven specific proposals for next steps. Sustainability-minded residents will find many familiar ideas here. The most impressive aspect of Piper Shores plan is not so much the ideas it contains (many of which are quite familiar), but rather the comprehensive overview and the prioritization that it provides.

No doubt the priorities would be different at a different CCRC, but I think any retirement community could use the Piper Shores document as an excellent starting point for developing a plan of their own.

Want more technical details? Read the appendices. There are two appendices. Most people will skip them, but those interested in technical detail may find them interesting reading, as I did. Appendix A is titled “HVAC Optimization Strategies Spreadsheet”. It consists of a list of about two dozen HVAC upgrades that could be undertaken. They are organized by how soon they might be done, from “<1-2 years” to “>5 years”. They range from boiler and chiller temperature settings, to installing heat recovery systems for bathroom plumbing, to battery backup systems, to a visual dashboard displaying real-time energy and water use. There are helpful suggestions about finding equipment and contractors and about the approximate cost of each of these measures.

I hope something similar to this list will result from the upcoming energy audits of the Crosslands and Kendal Centers.

Appendix B is called “Discovery Phase Report”. This describes the process that the contractor, Thornton Tomasetti, went through in analyzing Piper Shores’ situation, prior to writing the sustainability plan. It includes the items that would be part of any energy audit (review of utility bills and HVAC systems, for example) but with several additional steps.

One important step was “energy benchmarking” of a sample of six independent-living cottages. The use of propane and electricity for these cottages was assessed based on a year’s worth of utility bills. This data was used to calculate the Energy Use Intensity (EUI) for each cottage. The EUI is a measure of how much energy is used per year, per square foot of floor area. The heating fuel for the cottages is propane.

It turned out that the EUI ranged widely, from 53 in the best-performing cottage to 87 in the worst. The EUI for a large central building, Oceanside, was also determined. It was 69, which compares favorably with government data for CCRCs generally (the median EUI is 88). The plan does not set an EUI target for the Piper Shores buildings.

The appendix contains a long list of upgrades to consider for both the cottages and the Oceanside building. It also includes resident observations on such things as drafts and unwanted temperature swings. There are a few observations about The Meadows, a new independent-living expansion across the road, that was under construction during the “discovery” process. (Construction of The Meadows has since been completed and it is now occupied.)

Let’s figure out how to do this at Kendal-Crosslands. I think Kendal-Crosslands needs a plan like the one Piper Shores has commissioned. I have no information on how Piper Shores paid for their plan, but I would imagine the cost would limit the possibility of a similar project here. However, there are things we can do without any costs beyond those that are already budgeted for.

We are about to embark on energy audits of our two Centers, starting with Crosslands this year and following up next year at Kendal. These audits will provide us with many of the basic items that appear in the “Energy” section of the Piper Shores plan. That’s a major step forward.

There is no plan yet for auditing independent living units, but the two-cottage comparison at Kendal is a start.

Looking beyond the energy and utility-based data, we do not have a comprehensive plan that covers all the other areas in the Piper Shores report (water, transportation, waste and purchasing policies, site landscaping, food, and education). A brand-new resident group, Green K-C, is beginning work on such a plan, and I’ll report on that as it takes shape.

The KCC Board is also starting work on a long-range plan, which may have a sustainability component. Perhaps that will provide an opportunity for Kendal-Crosslands to consider doing something similar to Piper Shores.  

One more thing. Piper Shores has shown us what a great plan looks like. We need a similar one at Kendal-Crosslands. But a plan is only a paper document. If it is not faithfully executed, it has no value. The plan is the beginning, but the real work is making sure the plan is followed and progress is monitored, year after year. We need to be prepared to take on that job, once we have a plan.