Living up to its namesake, the Evesham Township Environmental Commission has been hard at work helping residents and township employees improve the long-term sustainability of the environment.
As a result of that hard work, Evesham Township was recently awarded bronze level certification by Sustainable Jersey, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that gives training, tools and financial incentives to communities that work toward sustainability programs.
Ila Vassallo, a member of the environmental commission, said Sustainable Jersey isn’t mandatory and only recognizes and rewards communities that decide to improve their environments on their own accord.
“It’s a certified program for municipalities that want to go green, save money and become sustainable over the long term,” Vassallo said.
For Evesham to reach bronze level certification, it had to complete 16 sustainability actions as outlined by Sustainable Jersey. Vassallo said many of the actions were goals and projects the township was already working toward.
“The whole purpose of the program is to make sure the towns can go for the things they’re already doing,” Vassallo said.
Evesham’s recycling center and composting projects in the elementary schools slow the growth of landfills. Community and school gardens allow residents to grow their own fruits, vegetables and flowers. Solar installations in the municipal building, Blue Barn recreational facility and parks maintenance garage save both the environment and money.
Vassallo said the projects reflect Evesham residents’ group efforts to work together and better the community.
“The effort is really focused on involvement from all the stakeholders in the community, and residents and township employees really did a wonderful job to achieve this,” Vassallo said.
In addition to those projects, Vassallo said an inventory of environmental resources in Evesham was also taken to better guide overall preservation and conservation efforts.
“It’s an accounting of various natural resources in the town: topology, history, open space, soil,” Vassallo said.
While Vassallo said there were more than 100 actions Eversham could have chosen to undertake, one of the few mandatory actions was for Evesham to create what’s known as a “Green Team.”
“You can kind of look at it as the education and outreach arm of the program,” Vassallo said.
One way the Green Team reached out to the community was by participating in the Northwest Earth Institute’s EcoChallenge, an annual event that allows people and teams to perform actions that will reduce their environmental impact and then document those actions online.
“It gives you the opportunity to track your progress and compete with other teams,” Vassallo said.
The Evesham Township Council also honored the commission at its Jan. 28 council meeting for the hard work it did to achieve Sustainable Jersey ranking.
As for the future, Vassallo said the commission’s immediate goal was to help residents learn more about what they can do for the community.
“The future plan is to continue outreach to get more people knowledgeable about what we’re doing,” Vassallo said.
However, Vassallo said the commission wouldn’t stop with just a bronze certification.
“Long term, we definitely want to think silver,” Vassallo said.
