Winners announced for UVA Sustainability Awards

The University of Virginia continues to have several goals related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and has many initiatives toward sustainability efforts. The first story I wrote on this topic was back in June 2007 for Charlottesville Tomorrow.

In 2019, UVA formally established a goal to be carbon neutral by 2030 and fossil fuel free by 2050.

Earlier this month, UVA Sustainability announced eleven recipients for an annual leadership award.

“We are impressed at the depth of nominations from individuals and groups we received again this year, from across UVA, the region, and across sectors, those who are saving energy and reducing waste in collaborative ways, while providing important and innovative services,” reads an information release sent out on April 10.

The Leadership Awards date back to 2017.

There will be an event on May 2 to formally honor the winners.

There are three community awards.

• Bellair Farm has been recognized for donating $39,000 worth of food to five organizations. They did so despite suffering damages during Hurricane Helene.
• Flipp, Inc. trains people from various backgrounds to know how to install solar facilities. They’re being honored for their “inclusive approach to growing the clean energy workforce through empowering formerly incarcerated individuals, veterans, and rural communities with a nationally-accredited training program.”
• The Local Energy Alliance Program is being recognized for weatherizing 185 low-income households and installing 217 non-cost solar arrays in Albemarle County and Charlottesville in 2024.
• The Make a Change Club at Albemarle High School has been creating mats for homeless shelters from plastic bags that they are recycling themselves to create plastic yarn. They claim to have kept 8,400 bags out of landfills.

There are two faculty awards.

• Dr. Samantha Ahdoot is a pediatrician and the co-founder of Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action which pursues “advocacy efforts for climate-resilient policies, education on climate-health connections, and other pioneering work to protect community health and advance climate change solutions.”
• Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann in the UVA School of Architecture lead the Before Building Laboratory which seeks to advance sustainable construction efforts by creating materials that reduce construction waste.

Dr. Ahdoot said she is honored to receive the award.

“Physicians and medical students need to understand the intersections between climate change and human health to care for their patients,” she said. “There is rising recognition of the harm caused by healthcare waste and energy consumption, and the benefits of environmental stewardship.”

There are two staff awards:

• Tabatha Gilbert and Alicia White are both nurses who have sought to reduce the use of plastic bags for patients’ belongings. They’ve also created a framework to get other nurses thinking about how to reduce waste.
• Ash Morton is a career counselor in the UVA Career Center who has sought to get students access to jobs in the sustainability field.

There are three student awards.

• Zack Landsmann is a PhD student and the co-founder of JunkLabz which seeks to recycle plastic used in the scientific process. Specifically the group uses plastic pipette tip boxes to create furniture.
• Lincoln Lewis is a UVA student who has volunteered on work to update the Comprehensive Plan for the Town of Scottsville.
• The group Student Clinicians for Climate Action has members from the UVA School of Medicine and the UVA School of Nursing. They hold an advocacy day and prepare an annual Planetary Health Report Card.

For more information and a series of reports, visit the UVA Sustainability page.

Before you go: This story originally went out in the April 22 edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter. This is a production of a Town Crier, as opposed to Town Criers, so it takes a bit to get to everything. If you want to increase the chance of plurality, support the info!