Eldredge Library Launches Sustainability Initiative

 CHATHAM – The library might not be the first place that comes to mind when considering sustainability. Yet as a public institution that serves a broad swath of the community, it may just be the perfect venue for promoting environmental stewardship, economic feasibility, and social equity.

 Those are some of the goals of the Sustainable Library Initiative. The Eldredge Public Library is joining the national organization and plans to seek certification through the program.

 The Eldredge Library is the first on the Cape to join the initiative and will be working with mentoring partner Concord Public Library, the first library in Massachusetts to earn certification under the program.

 “We saw this as an opportunity for us to be able to focus our intention of what we do through programming, policy, community engagement,” said Library Director Amy Andreasson, “and a way to be involved in the community and also put the environment as one of our priorities.”

 The Sustainable Libraries Initiative provides a framework for developing and achieving sustainability goals as well as resources to help develop strategies to meet the goals. A group of staff, library trustees and members of the Friends of the Eldredge Public Library will focus on a dozen areas including organizational commitment, energy, materials management, waste and recycling, purchasing, transportation, land use, water, collective impact, social cohesion, community resilience, financial sustainability and collections.

 The initial work involves establishing baselines for energy and water use, recycling efforts, budgeting and other areas that will be used to build the sustainability program.

 Environmental, fiscal and operational improvements are examples of benefits that could grow out of the program, Andreasson said. The process will help bring staff, board and Friends members together as well as involving the community, she said.

“This is really the library’s own story,” said Andreasson. “Our certification program is going to be unique to our library, to our community. It’s not cookie-cutter for every library.”

Andreasson first learned of the initiative at an American Library Association program she attended about a year ago. She brought the concept to the library’s board of trustees, who had been looking at some of the very same issues the sustainability program involves. 

“The values in the program were things that we’d already established, like equity, fiscal responsibility and environmental awareness,” she said.

The latter, especially, had been a topic that the library had seen as important to the community and had highlighted through information, educational programs and community discussions. The library operation itself reflected these concerns through recycling, energy conservation and other measures. Landscaping and other work on the library’s exterior spaces, slated to begin soon, will include improving access and upgrading drainage as well as adding more native plants.

“We want to use our outdoor space better,” Andreasson commented. That’s among the Sustainable Library Initiative’s recommendations that the Eldredge Library is already engaged in, “which tells us we’re kind of on the right track,” she said.

“This certification reflects our commitment to sustainability which is so vital to preserve the character and future of Chatham and Cape Cod,” trustees president Dee Burlin said in a statement. “By beginning this process, we ensure that our library remains not just a place of learning and connections, but also a beacon of stewardship and sustainability.”

Another aspect of the project is enlisting public support and keeping the community informed about the progress toward certification, which Andreasson said generally takes about two years. The library plans to do that through its website and newsletters.