Center for Neighborhood Technology

Eco-Friendly Landlords Make ‘Going Green’ More Than a Habit

You’ve gotten rid of your car, shop the local farmer’s market with your cloth bag, and purchased green tags to offset your vacation. And still not quite satisfied you are doing all you can to reduce your carbon footprint. Adapting your way of life is important so you want to feel like you’ve made strides that impact both the environment and your wallet.

You literally do not need to leave home to make the biggest impact because your home is one of the best possible sources to green in reducing your greenhouse gas emissions output. Residential buildings use enormous amounts of energy that come from carbon-emitting sources. And since Illinois only gets about 3% of its energy from non-polluting sources, in addition to demanding clean energy sources, we should also take steps to reduce our overall demand, no matter what the source.

So you buy CFL lightbulbs, Energy Star appliances, and planted native plants in your garden for shade. Now what? How about painting your roof a light, reflective color so your building reflects heat in the summer, lowering your air conditioning bill? Or adding insulation to help seal the walls and reduce the amount it takes to heat and cool indoors? Though these may not be the most “sexy”, cutting-edge green building practices, they are the hard-hitting steps to reducing your building’s energy consumption. Focusing on the building ’seal’ will save you money by reducing your energy consumption, while also reducing your dependence on polluting energy sources.

You can do all these initiatives on your own, or you can move to a building that does it already! The recent issue of Time Out Chicago featured eco-minded landlords and real estate properties. Check out the profile of CNT CEO, Kathy Tholin, and what she is doing to keep her building (and rent) sustainable.

Photo courtesy of Time Out Chicago: CNT CEO Kathy Tholin sitting atop her building’s solar panels

CNT Native Garden Comes to Life

The Virginia Bluebells were the first to spring to life this season in CNT’s native garden. And it won’t be long until tall beauties like Wild Columbine and Golden Alexander and ground-dwellers like Blood Root and Wild Ginger follow. The garden serves as a habitat for monarch butterflies, milkweed bugs, downy woodpeckers, and even a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

CNT’s native garden is not only a sanctuary for wildlife; it’s functional too. The garden captures the buildings stormwater runoff. Plants soak up and use the stormwater so it does not runoff the property, keeping our bodies of water cleaner, and also take in carbon dioxide and let out oxygen, reducing the heat-island effect around the building and contributing to cleaner air.

The garden is low-maintenance, not requiring any more watering than what it gets from rainwater. The soil is maintained by a compost of organic material like banana peels and coffee grounds from staff. The garden was created when CNT renovated the building in 2000 and was an integral part of it achieving LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum status.

To take a tour contact annette@cnt.org.

CNT unveils green building renovation, website

On Thursday, October 16, 2003, CNT unveiled its green building renovation to several hundred guests during at open house at the CNT offices on 2125 W North Ave in Chicago.

CNT also presents its new website detailing the features of the green building as well as the chronology of the project.