Beyond Energy: Other Opportunities
Energy use and electrification form the heart of a senior living community’s journey to net zero. Replacing fossil fuels with renewable electricity delivers the largest reductions and drives most of the planning and capital decisions. Yet energy is not the whole story. Communities also influence greenhouse gas emissions in less obvious ways—through travel, waste, water use, food choices, purchasing decisions, and even the way landscapes are managed. These areas fall largely within Scope 3 emissions, meaning they are outside direct control but still linked to community life. While their impact is smaller than energy, they offer meaningful opportunities for progress, education, and leadership.
Transportation and Travel
Transportation is one of the most visible sources of emissions for senior living communities. Community-owned vehicles, such as buses, vans, and utility trucks, are already covered under fleet electrification, but off-campus travel by staff and residents is another important contributor.
- Staff commuting. Many employees drive to and from work daily. Supporting electric vehicle adoption through workplace charging stations, preferential parking, or small incentives can help. Flexible scheduling, carpools, and connections to public transit also reduce emissions.
- Resident travel.* Vacations, cultural trips, and personal driving fall outside the community’s direct control, but residents can still be supported with education and EV charging access. Group travel by electric vans or buses can provide low-carbon alternatives.
- Air travel. Long-distance flights by staff or residents are some of the hardest emissions to address. Options include reducing unnecessary travel, choosing rail where feasible, and purchasing credible offsets when travel cannot be avoided.
*It is important to note that emissions from resident travel are generally not included in a community’s official footprint, since they are outside its financial control. Even so, education and infrastructure can help residents make lower-carbon choices.
Water and Waste
Wastewater treatment and food waste are often overlooked sources of greenhouse gases. Both involve hidden emissions that add up over time.
- Wastewater. Globally, wastewater treatment accounts for about 2% of emissions, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. While most communities send sewage to municipal treatment plants, the indirect emissions can still be substantial. In some cases, methane captured at treatment facilities can be used to generate electricity, reducing overall impact.
- Food waste and composting. Large kitchens often overproduce, leading to significant leftovers. Without intervention, that food typically goes to landfills, where it produces methane. Composting or anaerobic digestion are better alternatives. Composting services, local farmers, or municipal programs can handle large-scale scraps. Smaller, resident-run composting programs may also be feasible for cottage or apartment kitchens.
- Waste diversion. Recycling, reuse, and waste minimization all reduce upstream and downstream emissions. Even modest diversion programs can add up when measured over time.
Composting and wastewater management will never match electrification in their impact, but they are tangible, visible, and effective ways to build resident engagement and show early progress.
Procurement and Food Choices
Every product and meal has a carbon footprint before it arrives on campus. Communities can reduce emissions through smarter procurement.
- Food sourcing. Local and plant-based options generally carry lower emissions than foods transported long distances or heavy in animal protein. Resident committees can partner with dining directors to pilot plant-forward menus and celebrate seasonal, local produce.
- Landscaping. Sustainable landscaping choices reduce fuel use, conserve water, and support biodiversity. Converting turf to meadows, planting native species, and phasing out pesticides are all steps that reduce indirect emissions. Electrifying landscaping equipment compounds the benefits.
- Purchasing standards. Choosing products with strong sustainability certifications, recycled content, or low-carbon supply chains further reduces Scope 3 emissions. These decisions also send important market signals to suppliers.
Natural Systems and Carbon Sinks
Plants and soils naturally capture carbon from the atmosphere. While the scale of most retirement communities limits how much this can offset, landscape choices can still contribute.
- Perennial grasses and native plants sequester carbon in soils through deep, long-lived root systems.
- Tree planting stores carbon for decades, though expanding forests large enough to offset emissions is rarely feasible on campus land.
- Biodiversity support through meadow creation, pollinator gardens, and woodland preservation enhances ecological resilience even if the carbon impact is modest.
Carbon sequestration through landscaping should be treated as a supplemental benefit—valuable for ecosystem health and resident satisfaction, but not a substitute for cutting fossil fuel use.
Market Mechanisms: RECs and Offsets
As your community moves toward net zero, you may encounter two market-based mechanisms: Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Carbon Offsets. These tools can play a supporting role, but they are not substitutes for directly reducing fossil fuel use on your campus.
Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).
A REC certifies that one megawatt-hour of renewable electricity has been generated and fed into the grid. They are often tied to state-level Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which require utilities to source a portion of their electricity from renewables.
- If your community installs solar panels, selling RECs can provide income.
- If you buy electricity from the grid, purchasing RECs can help ensure your electricity is backed by renewable sources.
- RECs function as incentives to add renewable energy to the grid, but their value shifts over time. In states where the grid becomes largely renewable, RECs lose both monetary value and usefulness as a carbon-reduction tool.
Carbon Offsets.
Offsets involve paying for projects, such as tree planting, forest preservation, or methane capture, that claim to reduce emissions elsewhere. Offsets are sometimes used to “balance out” the hardest-to-eliminate sources of emissions, conceptually bringing a community closer to net zero.
However, offsets are controversial. Many projects have proven unreliable, with exaggerated benefits or outright fraud. Oversight is uneven, and the promised reductions may not materialize or may not last. Because of this, offsets should only be used cautiously and with thorough scrutiny.
For more information, see:
Putting It in Perspective.
- RECs may provide a temporary bridge while the grid transitions, but they cannot replace reducing fossil fuel use on your own campus.
- Offsets may fill unavoidable gaps, but they should never be the first strategy in a net zero plan.
- The most reliable path remains direct elimination of fossil fuels, supported where necessary by credible renewable energy purchases.
In both cases, direct action, such as reducing fossil fuels and generating renewable energy on site, remains the most reliable path to net zero.
Conclusion
Energy, electrification, and renewable power remain the backbone of a net zero plan. But beyond those core efforts, senior living communities have opportunities to make progress in other areas: transportation choices, wastewater and waste management, sustainable procurement, landscaping, and careful use of market tools like RECs. These actions may represent smaller portions of the overall footprint, but they reinforce the culture of sustainability, engage residents and staff, and build momentum for the harder, larger steps ahead.
