Sustainability
The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy is committed to operating and maintaining the Greenway parks through sustainable landscape practices.
We believe that the Conservancy’s role is to:
- Be a leader in implementing sustainable landscape practices
- Cultivate broad community support for and partnership in “greening” the Greenway
- Promote public education about the importance of responsible land stewardship.
When speaking about the landscape, “sustainable” is often used interchangeably with “organic”. The goal of a sustainable landscape is a net-zero “environmental footprint”. A sustainable landscape demonstrates a harmonious relationship between the natural and created environment. Proper soil management, plant health and resilience, air and water quality, and resource conservation are all part of designing, installing and maintaining a sustainable landscape.
Organic practices are the core of a sustainable landscape. Organic means avoiding the use of toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides for horticultural care, and avoiding toxic chemicals or compounds for maintaining or repairing hard surfaces.
To be truly sustainable, the Conservancy looks beyond the landscape. Our park environment is closely tied to our social and economic environments. We must use the land and our public spaces in ways that ensure the same or better conditions for future generations.
To us this means beautiful, green healthy landscapes; healthy communities and community building through programming, and the ability to maintain both by securing a responsible, healthy financial base and practices.
Key Benefits of Sustainable Landscape Management Practices on the Greenway
Environmental:
- Offer a healthy, environmentally friendly public space for park users – particularly children
- Support the Boston Harbor clean-up efforts by reducing discharge of excess chemicals from the Greenway parks runoff
- Minimize solid waste processing through composting
- Conserve natural resources through water management
Economic:
- Reduce maintenance costs by developing resilient plantings that require less labor and materials
- Optimize life-cycle performance of park infrastructure and horticultural collections
- Increase marketability of adjacent real estate
- Reduce costs of water and electricity
Social:
- Promote involvement and investment in broader community objectives
- Contribute to overall quality of life
- Promote park users’ sense of pride and investment in their public assets
- Create robust community building programming in the parks