Lipscomb, Team Green partner for series of green workshops

Lipscomb University’s Institute for Sustainable Practice and Nashville’s Team Green are teaming up to host a series of workshops on green lifestyles, offered free for the public on the Lipscomb campus on the first Tuesday of each month.

 

“What is Green Washing,” addressing how to tell whether a product’s claims of environmental sustainability are really true, is the theme for the fourth workshop, held at 6 p.m., tonight (Jan. 6), in the first-floor multi-purpose room in the A.M. Burton Health Sciences Building. Tips for easy recycling of household goods will be the topic for Tuesday, Feb. 3.

 

Engage Green is a new initiative of Lightning 100’s Team Green designed to educate the general community about simple ways to make their lives greener. Engage Green hosts a knowledgeable speaker(s) every month who offers information and on how-to topics easily transferred into daily life.

 

Topics so far have included composting, energy conservation, local food sources, and drinking water and permeable and impermeable surfaces.

 

“The goal of the workshops is for people to have easy, tangible, take-home ideas to make their lives greener, for not much money and for not much time and effort,” said Laurel Creech, creator and director of Team Green, Middle Tennessee’s 12-year-old outdoor adventure club housed at Lighting 100 WRLT-FM.

 

The workshops offer a non-political, non-sales-pitch atmosphere for participants to interact and learn about green issues, she said. The workshops focus on the health, well-being, environmental and economic benefits of reforming our personal habits in our personal environments, in order to make a large impact through combined efforts.

Attendance at Engage Green workshops has been positive so far, and participants have been excited to ask lots of questions about the topic at hand, Creech said.

 

Tonight’s topic, green washing, refers to marketing efforts to make a product appear “green” or “natural” when in fact it is not. Attendees are encouraged to bring a product that “claims” to be green to the meeting and speaker Jeff Gowdy will explain why it is or is not!

 

Gowdy is an expert in the field of sustainability and has worked with clients in a variety of industries including consumer products, transportation and distribution, automotive, office products, corporate real estate development, residential real estate development, and nonprofit. He holds a bachelor’s in systems engineering and a master of business administration in strategy and environmental management from Vanderbilt University.

 

Lipscomb provided meeting space for Engage Green in the Burton Health Sciences Building, which is expected to soon earn LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, certifying it as not only the greenest building on the Lipscomb campus but one of a select group of green buildings in Nashville and Middle Tennessee.

 

Snacks will be served at the workshop. For more information on getting involved with Engage Green, click here.