Browsing by Author "McAdoo, Brian"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Farm to Fork to Farm: Biochar, Compost, Working Landscapes, and a Circular Economy in Warren Co., NC
    (2023-04-28) Fast, Clara; Bowers, Madeline; Carter, Eliza; Taragittigul, Karina
    Working Landscapes, a non-profit organization located in Warren County, NC, aims to create new value from their natural and cultural assets and share them in more equitable ways. This project explores the market opportunity, community interest, and externalities of installing and operating a biochar unit in and around Warren County. Biochar, a carbon-rich, solid by-product that results from the pyrolysis of discarded woody material sourced from the community, combined with compost generated by Working Landscapes’ food scraps, can increase soil health and contribute to the creation of a circular supply chain. Beyond the economic benefit of waste reduction is the environmental benefit of keeping natural materials from producing greenhouse gasses in landfills. We conducted a market and cash-flow analysis, a geospatial analysis of the soil types, and analyzed results from an electronic survey for community input. To demonstrate a tangible example of a circular supply chain in Warren County and make use of otherwise wasted materials, we recommend that our client invest in biochar production along with scaling up their compost generation. Working Landscapes will gain a new customer touchpoint, reduce its waste, and increase circularity within its supply chain.
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    Participatory Planning: Addressing the Disconnect between Local and External Stakeholders
    (2022-04-22) Almakky, Ahmad
    Participatory approaches are being increasingly utilized in conservation projects. The idea stems from critiques of previous practice being too exclusionary resulting in poor outcomes. A broad theme in these critiques relates to a disconnect between the local and external stakeholders. This disconnect emerges from the differences in the epistemological foundations of the different stakeholders and manifests itself in the form of poor practice with inequitable outcomes for local communities. Today, a variety of approaches to participation are utilized in environmentalism, depending on what they are motivated by and what they are trying to achieve. One such approach is Radical Listening, developed and utilized by Health in Harmony (HiH). HiH is an NGO working in Indonesia, Brazil and Madagascar with rainforest communities. Informed by a Planetary Health approach, HiH works towards protecting rainforests, providing local communities with access to healthcare, education and livelihoods. Through Radical Listening, HiH implements projects that are designed by the communities they will impact. This research explores the extent to which HiH’s Radical Listening approach to participation addresses the disconnect between the local and external stakeholders; as informed by themes derived from a study of past practice, their justifications and their shortcomings. This research studies HiH through 5 main themes; (1) learning, whereby open-mindedness, empathy, interdisciplinary approaches, and an iterative culture of learning are emphasized and perpetuated by HiH; (2) nature of support, through which the extent to which Radical Listening is truly participatory is considered alongside the types of interventions they carry out; (3) relationship with communities, which are explored in relation to the importance given to building trust, sharing power, aligning goals and having an open, honest, direct relationship with the communities; (4) other stakeholders, such as local government departments, other NGOs, donors and the community beyond HiH’s target communities are considered; and (5) reporting activities, are looked at in relation to the consideration given to reporting failures, reporting broader, more abstract, outcomes, and learning from reporting. With a few exceptions, I found that HiH’s practice is conscious of and reflects the first four of these themes. However, they did not seem to represent the nuance required in reporting adequately. I provide the following key recommendations for HiH with the aim of informing their practice so that it can better serve to address the disconnect between the local and external stakeholders in conservation projects: 1. To reframe the questions that they ask the community so as not to influence the outcomes of the Radical Listening sessions. The initial question that HiH asks the community starts with “You are the guardians of this precious rainforest…”, which imposes upon local communities’ ideas about what their relationship with nature should look like. 2. To represent better what currently seems contradictory; namely that the involvement of communities in decision-making is justified by their perceived expertise as opposed to the idea that it is their right to have a say in the design and implementation of projects that will impact them. 3. To acknowledge and operationalize ideas about entrenched systems that perpetuate inequity on a global scale. While HiH considers and is sensitive to the impacts of colonialism on the communities they work with, I suggest that they should be more reflexive about the degree to which older ‘colonial approaches to conservation’ continue to influence this work.
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    Sowing the Seeds of Redemption: Supporting the formerly incarcerated population of Durham through agricultural education
    (2024-04-26) Jackson, Roo
    Situated south of the historic Stagville plantation in Durham, North Carolina, Urban Community AgriNomics (UCAN) operates as a community garden and non-profit organization that serves the surrounding urban community in a variety of ways. UCAN places a significant focus on preserving the intergenerational story of the land as well as fostering community resilience and rejuvenation. It accomplishes this by adhering to its core mission of enhancing the health and well-being of the Durham community through offering education and skill development in healthy living practices, seed-to-table food preparation and preservation, and practical learning experiences in STEAM and Agriculture. UCAN serves as a community gardening space, providing a learning environment for agricultural skills, and offering a tranquil setting for local Durham community members to immerse themselves in the narratives of the past while connecting with nature. Founded on the largest former plantation in the state, UCAN's objective is to transform land previously used to harm the community into a source of benefit. This report explores UCAN's latest initiative in pursuit of this transformative goal. In the upcoming years, UCAN is establishing a program to equip formerly incarcerated individuals with valuable skills in agriculture. This will be called the Returning Citizens Project (RCP). This initiative will provide housing and compensation over a three-year period. There, participants will foster connections within a local close-knit farming community, gain a stronger sense of community, and leave with the tools necessary to help prevent recidivism. While engaging in a variety of farm-related responsibilities, participants will primarily focus on managing a designated one-acre plot for agriculture and an additional acre dedicated to planting, learning about, and selling native North Carolina plants. As they cultivate a relationship with the plants and share their history, this endeavor will further UCAN's mission of not only supporting its community but also perpetuating the narrative of the land for generations to come.
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    The Effects of Redlining on Residential Energy Efficiency and Resilience in Extreme Temperature Events
    (2024-04-26) Clapper, Haley
    Residential energy efficiency is a component of individual and community resilience during extreme temperature events, especially extreme heat. Historic and lower-quality homes are often less energy efficient, requiring more time to heat up during cold events or cool down during heat events due to gaps in building envelopes. In the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), a U.S. government-sponsored organization tasked with refinancing home mortgages, developed residential security maps of over 200 U.S. cities to appraise neighborhoods based on the perceived lending risk associated with demographics, a practice known as “redlining.” Over several decades, redlined neighborhoods predominantly populated by low-income and non-white residents received less investment than non-redlined neighborhoods predominantly populated by wealthier white residents. This study explores how historical redlining has left a legacy of disinvestment in housing, which may contribute to inequities in residential energy efficiency compared to non-redlined neighborhoods. Using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s ResStock tool, we modeled indoor temperature change in various building types over time under coincident extreme temperature and power outage scenarios. Additionally, we modeled energy efficiency upgrades to identify opportunities for enhancing building envelopes. We then examined performance differences for specific building types that are notably more or less prevalent in redlined and non-redlined neighborhoods in Durham, North Carolina. We identified several building types that were more prevalent in redlined areas and performed less efficiently on average compared to home types that were more prevalent in non-redlined areas. Lastly, we found that upgrades can enhance energy efficiency in homes, but further study is needed to elucidate potential differences in upgrade benefits between homes that are more prevalent in redlined areas compared to those more prevalent in non-redlined areas. Layered with other consequences of neighborhood disinvestment, such as urban heat island effects, these inequities can threaten human health, energy affordability, and overall resilience during extreme temperature events. Overall, this analysis provides insight into potential disparities underlying residential energy efficiency associated with redlining and spatial distributions of building characteristics, which could potentially inform policies and retrofit investments to build more equitable resilience in the face of future extreme temperature events.