Walter Poleman, Senior Lecturer in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and Director of the Ecological Design Collaboratory, has played a key role in supporting sustainability programming at the University of Vermont (UVM) and across the Burlington region. In 2015, Poleman’s frequent collaboration with Tom Hudspeth, UVM Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies and Natural Resources, and Megan Camp, Vice President and Program Director at Shelburne Farms, resulted in Burlington’s designation as a United Nations Regional Center of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development.
This classification recognizes the city and surrounding areas as successfully integrating sustainable development strategies utilizing education initiatives, research, and working partnerships.
Poleman has consistently guided efforts to cultivate a culture of sustainability throughout the Burlington region. One common theme in his work has been approaching environmental knowledge through the lens of education and community.
Most recently, Poleman worked with Rubenstein School graduate student Sean Beckett to launch Burlington Geographic, a program that explores the unfolding story of the landscape and community of Burlington, Vermont. Burlington Geographic is part of the P.L.A.C.E (Place-based Landscape Analysis and Community Engagement) program, a collaborative initiative of the University of Vermont and Shelburne Farms.
Poleman works with Shelburne Farms and other local partners to develop educational programming for the City of Burlington and is currently teaming up with teachers at Burlington High School to incorporate place-based curriculum. In an effort to engage students as global citizens, he also facilitates a UVM exchange program with students on Andros Island in the Bahamas.
“Integrating and connecting concepts of human health to community sustainability is the next great step for maintaining Burlington as a ‘hub’ of sustainability expertise,” Poleman says, citing the United Nations sustainable development goals as a key framework for evaluating human health and sustainability in Burlington. These indicators include metrics such as poverty levels, energy resources, and employment rates.
“Human health is a lens through which to view the trajectory and sustainability of place and therefore inseparable from ecosystem health,” says Poleman. “By supporting health across the city and community, regional planners can develop a set of criteria we need to live a quality existence and determine how best to meet those needs. Improved community health in Burlington could be approached from a variety of angles including developmental health, drug use remediation, and preventative health education.”
Part of this upcoming effort to support health action in Burlington will involve cross-disciplinary efforts with the University of Vermont Medical Center and the Rubenstein School. The Sustainability Fellows Faculty Program, which creates a multidisciplinary faculty cohort engaged in a year-long exploration of sustainability, hosted a meeting on March 31, 2017 to discuss a systems approach to human health.
Dawn LeBarron, Vice President for Hospital Services at the University of Vermont Medical Center, gave a presentation on medical center efforts to increase sustainability, including the plan for the newest addition to the hospital to be U.S. Green Building Council LEED-certified. Charles Hulse, Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Fellow in the Clinical and Translational Science Center at the Larner College of Medicine, gave a short talk on "Place and Health." Christine Vatovec, Research Assistant Professor in the Rubenstein School, spoke about "Pharmaceuticals in Lake Champlain."
Vatovec, whose research on pharmaceuticals in Burlington's wastewater garnered national attention, echoes Poleman’s sentiment that health is vital to long-term sustainability.
“Individuals can easily engage with the idea of personal health in ways that we don’t necessarily equate with the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic, or social,” Vatovec says. “Recent work in the public health and climate change sphere relates to the ‘co-benefits’ of actions – or actions that provide multiple benefits on different scales. For example, active transportation like biking reduces greenhouse gas emissions and also has the co-benefit of increasing health through physical activity.”
Vatovec believes there is an opportunity for more collaboration and research across disciplines at the University of Vermont, and exploring co-benefits is one way to access these connections.
Poleman trusts that if multiple schools and colleges throughout the University of Vermont and greater Vermont in general engage with broad, transdisciplinary ideas like this, eventually the connection between the health of our environment and our own well-being will become clearer and more accessible.
“By viewing Burlington and its surrounding landscape as one social-ecological system, it is easier to grasp how the health of one may depend on the other,” explains Poleman who is planning a Fall 2017 installment of the Burlington Geographic series on community health. In order to support these efforts, he plans on continuing to foster partnerships with local organizations, such as Local Motion and New Farms for New Americans, that are excited about sustainability.