A Design Approach to Solving Recycling Challenges for the Largest Public Housing Authority in North America

Embracing sustainability entails a focus on meeting both present and future needs within an organization as well as within the outside community and the planet as a whole. Organizations that adopt a “green agenda” and implement sustainable practices can benefit in many ways: efficient use of resources yields financial benefits, healthy surroundings improve quality-of-life, green initiatives reduce environmental strains, and sustainable practices demonstrate high moral and ethical standards. These benefits can be felt throughout an organization and in the community at large, and this impact benefits current as well as future generations.

Upper management at Broadway Housing Communities (BHC) expressed strong interest in pursuing a sustainability agenda, and the Capstone team group from Columbia University worked to analyze BHCʼs current state of operations and to recommend some strategies to more fully implement sustainability into BHCʼs organizational structures and operations. In addition to focusing on general sustainability and organizational issues, much of the Capstone team's research and analysis has been directed towards waste management and recycling at BHC. Waste management will serve as the lens through which this report makes many sustainability concepts tangible, and it represents a key area on which BHC may choose to focus in the process of “greening” the organization.