History of the Senior Living Sustainability Guide®

In 2009, Jane Rohde, AIA, FIIDA, ACHA, AAHID, LEED AP, Principal of JSR Associates, Inc. completed a presentation on sustainability for senior living with fellow colleagues, Kevin Stover, PE, Commercial Program Consultant for The Green Building Initiative™ and Robert J. Call, Jr., LEED AP, CGP, CAPS, Director of Project Development for Carol Woods Retirement Community at the Environments for Aging Conference in Boston, MA. In addition to the presentation, Jane hosted a sustainability round table for discussing the need for a senior living sustainability guide. As a result of this initial round table, a volunteer committee was established to work on a Guide.

Monthly calls were established through the utilization of www.gotomeetings.com and the work share site, BaseCamp. Meeting minutes, research, related information, and draft guidelines have been posted on BaseCamp for the committee to access. Updates and edits were completed between calls, until the Guide was mutually agreed upon by consensus with the committee. Since the on-set of the Guide’s development, the progress of the Senior Living Sustainability Guide® has been presented by Jane and David A. Green at the Environments for Aging Conference in 2010 in San Diego, CA and in 2011 in Atlanta, GA.

The result has been a collaborative approach on a successful release of the consensus based Senior Living Sustainability Guide® Version 1.0.