From The Blog

KICA Participates in Kiawah Goes Greener Initiative

Earlier today, the Town of Kiawah announced the Kiawah Goes Greener initiative, which unites and formalizes an interagency commitment by Kiawah’s major entities to continued environmental stewardship and advancement of eco-friendly business practices. This initiative results from an ad-hoc working group led by Kiawah Island Council Member Dr. Scott Parker with representation from the town, Kiawah Island Community Association, Kiawah Island Golf Resort, Kiawah Island Club, and the Kiawah Conservancy. These entities recognize climate change as one of the significant challenges presently facing the environment and intend to do their part. KICA’s representatives in this effort are director Brad McIlvain and Resilience Specialist Lucas Hernandez. Read the town’s full announcement.

The goal of Kiawah Goes Greener is to create a multi-year plan to reduce the island’s carbon footprint as a whole and adopt other eco-friendly initiatives into daily operations in addition to the many practices already in place. KICA has already taken some important steps, including a six-month trial to test and evaluate battery-operated equipment for our commercial operations. The team will assess battery life, effectiveness, usability, fuel savings, maintenance requirements, and noise reduction. At the end of the trial period in February 2022, KICA will collect information from the trial to determine the viability and potential value of transitioning from traditional gasoline-powered tools to battery-operated equipment.

In order to better understand KICA’s emissions, the association is compiling a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory utilizing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Local GHG Inventory Tool. KICA is using this tool, along with data from 2019, to develop a baseline understanding of total emissions across all departments. KICA will use the results of this baseline inventory to understand annual emissions, compare to future GHG inventories and identify areas for improvement moving forward.

We’ll keep you updated on the progress of these important steps as the initiative moves forward.