Duke Farms Awarded 2021 Operational Sustainability Award

Press release from Duke Farms:

June 24, 2021

HILLSBOROUGH, NEW JERSEY — The American Public Gardens Association recently selected Duke Farms to be the 2021 recipient of the APGA Operational Sustainability Award. Duke Farms’
sustainability initiatives span the built and natural environments and strategies aimed at
conservation of resources like energy, water, and eliminating fossil fuel use.

“We are honored to receive this award from the American Public GardensGardens Association and
look forward to continued implementation of stewardship practices that support biodiversity and
ecological resiliency and demonstrate climate crisis solutions”, said Executive Director, Margaret
Waldock. ” We hope to be both inspiration and partner to our public garden colleagues as they
pursue climate friendly inspire others with tangible, scalable solutions, including our colleagues in the public garden community.”

Sustainability achievements include:
• Two LEED Platinum certified buildings: The Farm Barn Orientation Center and the Orchid
Range – both are examples of sustainable restoration and reuse of historic buildings.
• An onsite solar power plant that generates 50% of Duke Farms’ electricity, including power
for heating and a large fleet for low velocity electric maintenance vehicles.
• A constructed wetlands wastewater treatment plant that uses native plants to treat sewage.
• Parking lots designed to minimize runoff and maximize natural groundwater recharge
through native vegetation plantings in bioswales and rain gardens, combined with updated
surfacing and paving with porous materials.
• Sustainable landscaping – minimal use of pesticides and herbicides, restoration of native
pollinator meadows, native plant propagation gardens, onsite native plant nursery, and
compost production from onsite farm-to-table café’s food waste.
• Sustainable farming and food production through regenerative practices – rotational grazing
and cover crops to improve soil health and support wildlife, on site composting used to
compost both food waste from the café and landscape vegetative waste, a 5-acre, 460-plot
community garden where members grow their own organic food through sustainable
methods that build soil and conserve water.

• Electric vehicle chargers, as well as plans for the installation of DC Fast Chargers through a
grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s It Pays to Plug In
Program.
• A research partnership with Rutgers University to explore land management strategies for
reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while maximizing carbon sequestration of the
thousands of acres of natural habitats and working agricultural lands on the site.
• And many more. A full list of winning environmental stewardship initiatives at Duke Farms
can be found here.

The future of sustainability at Duke Farms lies in continuing to advocate and pursue strategies
that support state and federal initiatives that address the climate crisis. The organization aims to
be a zero emissions facility while implementing natural climate solutions to remove an
overabundance of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This press release was produced by Duke Farms. The views expressed here are the author’s own.