Sustainability
WFC has a long-standing practice modeling sustainable operations and environmental stewardship.
Our commitment is to protect wilderness and every environment, reduce negative impact and provide an opportunity for guests and staff to deepen conservation practices. We are upgrading facilities to make them ever more energy-efficient and exemplary. We actively work to improve soils in our organic gardens.
Energy Conservation
We strive to make our lodges models of energy efficiency and look forward to adding renewable energy as soon as practicable.
We encourage visitors to carpool by providing people with each others contact information as requested. As part of our Recreation Program, we encourage bicycling and ride sharing in and around the Mount Washington Valley and between White Mountain trailheads to reduce energy waste.
The Cape is heated with locally harvested renewable hardwoods and generates ultra-low emissions with its Finnish-style masonry heater. Low-flow shower heads are in place in our lodges. We are working to minimize landscaping and to increase the use of native plants in order to do less landscape watering.
All of our lodges and buildings are especially green in that they are not heated during the winter at all. We shut them down before the first hard frost and open buildings in late spring for the summer season.
We protect our deep wells and are supporting the Town of Albany’s Conservation Commission and Planning Board in working toward a Ground Water Protection Ordinance.
Reducing Waste
We focus on reducing waste wherever possible.
We compost food waste to create healthy soil for our gardens. We have used cloth napkins in our dining room to reduce waste.
At our lodges we do not provide individual bottles of shampoo or toiletries, rather we invite guests to pack their own shampoo in and out. We provide soap dispensers in the highest-traffic bathrooms and shared bar soap in others to reduce waste caused by individual bars or bottles. We buy food and supplies in bulk and do our best to support vendors whose packaging is recycled and recyclable.
We serve mostly vegetarian food.
Recycling
We place recycling bins in prominent locations and strongly encourage recycling in all our facilities.
All construction at World Fellowship utilizes recycled and/or local building materials wherever possible.
Purchasing
We buy locally wherever practical, both to support local economies and reduce energy used in shipping food and supplies long distances. We are proud that many of our furnishings are given to us after friends have provided them with a first home.
Our lawn furniture features a set Adirondack chair made on site with “character wood” pine with knots and distinctive grain that would be discarded in traditional manufacturing. These replace plastic furnishings.
We use biodegradable cleaning products as much as possible. Paper products are purchased with the highest level of recycled and post-consumer content practicabler.
Wilderness Protection
Along with conserving energy and reducing waste as noted above, we work to protect our nature trails, to minimize erosion and help protect the diversity of vegetation through forestry management.
We have a longstanding covenant with our Whitton Pond neighbors to protect the wilderness there. In June 2020 we partnered with the Upper Saco Valley Land Trust to create three conservation easements in order to permanently protect nearly 400 acres of its campus and shorefront on Whitton Pond.