As a campus facility manager, you know that staying competitive means continually investing in your grounds. But with undergraduate college enrollment in its steepest decline on record, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and data from the National Student Clearinghouse, making the case for continual improvements gets harder, pushing many facility managers to seek landscape service partners that can identify new ways to keep your campus landscape a high-performing resource.

Knowing how to respond to challenges and how wisely money will be allocated is an opportunity to ensure that the full potential of the value of the investment in landscaping can be realized. To Eastern Land Management, this means delivering more innovative solutions and a value-based approach to landscape and grounds services.

With 48 years’ experience spanning public and private K-12, to land grant and private colleges to the Ivy league in Connecticut and New York, ELM has a long-history as a discreet and unparalleled landscape partner-of-choice. The company’s proactive, professionally managed approach to maintaining campus landscape and grounds is a process that ensures that the school, the land, the natural resources, the landscape and the built environment work in harmony with the school’s commitment to excellence.

Key elements that make us strong campus partners

• We work with facility managers to reemphasize the flexible space between buildings, and meet landscape, grounds and site objectives at a strategic level.
• We improve data driven decision-making with technology platforms.
• We find creative ways to rise to the challenge of deferred maintenance.
• We advise on energy management programs to reach sustainability goals and drive cost savings.
• We follow best-practice guidelines in horticulture, plant health care, integrated pest management, and water conservation to break new ground on sustainable solutions.
• We create a consistent and reliable approach to service excellence, working with facility managers to set priorities and deliver the greatest value.
• We provide multiple delivery models, including outsourced partner, onsite partner, consulting partner, or in specialized service areas, such as water management and athletic fields.

Leading change in four critical areas

ELM received the Fairfield County ChangeMaker Award for sustainability in 2019, and we continue to support sustainability goals in the following ways:

• Safeguarding water
  • Reducing runoff
  • Promoting permeable paving
  • Collecting rainwater, where feasible
  • Implementing landscaping that has high rate of absorption
  • Incorporating bioswales and bio-retention areas, and constructed wetlands
  • Utilizing drought tolerant planting
  • Installing high-efficiency irrigation systems and digital water saving technology
• Conserving resources
  • Reducing green waste
  • Minimizing waste impacts
  • Using renewable, biodegradable, low-impact, and non-toxic materials, as feasible
• Improving energy efficiency
  • Planting deciduous trees for seasonal shading
  • Using energy-efficient equipment
  • Using renewable technologies
  • Increasing the use of cost-effective tools and alternative fuel
• Enhancing environmental quality
  • Creating healthy outdoor spaces and landscape solutions that support learning and enhance the quality of life
  • Restoring soil health to improve carbon sequestration, combat soil erosion, retain water and nutrients
  • Using non-toxic products, as feasible, to improve plant health and reduce pests and disease
  • Increasing the use of low-maintenance, drought tolerant perennials, meadows, eco-lawns, groundcover
  • Protecting habitats and promoting biodiversity
  • Using eco-friendly alternatives to salt for winter snow and ice management

At ELM, our goal is to make all the elements of the landscape work together for a more sustainable and resilient future. To learn more, contact Ted Marron at tmarron@easternland.com