December Climate Leader: Peter Thompson

The Center’s rooftop solar! Peter Thompson is appears second from right.

Peter joined the Center in 1999. A resident of Charlottesville for more than 40 years, he received his undergraduate degree from UVA and his MPA from VCU. While serving on the National Institute of Senior Centers (NISC) Delegate Council, a part of the National Council on Aging (NCOA), Peter chaired a national task force on New Models of Senior Centers; the resulting report was published in the Journal for Applied Gerontology. He helped found the Virginia Association of Senior Centers to give senior centers a greater voice in helping Virginia and its localities prepare for the age wave. In 2017, he helped found Charlottesville Area Alliance, leading our area to be a more age-friendly community. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UVA, and Madison House. He was a founding director for the Virginia Network of Nonprofit Organizations (VANNO), serving two years as chair, and for the Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNE). He is a past recipient of the United Way Thomas Jefferson Area Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership award and the Leadership Charlottesville Leadership Leader award.He currently serves on the Rio29 Community Advisory Committee.

1. How did you get involved in environmental stewardship?

The Center’s mission is to positively impact our community by providing opportunities for healthy aging. We deliver this through seven dimensions of wellness which are proven by research to be the key ingredients to aging well-emotional, environmental, intellectual, physical, social, spiritual and vocational.

Environmental wellness comprises both the responsibility of protecting the natural world and the joy of being in it. Are you making a positive impact on environmental quality by recycling, reducing water consumption, or participating in community clean-up efforts?

It is impossible to live or age well if you don’t live in a healthy environment.

And personally, one of my fondest childhood memories is spending the very first Earth Day cleaning up the grounds and woods around Oakridge E.S. in Arlington, VA.

2. How is The Center embracing climate leadership?

The Center took advantage of the opportunity provided when designing and building The Center at Belvedere which opened in June, 2020. With Sun Tribe, we were able to leverage a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to add a large solar panel array on our roof. This is projected to provide about half of our electricity needs year-round. Providing clean and renewable energy was the right thing to do and will save The Center money which we can then invest back into our mission. We also have environmentally friendly storm water design, native plant landscaping, efficient windows and mechanical systems and more. Adding more environmental wellness programming also illustrates our commitment to climate leadership.

3. What are you hopeful about right now?

Our society often has to be faced with a crisis in order to motivate us to act. This past year brought more than a year’s worth of crisis and I know this opened a lot of hearts and minds to how we can and must do things differently. This includes health care, senior living, racial equity, economic sustainability and of course our long-term environmental well-being. I’m optimistic that more people will do the right thing themselves and, importantly, demand more of our political and other leaders as well.

4. What is one thing that you think might be holding the state or local community back from greater progress on implementing climate solutions?

We tend to reward political, business and other leaders on what they do in a given quarter or year instead of demanding they work on long-term solutions to our biggest problems.

5. What is a climate action personally or professionally that you are proud of?

Developing criteria for the design and construction of The Center at Belvedere that put sustainability on equal footing with the other top priorities.

6. What is one thing a Charlottesville nonprofit or business can do today to enact a climate solution?

Register for C3’s Better Business Challenge—this is a wonderful resource to help guide what you can do to make a positive impact for our community.

7. This is challenging work.  What is your favorite way to recharge and rejuvenate?

Getting outside! Running, walking our dogs, yard work, or simply sitting on the back terrace of The Center at Belvedere and enjoying the scenery and bird watching with a cup of Greenberry’s always revitalizes me.

Thanks for all you and your staff do at the Center, Peter!