Colorado landscape trade association launches water conservation initiative for HOAs

Large water users use less water through Sustainable Landscape Community initiative

Last month’s Earth Day was a reminder for people to put into practice ways to take care of mother earth.

It is in this spirit of sustainability that Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado has recently launched the Sustainable Landscape Community (SLC) initiative, which incentivizes large water users (including master-planned and homeowner association communities) to use less water.

Why should a landscaping group spearhead a water conservation program? First, an understanding of meteorological conditions in Colorado and the Western United States is needed. Colorado is often referred to as “the headwaters state” because eight major river basins originate in the state, including the Platte, Arkansas, and Colorado Rivers, as well as the Rio Grande. Yet Colorado’s ongoing, more than 20-year drought has put increasing strain on both local and national water supplies.

Declining snowpack levels over the last two decades have adversely affected not only the Colorado River Basin, but the seven other major river basins that originate in Colorado. To make matters worse, a recent study from researchers at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory found that Colorado could see a 50% to 60% reduction in snow within 60 years.

In 2015, the Colorado Water Conservation Board created the first comprehensive Colorado Water Plan. It serves as the state’s framework for solving Colorado’s water challenges, especially issues exacerbated by climate change and ongoing drought throughout the Western U.S. 

One of the major tenants of the Colorado Water Plan is active collaboration to conserve our most precious natural resource – water. Collaboration is a cornerstone of Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado’s (ALCC) Sustainable Landscape Community initiative.

ALCC is Colorado’s largest Green Industry professional trade association, and it created the SLC initiative to demonstrate how HOAs, as well as commercial and retail properties, working collaboratively with their landscape maintenance contractor, can be part of Colorado’s water conservation solution.

The SLC initiative provides large water users with a platform to stand out as environmentally savvy, sustainable communities that are part of the state’s water solution, not part of the problem.

“Sustainable landscape practices require year-round maintenance, which some master-planned communities see as cost-prohibitive,” said ALCC CEO John McMahon. “But in the long run, they will save money by using less water, reducing utility bills, and ensuring they don’t have to replace trees – one of the largest landscape expenses – because they were poorly planted and not properly maintained.”

SLC designation recognizes larger water users for incorporating sustainable landscape practices that save water and systematically reduce water consumption. To apply, potential SLC communities must use an ALCC member landscape company that participates in the Sustainable Landscape Maintenance program for its maintenance.

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