ePAVE TESTIMONIALS
An interview with Claire Robinson, Founder and Managing Director, Amigos Delos Rios about working with ePAVE at the Jeff Seymour Family Center in El Monte, CA.
ePAVE: What has been the reaction from your community to the cool pavement?
Claire: Teachers, students, families and agency partners love the effect of the ‘cooler’ pavement: ePAVE colors create artful ‘livable’ public spaces for students to explore and play because it magically transforms vast unfriendly expanses of asphalt into differentiated spaces with temperatures that are safe for students to enjoy throughout even the hottest times of year.
ePAVE: Do you feel there is value for money in the investment in cool pavement?
Claire: ePAVE is a very cost effective way to bring cheer, thermal comfort and energy savings to a public outdoor space and in doing so also help proactively respond to the climate crisis we are in.
ePAVE: How does using ePAVE relate to your climate change work?
Clare: Reducing heat island everywhere possible in a cost effective manner provides incremental benefit to our climate change challenges. We can no longer afford to ignore the public health consequences of urban heat islands and the environmental impact of not reducing our energy use. Treating black asphalt with ePAVE in strategic areas can help reduce the cooling load for air conditioning.
Black asphalt should be outlawed and discontinued as our default hardscape surface because of the energy and public health crisis it precipitates.
ePAVE: What is Amigos Delos Rios’s motivation to use cool pavement and specifically ePAVE?
Claire: We are motivated and inspired to use ePAVE in every project to bring environmental, social and public health benefits to our public space projects. Most public school campuses have black asphalt which is like a solar oven for kids – it is a thoughtless surface with dangerous temperatures to impose on our younger generations. We should be nurturing students with comfortable inspiring outdoor spaces not baking them on hot black asphalt where temperatures can reach up to 160 degrees.
ePAVE can reduce surface and ambient temperatures by up to 20 -30 degrees. We want to do everything possible to ensure physical fitness, mental health and academic performance of students is optimized. Recess is a critical period to blow off steam between academic classes – if it is too hot to play safely and comfortably – this affects the academic performance and mental health of students. Every child deserves a cool and cheerful outdoor play area at school.
In addition to school applications – We would like to see ePAVE on all crosswalks to reduce the heat island effect for pedestrians.