Owens Corning Granville Science and Technology Center

About the Program
Owens Corning Granville Science and Technology Center is located in Granville, Ohio, east of Columbus. The campus is 524 acres, including about 270 acres of forest and a pond and wetland complex of about 35 acres. Campus operations focus on developing sustainable composite and building material solutions that impact the environment and the way people live around the world. About 400 people work at the Science and Technology Center, and the location’s human resources department supports outdoor activity as a benefit to employees' health. The team manages two acres of grassland and a pollinator garden, and has placed bluebird boxes throughout the campus. They also host an annual nature day for employees.

Practices and Impacts

• The grassland project, which marks the first instance of deliberate tall grass growth on-site, is in its fourth full year of growth. The team has noticed that employee awareness and interest in site biodiversity has increased because of the installation of this prairie. It is featured in their on-site employee educational events, and they have plans to engage employees in its monitoring in the future. The visual of the tall grasses helped to drive additional lawns on the site to switch away from mowing in favor of long grasses that provide habitat for wildlife. As such, there are now more tall grasses adjacent to the prairie, as well as around the ponds and in other open grassy areas.
• The team has installed 20 bluebird boxes throughout the campus and diligently ensure the boxes are cleaned and prepped for the birds each spring. The team then monitors the boxes every week, taking steps to prevent non-native, invasive house sparrows from using the boxes. These efforts have paid off with positive impacts. Approximately 90 percent of the boxes have been used by native birds since 2015, and 133 clutches (eggs produced at a single time) of bluebirds and 124 clutches of other native species have hatched successfully since monitoring began in 2008.
• In 2020, the team installed two different types of bat boxes to provide nest sites for a variety of native Ohio bats. The bats are monitored both directly and through acoustic surveys.
• In 2021, the team hosted an employee awareness event to draw attention to native bats in Ohio, their habitats and the threats they face. The event provided bat box designs to encourage attendees to install bat boxes on their own properties.