U Illinois Urbana-Champaign Building Achieves LEED Platinum
The building that houses the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering features a rooftop solar-panel installation, a stormwater storage and release system, and several passive heating and cooling features, including a terra cotta exterior and sun shades.
Ball State U Building Earns LEED O+M Certification
Thanks to Ball State students in a LEED Lab class, the David Letterman Communication and Media Building is now certified LEED for Building Operations and Maintenance (LEED O+M). The building was certified as LEED Silver in 2007.
San Francisco State U Building Achieves LEED Platinum
The university’s Mashouf Wellness Center features rooftop solar panels and a gray-water system that uses pool runoff and the water from the sinks and showers for toilets and landscaping. Landscaping focuses on drought-tolerant native plants.
Smith College Tests Ground-Source Energy Exchange System
A $30,000 grant aided the college in drilling a 1,000-foot-deep vertical borehole and connect it to a ground-source heating and cooling system. The system will be used for faculty research, coursework and co-curricular initiatives to determine the feasibility of using this technology to reduce the college's greenhouse gas emissions.
Cornell U Undergoes Lighting Upgrade
The Cornell Energy Conservation Initiative recently completed a multi-phase comprehensive lighting upgrade earlier this year that replaced lighting in indoor and outdoor spaces with LED bulbs. With the project fully completed, the new lighting reduces the campus carbon footprint by nearly 3 percent annually. The upgrades, which began in 2014, have a cost avoidance of $2.9 million-to-date.
PGMS Announces 2019 Green Star Award Winners
The Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS) recently awarded 19 colleges and universities with its Green Star Award, which recognizes grounds maintained with a high degree of excellence.
Miami U Buildings Earn LEED Certification
Minnich and Scott Halls, which reopened in fall 2018 after major renovations, were certified LEED Gold in September. Presidents and Withrow Halls, new residence halls that opened in fall 2018, were certified LEED Silver in June. Both the Minnich and Scott Halls achieved a 44 percent improvement on baseline building energy performance rating over a non-LEED building. Presidents and Withrow Halls achieved a 28 and 26 percent improvement, respectively, on baseline building energy performance rating over a non-LEED building.
Emory U Student Center Earns LEED Platinum
The university's new 117,000-square-foot, three-story student center features ground-source heating and cooling, a rooftop solar thermal system and LED lighting coupled with occupancy sensors.
Villanova U Opens Sustainable Apartment-Style Buildings
The Commons is a new apartment-style complex featuring six residence halls. Outside of the buildings are light fixtures that are dark sky compliant, two underground cisterns to collect stormwater from the roofs that will be used to cool the buildings, and three bioswales to remove debris and pollution from surface water runoff. These areas will also be used as stormwater test sites for students and faculty in the College of Engineering. The buildings feature energy-efficient and motion sensor light fixtures and low-flow plumbing fixtures.
U Miami Business School Achieves LEED Gold EBOM
The building that houses the Miami Business School includes LED lighting, in-room air quality sensors, audio/visual and tele-presence technology, automatic window shading, and caters to occupants' ergonomics and comfort with furniture, indoor foliage and views to the outside in nearly every occupied space.
Oakland U Building Receives LEED Gold
Hillcrest Hall, the university's newest student housing complex, features high-efficiency lighting, climate controls and window glazing to help reduce energy costs. The area around the building features bike racks, preferred parking for low-emission vehicles and native vegetation.
La Trobe U Invests $51M to Achieve Net Zero Emissions
(Australia) The university recently announced a $50.8 million ($75 million Australian dollars) project that will feature 7,000 photovoltaic panels across 27 buildings, 50,000 LED lights, a large-scale composter for 100 percent of the campus' organic waste, and an analytics platform for monitoring energy consumption.
Five Institutions Receive APPA 2019 Sustainability Innovation Award
College of Lake County, Stanford University Residential and Dining, University of California, Davis, University of Texas at Dallas, and Virginia Tech received the 2019 award on behalf of their programs and/or processes that enhance service delivery, lower costs, create a green and/or sustainable environment, or otherwise benefit the educational institution supporting student success and environmental stewardship. Additionally, Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh, Ph.D. at James Madison University, received the CFaR Research Award for the report, "Managing Trees on Campus: A Survey of North American College and University Tree Care Practices and Operations".
Berea College Science Building Earns LEED Gold & FSC Certification
In addition to being certified through LEED standards, the college's new Margaret A. Cargill Natural Sciences and Health Building also received the Forest Stewardship Council’s Forest Stewardship Council’s Full Project Certification. The certification requires a full audit of all wood products used in construction to verify that they have been sourced responsibly.
North Virginia CC Building Earns LEED Silver
The community college's renovated administration building features low-flow bathroom fixtures, water-efficient and native landscaping along with rainwater capture, LED lighting and occupancy sensors. Parking areas for bicycles, hybrid vehicles and carpool transport are now available.
Humber College Retrofit Achieves Zero Carbon Certification
The college's NX building was recently awarded with the Zero Carbon Building - Design Certification by the Canada Green Building Council. A zero-carbon building is highly energy-efficient and offsets the annual carbon emissions using renewable energy. The retrofit focused on making the building envelope insulated and air-tight, and included upgrades to the lighting, heating and cooling systems and a new 25-kilowatt solar-electric system.
Elon U Building Earns LEED Silver
Sankey Hall features low-flow plumbing fixtures and energy-efficient systems. Compared to standard plumbing fixtures, the low-flow fixtures in the building are expected to reduce water usage by 31 percent. The energy cost savings for the buildings is about 23 percent compared to buildings that just meet the standard building energy code.
U Texas Dallas Building Earns LEED Gold
The new Engineering and Computer Science West building is 200,000 square feet and hosts research and teaching labs, faculty offices, student workspaces and a 300-seat auditorium. The building, which opened in August 2018, combines passive design strategies, high-performance assemblies and calibrated shading elements to reduce overall solar heat gain while maximizing daylight. R&D Magazine honored the building with a 2019 Lab of the Year Award-Special Mention for Engineering Labs.
U Colorado Boulder Building Obtains LEED Platinum
The university's Village Center Dining and Community Commons is a 113,225-square-foot student hub featuring an aeroponic garden, a rooftop photovoltaic array, electrochromic glass windows, a biodigester, a bicycle-powered smoothie station, and LED lighting throughout. An efficient irrigation system for the native and adaptive landscaping plants coupled with water-efficient fixtures in the building is expected to result in more than 450,000 gallons of reduced water use each year.
Portland State U Buildings Receive LEED O+M Certification
In just over two years, four university buildings were certified under LEED for Building Operations and Maintenance. Two were certified Silver while two were certified Gold. The Campus Sustainability Office oversaw the certification process, including coordinating the performance periods with partners in Facilities & Property Management.
CaGBC Announces 2019 Green Building Award Winners
The Canada Green Building Council announced at the recent Building Lasting Change conference in Vancouver the 2019 winners of its Leadership and Green Building Excellence Awards. Cheryl Fryers, professor at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, won the Inspired Educator Award, and Western University’s engineering building in London, Ontario, won the New Construction Award.
Emory U Hospital Tower Earn LEED Silver
The building features low-flow indoor water fixtures and energy-efficient exterior glazing systems, and is a lead- and mercury-free facility. A special focus was put on indoor environmental quality for improved occupant health and well-being. Over 95 percent of the construction waste was recycled.
U Buffalo Library Earns LEED Silver
The renovation of the 24-hour library included using locally-produced or recycled building materials, reusing materials, such as light fixtures, and the installation of an air station to monitor fresh air intake and improve air quality.
U Kentucky Athletics Building Earns LEED Silver
The Joe Craft Football Training Facility features energy-efficient HVAC, thermal comfort and lighting systems. Additionally, it consumes 40 percent less water and 21 percent less energy than other buildings of its type.
Mohawk College & U British Columbia Win Awards for Sustainable Built Environments
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada announced in mid-May the 2019 recipients of its Awards of Excellence, which reflect outstanding achievement in architecture through innovation, green building, allied arts, advocacy and journalism. Mohawk College's Joyce Center for Partnership & Innovation won the Innovation in Architecture category for its net-zero institutional building on the Fennel campus that is helping to set the standards for the Canada Green Building Council Zero Carbon Buildings Framework. The University of British Columbia's Campus Energy Center won in the Green Building category for its hot water facility that uses almost 63 percent less energy and 31 percent less water than a baseline building of its type.
Monash U Opens Sustainable Residential Building
(Australia) A new 150-bed residential accommodation complex includes rooftop solar panels, a rainwater harvesting tank, and a landscaped dry creek bed to manage stormwater during high-rain events. In addition to electricity supplied by its rooftop solar, some electricity will come wind energy through the university's power purchase agreement in a wind farm. The complex will be powered solely using renewable energy.
The Chronicle Covers Climate-Related Facilities Concerns
In May, the Campus Spaces section of The Chronicle of Higher Education compiled pieces on how colleges are planning for climate change through the built environment and how they are protecting the campus from floods, fires, utility failures and more. The piece highlights Washington College, whose campus lies along the bank of the Chester River; Middlebury College, who became carbon neutral in 2016; and an opinion piece on the urgency of creating resiliency.
Paul Quinn College Announces Strategic Energy Initiative
The college's new energy plan includes cost-effective energy procurement, valuable infrastructure upgrades and renewable energy generation. Six campus buildings will host a combined total of 711-kilowatts of solar electric. Each will receive a full roof replacement at no upfront cost to the college prior to the solar installations.
U Massachusetts Lowell Installs Rooftop Vegetable Garden
Thanks to a collaboration between the university and a Lowell-based urban farming nonprofit, there’s a new rooftop, modular garden consisting of about 180 plants growing in individual milk crates filled with compost that originated from the university's dining halls. The primary purpose of the garden is to educate passersby about the university's Urban Agriculture Program.
North Carolina State U Housekeeping Becomes Green Seal Certified
University Housekeeping recently achieved the Green Seal certification by meeting products and services requirements and passing a performance review encompassing all aspects of its cleaning program. The requirements, which range from equipment and procedures to chemicals and employee training, were documented and verified through an on-site audit.
U Saskatchewan Invests in Energy Efficiency
Armed with $1.5 million in support from the federal government’s Low Carbon Economy Fund, the university plans to fix, replace or eliminate equipment and systems that are outdated and inefficient in 26 buildings on campus, to be completed by March 2022.
Duke U Develops Green Building Standards
The High Performance Building Framework is a set of procedures and guidelines for new construction and major renovations that takes a holistic view of sustainable building at Duke. Outlining a process for planning and designing campus buildings, the plan also includes a new tracking and rating system to examine how facilities perform.
Northwestern U Receives Energy Star Award
The 2019 Energy Star Partner of the Year Award recognizes the university’s achievements in energy efficiency, including efforts to accurately track energy usage data and measure progress in reducing consumption. Northwestern’s notable accomplishments include completing a comprehensive building energy consumption audit of all 222 campus buildings and implementing a new dashboard system that supplies key departmental contacts across campus with monthly utility consumption reports.
Colgate U Benton Hall Earns LEED Platinum
Benton Hall features a passive house design with high-performing windows, occupancy sensors and daylight-responsive light dimming. Stone was sourced within a 500-mile radius and 75 percent of its construction waste was recycled or salvaged.
Washington U St. Louis Adds 1.9 MW of Solar Energy
Construction is underway on a 1.9-megawatt solar electric project that will add arrays to six university buildings. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the fall 2019. A new interdisciplinary program allows students to use the project as a case study to learn about the business, policy and engineering aspects of the solar industry.
Bowie State U STEM Research Center Earns LEED Platinum
The university's Center for Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Nursing is a 149,000-square-foot, four-floor building that features dynamic glazed windows that tint on-demand to lower energy usage and a computerized and automated ventilation system for laboratories. Sloped landscaping prevents rainwater from running off onto paved surfaces, and native deciduous shade trees in the building's plaza serve as a natural buffer from the sun's rays.
U Maryland Baltimore Building Achieves LEED Gold
The university's School of Medicine building now features a green roof planted with native and adaptive plants, a cistern water collection system, high-performance glazing on the south façade, natural ventilation, high-efficiency flush fixtures, low-flow sinks, secure bike storage spaces and shower facilities.
U Illinois Urbana-Champaign Classroom & Research Building Receives LEED Gold
A recent $79 million renovation of the historic building includes energy-efficient heating and air conditioning, high levels of daylight for natural lighting, occupancy sensors and continual energy monitoring. More than 76 percent of the construction waste was recycled. The building was able to reduce its water usage by at least 20 percent. The project also received high marks for using an existing site, having convenient access to public transportation and incorporating bicycle parking.
Dalhousie U Sexton Campus Undergoes Green Renovation
The university's redesign of its downtown campus was a $64-million project, with $4 million earmarked for specific green features, including ground-source heating and cooling, photovoltaic electricity tied to a 180-kilowatt battery bank, and a 6,600-gallon underground cistern that will capture and treat rainwater for toilet and urinal flushing.
Southern Oregon U Student Rec Center Earns LEED Gold
The athletic pavilion and recreation center complex, which opened last spring, was recognized for bike-friendly infrastructure and electric vehicle charging stations, lighting that minimizes disturbances to night skies and wildlife, plumbing fixtures that reduce water usage by 39 percent and efficiency measures that reduce energy consumption by almost 23 percent. Other elements include a rooftop solar installation that offsets 10 percent of the facility’s annual electricity consumption, the use of sustainable lumber products and recycled building materials, and the use of substances such as paints and sealants that emit only low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOC).
U Massachusetts Boston Building Earns LEED Gold
The university's Dining and Residence Hall includes low-flow showers, faucets, toilets and urinals, a high performance building envelope, energy recovery units, and LED lighting throughout.
California College of Arts to Complete Green Residence Hall
The new, five-story student housing building, which will provide housing for more than 500 students, will feature rooftop photovoltaic arrays and solar water heating systems, 167 indoor bike parking spaces and high-performance floor-to-ceiling windows. The building infrastructure has also been designed to enable the eventual connection of campus energy systems to a microgrid. All rooms will be ADA accessible.
U Maryland Installs Indoor Vertical Garden
With the help of a University Sustainability Fund grant, students, faculty and staff can now reap the health and well-being benefits of a 240-square-foot, vertical garden installed on the ground-floor patio inside the Student Union.
College Lake County Building Earns LEED Platinum
The 42,000 square-foot Science & Engineering Building features photovoltaic solar panels, LED lighting, ample natural light, vegetated rooftops, a geothermal heating and cooling system, and energy-efficient fume hoods in chemistry labs.
