Maximizing Sustainability on the Harvard Campus

Nov 1, 2017 | Blog

By USGBC MA Communications

Greenbuild 2017's Green Building Tours welcome you the Harvard University Campus for a walking tour of the sustainable facilities across the campus on Saturday, November 11 from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM.


Participants will engage with state of the art offices, classrooms, laboratories and dorms while strolling along the Charles River and through historic Harvard Yard. The tour will feature presentations from the Office for Sustainability, Green Building Services, and faculty highlighting how Harvard's campus serves as a living lab putting the latest sustainability research into practice. 

Harvard's Sustainability Plan aligns Harvard's decentralized campus around a holistic vision and sets clear University-wide goals and priorities in the areas of emissions and energy, campus operations, nature and ecosystems, health and well-being, and culture and learning. It also encourages students, faculty, and staff to continue piloting sustainability solutions throughout the University by using Harvard's cutting-edge research and teaching to tackle real-world challenges on campus.

Attendees of this tour will gain a comprehensive understanding of the myriad sustainability issues and competing priorities Harvard weighs in developing its campus. Guides will weave presentations from leading administrators and faculty into the tour portions to provide a deeper understanding than a series of individual building tours would allow.
 
The tour will provide a greater understanding of the policies, guidelines, tools and strategies developed at higher education facilities that help to ensure best practices in sustainability are integrated into capital projects and existing building operations. In addition, attendee will be able to explain how measurement and verification, energy management, and continuous commissioning processes can be used to ensure facility energy performance meets design goals and estimates. Join in to see how campus-wide resources can be used to maximize sustainability beyond the footprint of each individual building and establish processes that can be replicated worldwide.
 
This tour is one of many throughout Greenbuild 2017. Check out the conference schedule here and sign up for workshops, tours and more!
 

Building Improvements Enhance Learning Environment at Northern Essex Community College

Oct 1, 2017 | Uncategorized

By USGBC Communications

Often overlooked, the design of a building can make a significant impact on health, accessibility and safety. Today, many architects, designers, planners, engineers and construction teams are looking to specific improvements to build or rennovate in ways that improve both indoor and outdoor environments of buildings.

The Northern Essex Community College (NECC) community recently celebrated the newly renovated $18 million, 80,000 SF Spurk Building, one of the most widely used academic buildings on the college’s Haverhill campus. RDK Engineers, an NV5 Company, worked alongside the project architect, DiMella Shaffer Associates, providing MEP/FP engineering design services for transforming and renovating the classroom building which plays a critical role in the success of NECC students. 

Building improvements included:


  • NECC_SpurBuilding     Air Quality Improvements: The entire building will have a central ventilation system and air conditioning.

  • Accessibility Upgrades: Accessibility changes included new and renovated entrance ramps, proper door clearance, extension of the accessible parking lot toward the building, and new chairs, wheelchair spots, and companion seats.

  • Safety Advances: Life safety changes will include additional fire protection, a sprinkler room, and stairwell improvements including the enclosure of the central stairwell.

Congratulations to USGBC MA Chapter Sponsor RDK Engineers and the entire project team on the completion of the Spurk Building renovation! These upgrades will contribute to an enhanced learning environment for the entire NECC community.


 

 

Make a Nomination for the Best of Green Schools 2017

Feb 3, 2017 | Uncategorized

By Anisa Baldwin Metzger


The Center for Green Schools at the USGBC is once again partnering with the Green Schools National Network to co-present the Best of Green Schools 2017. The Best of Green Schools is designed to acknowledge the people, schools, campuses, and organizations that are making a huge difference in creating more green schools for students.

Best of Green Schools celebrates the hard work being done to push the green schools movement forward. Last year’s honorees included schools with innovative and integrated curriculum that represents the best that 21st-century learning has to offer, policy makers who’ve made environmental sustainability core to their platforms and legacies and organizations that came together on the national level to advance healthy schools for all. 

If you or someone you know is making significant strides toward creating more sustainable schools, we want to hear from you! You may submit nominations for yourself and others.  The call for nominations closes on Feb. 14, 2017.

Award recipients will be announced at the 2017 Green Schools Conference and Expo, March 21–22 in Atlanta, Georgia. This annual gathering of innovators in the green schools movement is the perfect moment to celebrate the leadership embodied by the awardees. After you submit your nomination, register to attend the conference so you’ll be on hand in Atlanta for the awards.

Submit your nominations now!

Read the original story by the Center for Green Schools.

The State of Our Schools– From the Center for Green Schools

Mar 25, 2016 | Uncategorized

By Ryan Duffy, Communications Fellow


The Center for Green Schools just released a 30-page long assessment of America's K-12 Facilities. This comprehensive federal review of our nation's school infrastructure bleakly concludes that schools are severely underfunded (to the tune of $46 billion a year). The construction, maintenance, and operations of our nation's schools are essential, as is the health and future success of students who occupy them.

The report includes 5 critical chapters:  a section explaining why school facilities matter so much, a section proposing “a generation of facilities change,” a brief chronology of public education facilities spending from 1994 to 2013, a chapter addressing the thresholds and criteria for obtaining satisfactory educational facility standards, and a concluding outline of strategies to meet modern standards and a call to action. Here are some brief excerpts from the report and the concluding call to action:

School Facilities Affect Health and Performance


The importance of facilities to health and performance is well established. In a literature review examining ventilation rates and respiratory illness, for example, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Labs noted an increase of 50 percent to 370 percent in the incidence of respiratory illness in spaces with low ventilation rates, as are commonly found in schools, compared to spaces meeting industry-accepted standards. Breathing fresh air is not only critical for keeping students healthy but also for keeping them alert. Several studies have linked recirculating air and low ventilation rates in classrooms with lower average daily attendance and slower speed in completing tasks. Studies also have found that poor facilities are strongly associated with student truancy and higher rates of suspensions.

School Facilities Impact the Environment

The massive scale of school district infrastructure has a major impact on overall municipal infrastructure. One green roof installed on an existing school in New York City, for example, resulted in a reduction in storm water runoff of 450,000 gallons a year, both protecting the city’s water treatment systems and promoting wildlife habitats.11 Districts also have removed hardscape — like asphalt — and used native plants in landscaping, which helps mitigate a community’s vulnerabilities from drought and flooding. Locating schools near the homes of students can enhance a community’s resilience by providing ready shelter and safety in the event of natural disasters. And it can simultaneously reduce vehicle miles traveled by parents and buses, contributing to healthier air and reduced fuel consumption. 

A Call to Action

Federal, state, and local stakeholders — from senators to state legislators to superintendents, community leaders to impact investors — must collaborate to create, pilot, and scale new solutions and document successful strategies. Community and investment partners must come to the table. Five states already have created separate agencies dedicated to school facilities. Some are focused primarily on state allocation of capital funds. Others are engaged in planning and project management and construction itself. One — New Mexico Public School Authority — is involved in the continuum of facilities from M&O to design and construction. However, the current reality is that most districts in most states must deliver 21st century school facilities on their own. Thought leaders from education, government, industry, and communities are invited to use and improve on the data and standards framework presented in this report to brainstorm, share, and pilot creative new solutions to these common facilities challenges. Successful strategies that emerge from these pilots must be documented, refined, and adapted for scale. The result: school facilities that meet the needs of today’s students, in every community, and for generations to come.

To read the full report, click here. 

National: New Report Shows Systemic Inequity in American School Infrastructure Investment

Mar 24, 2016 | Uncategorized

By Ryan Duffy, Communications Fellow



USGBC National Press Release

Contact: Leticia McCadden
Media Relations Manager, USGBC
lmccadden@usgbc.org
202-742-3785

Groundbreaking Schools Report Shows Systemic Inequity in a State-By-State Analysis of Investment in American School Infrastructure

New Report by the U.S. Green Building Council, 21st Century School Fund and National Council on School Facilities projects a $46 billion annual deficit in U.S. school funding
 
Washington, D.C. — (March 23, 2016) — The State of Our Schools: America’s K-12 Facilities report, released today by the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the 21st Century School Fund and the National Council on School Facilities, shows that the nation faces a projected annual shortfall of $46 billion in school funding, despite significant effort on the part of local communities.
 
“One out of every six people in the U.S. spends each day in a K-12 public school classroom, yet there is very little oversight over America’s public school buildings,” said Rick Fedrizzi, CEO and founding chair, USGBC. “It is totally unacceptable that there are millions of students across the country who are learning in dilapidated, obsolete and unhealthy facilities that pose obstacles to their learning and overall wellbeing. U.S. public school infrastructure is funded through a system that is inequitably affecting our nation’s students and this has to change.”
 
The report features an in-depth state-by-state analysis of investment in school infrastructure and focuses on 20 years of school facility investment nationwide, as well as funding needed moving forward to make up for annual investment shortfalls for essential repairs and upgrades. The report also proposes recommendations for investments, innovations and reforms to improve learning environments for children in all U.S. public schools.
 
“The data on funding school infrastructure paints a clear picture of the importance of a national conversation regarding the way improvements are funded. The conversation surrounding student achievement must also include a component addressing the places where our children learn,” said Mike Rowland, president, National Council on School Facilities and director of Facilities Services for the Georgia Department of Education.  
 
The report compares historic spending levels to the investment that will be needed moving forward to maintain today’s school building inventory. Estimated facilities investment requirements are based on building industry best practice standards that are adapted to public school infrastructure. This comparison reveals a projected gap of $46 billion that we as a nation must overcome to provide healthy, safe, and adequate school facilities for our children. Only three states’ average spending levels meet or exceed the standards for investment: Texas, Florida and Georgia.
 
The analysis found that the federal government provides almost no capital construction funding for school facilities, and state support for school facilities varies widely. Local school districts bear the heaviest burden in making the investments needed to build and improve school facilities. When school districts cannot afford to make these significant investments, they are often forced to make more frequent building repairs from their operating funds—the same budget that pays for teacher salaries, instructional materials and general programming.
 
Currently, six states (Massachusetts, Wyoming, Connecticut, Ohio, Kentucky and Hawaii) pay for all or nearly all of the capital construction costs for schools in their state, while 12 states (Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin) provide no direct support to districts for capital construction responsibilities. In the remaining 32 states, the levels of state support vary greatly, and the federal government contributes almost nothing to capital construction to help alleviate disparities.
 
“Even though K-12 schools are the largest public building sector in the U.S. and represent the second largest category of public infrastructure investment, there is no current dataset at a national level and many states could not report on the size of their public school inventory,” said Mary Filardo, author of the report and executive director, 21st Century School Fund.
 
The report highlights the need for better facilities information at the local, state and national levels. It has been more than 20 years since the federal government completed a comprehensive assessment of school facilities. At the time, more than half of U.S. schools had indoor air quality issues, and more than 15,000 schools were circulating air deemed unfit to breathe.
 
“The way we fund school infrastructure means that communities and states are working largely on their own to provide high-quality facilites. Without new funding models, schools in low-income areas will be unable to meet even the most basic standards for health and safety,” said Rachel Gutter, director, Center for Green Schools at USGBC. “Federal, state and local level stakeholders – from senators to state legislators to superintendents, from community leaders to impact investors – must collaborate to solve this problem.”
 
Overall the report found that communities have been doing their best to address the conditions of their schools but are in need of additional support and more equitable funding. The State of Our Schools report identifies four key strategies for addressing the structural deficits in the K–12 public education infrastructure:
  • Understand public school facilities conditions and provide communities access to accurate data about school facilities.
  • Engage in education facilities planning using best practices from across the country, and support local communities in proposing creative and practical plans to improve their public school facilities.
  • Support new public funding to provide what is needed to build and maintain adequate and equitable school facilities.
  • Leverage public and private resources to extend a community’s investments, utilizing a new generation of structures, funding streams, and partnerships.
To download the full State of Our Schools: America’s K-12 Facilities report, and to find out the conditions in your local school district, please visit: www.stateofourschools.org.
 
About the Center for Green Schools

The Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council’s mission is to make sure every student has the opportunity to attend a green school within this generation. The Center sits at the intersection of buildings, curriculum and community and works directly with teachers, students, administrators, elected officials and communities to create programs, resources and partnerships that transform all schools into healthy learning environments. High-performing schools result in high-performing students, and green schools go far beyond bricks and mortar. The Center advances opportunities to educate a new generation of leaders, including sustainability natives, capable of driving global market transformation. To learn more please visit http://www.centerforgreenschools.org.