U Virginia Launches 'Shut the Sash' Competition
In late 2017, the university launched its first “Shut the Sash” competition to encourage safer, more efficient working standards under chemical fume hoods. Competition participants earned points by answering educational questions, watching videos on sustainable research practices, and submitting before and after photos of fume hoods.
Radford U Receives LEED Gold on Three Residence Halls
The three residence halls feature low-flow toilets, sinks and showers, and occupancy sensors that turn off LED lighting when rooms are unoccupied. Each of the renovations incorporates rapidly renewable materials such as bamboo flooring in lobbies and lounges.
Elon U Earns LEED Silver on Schar Hall & Steers Pavilion
Schar Hall and Steers Pavilion were designed to provide green space and pedestrian walkways to encourage the use of outdoor space. All of the plumbing fixtures are low-flow, and landscaping around the buildings is designed to minimize the need for irrigation. The buildings are about 32 percent more energy efficient than those that meet the standard building energy code, and the buildings’ water, natural gas and energy use can be observed through a real-time monitoring system. During construction, 95 percent of the waste was recycled or reused.
Two Harvard U Buildings Achieve LEED Commercial Interiors Certification
Two recent renovation projects at the university recently achieved LEED v4 for Commercial Interiors certification. The Science Center – Cabot Library Project features all new mechanical, lighting, power, and plumbing upgrades; a new air-handling unit with high efficiency fans and motors, occupancy sensors, and temperature sensors; and low-flow water fixtures are expected to reduce water use by 38 percent. The Extavour Laboratory includes automatic receptacle controls, which turn off plug loads when spaces are not occupied; occupancy sensors for ventilation and lighting; and low-flow fixtures. Additionally, 95 percent of the equipment purchased for the lab is Energy Star certified.
Mohawk College to Receive $10.8M for Energy Retrofits
The funding will be used to replace an existing natural gas-fired boiler with an electrical boiler, and construct a solar-powered car park for over 200 parking spaces. The electricity from the solar system will be used to help power the new net-zero $54-million Joyce Center for Partnership and Innovation building currently under construction.
Pennsylvania State U to Lead Global Building Science Network
Faculty expertise in the university's Institutes of Energy and the Environment led the United Nations to ask the it to lead the Global Building Network, a global network to advance building science, construction processes and building management that advances energy efficiency and human performance.
Harvard U to Construct a District Energy Facility
Construction is underway on a new, 58,000-square-foot natural gas facility that will provide heating, cooling and 2.5 megawatts of electricity for the campus. With a focus on energy efficiency, an element of the facility will be a 1.3-million-gallon tank for storing chilled water that will be used to cool buildings with some limited other applications to support research. In order to minimize impacts from potential flooding the building is raised above projected flood levels.
U California Santa Barbara Earns LEED Platinum EBOM on Bren Hall
Bren Hall was first certified as LEED Platinum for new construction in 2002, and in 2009, received its second LEED Platinum certification for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (EB O+M). During the 2016-17 academic year, students from a LEED Living Lab class broke off into teams for each of the eight LEED categories, assumed responsibility for a credit within each category, and submitted a complete application in spring 2017. The building features a white roof, daylighting and energy-efficient fixtures, a 100 kilowatt photovoltaic system, and an energy-efficient lab exhaust system.
Purdue U Building Earns LEED Gold
The university's Honors College and Residences building features high-efficiency heating, cooling and ventilation equipment and water saving shower and faucet fixtures.
Lincoln College Upgrades 7000 Lights
(U.K.) As part of its commitment to improving its energy efficiency and reducing its carbon footprint, over 7,000 outdated light fixtures were upgraded to LED technology in 23 buildings across the college’s three campuses. The new technologies are predicted to reduce carbon emissions by over 605 tons annually.
California State U, Northridge Building Earns LEED Platinum
The new Associated Students Sustainability Center at CSUN features solar thermal hot water for domestic use, a 24-kilowatt photovoltaic system for electricity, daylighting combined with photosensors to control indoor lighting, and low-flow water technology along with composting toilets. Additionally, water from the lavatories, showers, and the heating and cooling system are captured and treated for irrigation use, and an existing paved service yard devoid of landscaping was transformed into a regionally appropriate drought-tolerant garden.
College William & Mary Installs Water Bottle Filling Stations
Under a new plan, W&M and the student group Take Back the Tap are working together to install water bottle filling stations in every high-traffic building on campus. New buildings and major renovations on campus now include a requirement for at least one bottle-filling station. Currently there are 52 filling stations on the W&M campus and three at W&M’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
U Maryland Secures $18.3M for Energy Conservation Projects
The Maryland Clean Energy Center has allocated $18.3 million to the university for the development of an energy-efficiency project across eight buildings. The project includes LED lighting upgrades, water conservation measures and lab ventilation controls upgrades. The project will reduce campus-wide energy consumption by approximately six percent.
U Rhode Island Building Earns LEED Gold
The university’s newly certified Chemical and Forensic Sciences Center contains exhaust hoods and snorkels with sensors that activate them when teaching and learning laboratories are in use and power them down when they are idle, occupancy sensors for interior lighting, LED technology for exterior lights, and a rain garden.
Tsinghua U Earns LEED Gold on Schwarzman College
(China) The 200,000-square-foot building is connected to a RESET Certified air quality monitoring system, which uses a cloud-based tool to provide metrics regarding the performance of indoor air filtration. The system makes air quality data available to all building occupants.
U Virginia Building Achieves LEED Silver for Rotunda Renovation
The renovation of the university's Rotunda building, which took from 2012 to 2016, included upgraded, energy-efficient HVAC and plumbing systems, and conversion of all lights to LEDs. The paints, adhesives and sealants all included low volatile organic compounds and 95 percent of the materials that were removed from the historic building were recycled.
Pennsylvania State U University Park Building Earns LEED Silver
Improvements to the university's Steidle Building included installation of two new HVAC systems with heating and cooling based on occupancy, LED lighting with occupancy sensors and ability to self-adjust based on natural light, dual-pane windows with added insulation between interior and exterior walls, new roof and insulation, and low-flow energy-efficient fume hoods. Lobby furniture was made from recycled materials and materials were sourced from within 500 miles of campus.
Northwestern U Earns LEED Platinum for School of Management Building
The university's new Kellogg School of Management building features a geothermal system, LED lighting throughout the facility and low-flow plumbing fixtures in restrooms and kitchens. Its landscaping is designed for efficient irrigation and contains plants that require minimal watering. The building's location offers occupants various forms of public transportation, and cyclists have access to bike racks, showers and changing rooms.
U Virginia Creates Online Solar Energy Tracker Tool
Multiple work groups at the university collaborated to develop and launch an online tool that displays real-time data on its renewable energy portfolio, which includes energy production on 1,700 panels installed in 2017. The goal of the tool is to raise awareness of the university’s investment in solar energy production and the environmental savings resulting from these initiatives, and to support learning opportunities for students, faculty and staff.
U California Davis Building Earns BREEAM Certification & LEED O+M Gold
The Plant and Environmental Sciences Building, completed in 2001, comprises 140,394 square feet, about 80 percent of which is lab space. A lab retrofit project in 2014 resulted in 36 percent energy savings from temperature setbacks and reduced ventilation rates during occupied hours. Other green features include occupancy-based lighting and heating-ventilation-air conditioning control for spaces and fume hoods, low-flow fixtures and Energy Star-rated computers. The university is using the building as a test case for comparing the LEED and BREEAM rating systems.
College William & Mary Facilities Management Receives CIMS Sustainability Certification
In late October, ISSA, a trade association for the cleaning industry, awarded William and Mary's Facilities Management the Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS)-Green Building Certification, which means that Facilities Management administration and a staff of 165 custodians offer environmentally friendly cleaning across the campus' 170 buildings.
College William & Mary Uses $10K Grant for Lighting Upgrade
A $10,239 Green Fee grant awarded in fall 2017 will be used at the college's Virginia Institute of Marine Science to reduce electricity usage and improve working conditions by replacing 52 dated, energy-demanding bulbs with new light-emitting diode (LED) lamps in three buildings.
Brown U Launches Three-Year, $24M Project to Boost Thermal Efficiency
As part of its continued work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 42 percent below 2007 levels by 2020, the university will increase energy efficiency by replacing its steam-based central heating system with a medium-temperature hot water system. Completion is expected in October 2020.
Johns Hopkins U Building Earns LEED Gold
Sustainability features of the university's Malone Hall are heat reutilization, an energy recovery wheel, radiant panels and LED lighting. Water conservation measures include low-flow fixtures, dual-flush toilets and electronic faucets that are estimated to reduce water consumption by 40 percent. The building landscape incorporates a bio-retention swale, which is a shallow, vegetated, landscaped depression with sloped sides that manages storm water runoff.
Bucknell U Earns LEED Silver on Campus Health & Wellness Building
The seventh campus building to obtain LEED Silver, the Graham Building diverted more than 93 percent of construction waste from landfills through recycling while incorporating more than 10 percent recycled and more than 20 percent regionally sourced materials into the building's design. It also features technology to ensure efficiency such as occupancy sensors, daylighting and low-flow water fixtures.
U Michigan Building Receives LEED Gold
The Stephen M. Ross School of Business' Kresge renovation and Jeff T. Blau Hall project has received LEED Gold certification. The project includes energy and water conservation measures such as occupancy sensors for lighting control, energy-efficient light fixtures, the incorporation of natural daylight and low-flow bathroom fixtures. Energy measures are expected to allow for energy savings of an estimated 30 percent.
Colgate U Class of 1965 Arena Earns LEED Gold
The new athletics facility includes water-saving technology, specialized climate controls, and recycled and locally sourced building materials. The university relied on paints, adhesives and other building materials that have no or low volatile organic compounds.
U Nebraska-Lincoln Installs Ventilation Technology for Efficiency
Several buildings on campus now use Aircuity, a technology that monitors the ventilation rates of buildings for optimal level of airflow to save energy and maintain air that contains low contaminants. It is estimated that Aircuity can reduce lab energy use by 40 to 60 percent.
Medical U South Carolina Converts Street to Greenway
The university and a team of partners are reclaiming a street on campus to establish it as a space for people to walk, sit and relax. Called the Charleston Medical District Greenway, it will become a natural area with trees and gardens that enables patients to heal more quickly, as well as a gathering place for people visiting and working in the hospitals.
U West Indies Finishes Net Zero Energy Building
(Jamaica) The 2,300-square-foot structure, which will house a research center in photovoltaic, wind and biomass energy, is designed as a model to encourage construction of sustainable and energy-efficient buildings throughout the region.
Radford U Building Earns LEED Gold
The university's College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences building was constructed with materials containing 20 percent recycled content. Ninety-nine percent of the facility’s wood products are Forest Stewardship Council certified. Water usage in the building is reduced through low-flow toilets, sinks and showers, creating an annual savings of about 221,000 gallons per year, and exterior shading helps reduce solar heat gain, which reduce energy use and cost.
U Colorado Boulder Receives LEED Gold on Three New Buildings
The Sustainability, Energy and Environment Laboratory, a hub for environmental and sustainability research, features a high-performance energy recovery system that captures waste exhaust from labs and utilizes it in the heating and cooling of the building. The East District Energy Plant features a rain gardens that captures all stormwater from the roof and a yellow roof to reduce light pollution. The Grounds and Recycling Operations Center building features include an 11-kilowatt rooftop solar array, exterior LED lighting and an electric-truck charging station.
U Utah Announces LEED Gold Certification on Athletics Building
The 102,000-square-foot basketball facility was completed with over 23 percent of recycled materials and resources selected from the Utah region, and a stormwater management plan that resulted in a 25 percent decrease in the volume of stormwater runoff. All interior and exterior light fixtures are LEDs, and the HVAC systems, building insulation and windows were selected to minimize energy waste, which has resulted in exceeding the LEED baseline energy performance rating by 38 percent.
Baker Center at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Wins 2017 Livable Buildings Award
The Baker Center for Science and Mathematics received the award from UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment (CBE) for a sustainable design that includes operable windows, radiant heating/cooling in offices and conference rooms, chilled beams in laboratories, a green roof, active monitoring of laboratory air, and an atrium designed to take advantage of daylight and passive ventilation. The award - the only building industry honor that includes feedback from occupants in its selection criteria - recognizes buildings that demonstrate exceptional performance in occupant satisfaction, resource efficiency and overall design.
Northwestern U Earns LEED Platinum on 63-Year-Old Building
The building includes a 254-panel rooftop photovoltaic array that provides five percent of the building’s electricity, LED light sensors that automatically dim or brighten based on the amount of natural light, and radiant ceiling panels that use chilled water from the university's utility plant to reduce the amount of energy needed for air conditioning.
Cleveland State U Earns LEED Silver on Medical Building
The building reduces the heat island effect through shading, hardscape materials and green space. It also improves stormwater management and reduces runoff with the use of pervious concrete pavers. The project diverted over 99 percent of demolition materials from landfills through recycling and reuse.
Orange Coast College Debuts $7.5M Recycling Center
The new facility accepts a variety of recyclable materials from the community. It also houses classrooms and offices, a conference room, a first aid room, men’s and women’s showers, as well as solar panels and solar tubes for indoor lighting.
Yale U Implements Carbon Charge for Buildings & Departments
After three years of study, discussion and experimentation, the university has implemented a carbon charge that affects more than 250 buildings and nearly 70 percent of campus carbon dioxide emissions. A university carbon charge pilot program ran from December 2015 to May 2016 in 20 buildings and tested four approaches to reducing carbon.
U Albany Renovates Building to LEED Standards
The $10.3 million project on the 51-year-old residence hall included mechanical, plumbing, electric and lighting systems replacement, new energy-efficient windows, a new roof, new bathrooms, updated laundry facilities, and community study and recreation spaces. Recycled content and low-VOC materials were used.
American U Receives Energy Star Certification
By managing the energy related practices of its College of Arts and Sciences building, the university was awarded with its first U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star certification. The EPA’s Energy Star certification recognizes buildings that have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by using more energy-efficient products and implementing energy savings practices.
Northeastern U Opens New Science Building
The university’s new science and engineering building features triple-glazed windows to reduce glass condensation and prevent heat loss, variable air volume (VAV) fume hoods, and occupancy-based airflow controls.
U Florida Receives LEED Gold on Building Renovation
The newly renovated building designed for study and collaboration space includes systems for reusing wastewater, and use of regional and recycled materials. No additional parking spaces were added for the building during renovation.
U Massachusetts Amherst Receives LEED Gold on Historic Building
Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015, the Old Chapel building incorporates an array of green building strategies to maintain the integrity of the original design and materials, including use of existing wood and masonry, and energy modeling to find the correct balance of masonry wall insulation, energy-efficient glazing and stained glass restoration so that energy goals were in concert with historic restoration efforts. The building is designed to exceed code energy performance by 21 percent and to reduce potable water use by 34 percent.
