Cornell U Reduces Chemical Use on Floors
The building services department now uses one floor-stripping chemical rather than eight; two floor finishing products down from 13; and one standard floor cleaner. The new products are free of odor, allowing staff to work during regular hours.
Cornell U to Receive $1.65M to Reduce Building Energy Consumption
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) will give the university $1.65 million in incentives for energy studies and project work to develop a smaller carbon footprint, accelerating the university toward net-zero carbon for the Ithaca campus by 2035. Over the next 3 ½ years, the Facilities and Campus Services Division will install heat recovery systems in order to reclaim warm air that is normally exhausted outdoors and will upgrade mechanical systems and controls in 25 buildings that manage heating, cooling, water and air conditioning throughout each building.
Curtin U Receives 6-Star Green Star – Communities Certification
(Australia) The university's Exchange hub earned the certification from the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). The Exchange is a large-scale development that brings together research with industry. Green Star is a sustainability rating that assesses the planning, design and construction of large-scale development projects across five categories including governance, liveability, economic prosperity, environment and innovation.
Cornell U Signs PPA for 1 MW Rooftop Solar
In December, Cornell finalized a 1-megawatt power-purchase agreement to construct rooftop solar arrays on all five buildings of the North Campus Residential Expansion project. The solar power from this project will reduce the university’s carbon footprint by providing about 35 percent of the power needed for the new buildings.
SUNY Geneseo Dining Facility Earns LEED Gold
The university's Red Jacket Dining Complex includes LED lighting, and heating, cooling, and plumbing systems that are more energy-efficient. Shutters from the original Red Jacket were used to decorate the ceiling, and other furnishings are made from reclaimed wood. During construction, 31 percent of all materials used were recycled, and more than 65 percent of all waste generated during construction was recycled.
Western Kentucky U Building Earns WELL Gold Certification
The university's science facility, Ogden Hall, received the Gold certification from the International WELL Building Institute. WELL is a performance-based rating system for measuring, certifying, and monitoring features of our buildings that impact human health and wellness, through air, water, nourishment, light, movement, thermal comfort, sound, materials, and mind and community.
U Pittsburgh Bradford Residence Hall Earns LEED Silver
The university's newly certified Alexander House features renewable energy, high-efficiency HVAC systems, water-efficient plumbing fixtures and low-VOC furnishings. The building has bike storage for students and parking places for electric vehicles.
U Pittsburgh Renovation Receives LEED Silver
Clapp Hall, the building that houses the department of biological sciences, features energy-efficient lighting, water-saving plumbing fixtures, a demand-control ventilation system and a lab exhaust energy-recovery system. More than 95 percent of construction waste was diverted from landfills, 90 percent of existing building elements were reused, and 36 percent of building materials were regionally manufactured. Clapp Hall also has bike storage and changing rooms for commuters.
Cornell U Building Earns LEED Gold
Cornell’s Mui Ho Fine Arts Library building now has energy-efficient windows, and an insulated roof with a reflective lining that improves the building's thermal performance.
Yale U Receives $15M for Living Building Community
The university's Divinity School recently accepted a $15 million contribution in support of the Living Village, a 155-unit community that will consist of buildings that are constructed to meet the requirements of the Living Building Challenge. All building energy will come from the sun and all water from on-site precipitation. Waste will be processed on-site.
Catholic U America Building Earns LEED Gold
Maloney Hall, the recently renovated home to the Busch School of Business, now includes rainwater recovery system, low-flow bathroom fixtures, and energy-efficient HVAC and lighting systems. Landscaping features such as native plants and trees were carefully chosen to not rely on permanent irrigation systems.
Arizona State U Library Renovation Includes Sustainability
While the LEED certification is still under review, the sustainability practices included the reuse of materials, approximately 80 percent of which were diverted from the landfill, a highly reflective rooftop photovoltaic solar power system, and low-flow fixtures coupled with high-efficiency irrigation systems.
Ohio U Building Scores LEED Gold Certification
Ellis Hall, a 115-year-old building, was recently renovated and now features LED lighting, low-flow toilets and sinks, new insulation, new windows, and an energy-efficient heating and cooling system. Exterior landscaping includes drought-tolerant trees and shrubs.
Rutgers U Engineering Hall Receives LEED Gold
The 106,000-square-foot, four-story facility features solar orientation, mechanical systems with ventilation controlled by occupancy and carbon dioxide sensors, and energy-efficient LED lighting with automatic lighting controls that use daylight photo and occupancy sensors.
Stockton U Installs Window Art to Reduce Bird Strikes
To reduce the number of bird strikes on one of the university's buildings at its Galloway campus, a vinyl mural was recently installed featuring the message, "Art should be striking. Not birds," along with an explanation of how the art saves birds by eliminating reflections.
McGill U Building Receives LEED Gold for Existing Buildings
The McGill University Health Center was recently awarded LEED Gold for Existing Buildings after receiving LEED Gold for New Construction in 2016 by the Canada Green Building Council. The center utilizes energy-efficient lighting and water technology, and its site contains 79 charging stations for electric vehicles, a bicycle path linked to the city of Montreal’s network and more than 400 parking spaces for cyclists as well as showers for cyclists.
U Wollongong Building Certified as Living Building
(Australia) The university's Sustainable Buildings Research Center recently achieved full marks in all seven performance areas under the Living Building Challenge and is now designated as Living Certified. The research center features 468 solar panels to support net zero energy, an on-site rainwater system to enable net zero water performance, and use of environmentally safe and reused building materials.
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.
