In 2023, Auckland Council's Sustainable Schools Team (SST) piloted a project called "Mana Ora: Students Decarbonising Schools." The aim was that students, with guidance and support from teachers and SST, would plan and implement climate and sustainability action projects linked to decarbonisation within their schools. Eighteen Mana Ora…

The choice to create or renovate museum buildings to green building standards is a growing trend for science museums. With access to green facilities comes the potential to extend informal science learning into the three-dimensional architectural environment. To examine how and if museums with green buildings interpret their buildings for the…

School buildings across America are crumbling. According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), 54 percent of U.S. school districts need to update or completely replace multiple building systems in their schools. As a result of decades of underfunding school infrastructure, national spending for K-12 school buildings…

Gone are the days when green campus initiatives were a balm to the soul and a drain on the wallet. Today's environmental initiatives are all about saving lots of green--in every sense of the word. The environmental benefits of green campus projects--whether wind turbines or better insulation--are pretty clear. Unfortunately, in today's…

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for safe school facilities that protect the health of children and staff. With the first day of school just weeks away, most K-12 schools are likely to rely on distance learning for the start of the academic year. When schools do reopen, adhering to current guidelines on physical distancing, cleaning,…

Reducing school district energy expenditures has become a universal goal, and new technologies have brought greater energy efficiencies to the school environment. In Part 1 of this two-part series, the author discussed the steps required to establish an energy conservation and management program with an emphasis on lighting. In this article, he…

For any goal to be a "smart goal" it needs to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time sensitive. This is equally true for sustainability goals for educational facilities. Evidence abounds that "green strategies" greatly impact both the academic and operational performance of a school. Agencies from the U.S. Environmental Protection…

Buildings consume approximately 40 percent of the energy used in the U.S., and efficiency is widely recognized to be the most effective means for containing demand and reducing use. Institutions of higher education make up a significant proportion of building area and annual energy and facility-related costs in the United States. The national…

There is good reason to look at energy and sustainability as "the" capital investment--savings that can be achieved through energy conservation and other sustainability measures can help offset increasing deferred maintenance and capital renewal costs. The APPA Energy and Sustainability Assessment Tool (ESAT) provides a dynamic database…

For several years, schools and universities have been battered by a sputtering economy that on many campuses has brought about slashed budgets, curtailed programs, shuttered facilities and terminated employees. But throughout the gloomy financial conditions, one of the bright spots for education institutions is the continued growing embrace of…

Far from the limelight of LEED, Energy Star or Green Globes certifications are the energy codes developed and updated by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and the International Code Council (ICC) through the support of the Department of Energy (DOE) as minimum guidelines for building envelope,…

This article stresses the importance of building design above technology as a relatively inexpensive way to reduce energy costs for a library. Emphasis is placed on passive solar design for heat and daylighting, but also examines passive ventilation and cooling, green roofs, and building materials. Passive design is weighed against technologies…

Facility managers everywhere are tasked with improving energy efficiency to control costs. Those strides cannot be achieved at the expense of system performance and reliability, or the comfort of the people within those properties. There are few places where this is truer than in schools and universities. K-12 schools and university lecture spaces…

In this economy, it's hard to implement any kind of school facility improvement plan with tight budgets and rising energy costs. The following strategies and suggestions are just some of the many ways schools can reach toward sustainability. In creating this presentation, our objective was to point out what you can do to save energy right now with…

These are tough economic times, and few groups are more cognizant of this than school and university administrators. Struggling with significantly smaller operating budgets, institutions are faced with the harsh realities of laying off qualified teachers and staff, increasing class sizes, limiting or eliminating valuable programs and, in some…