College Dorms Go Green With Leed Ap Certification
You know how lots of times we get direction from young people
? A good current example is college students interested in sustainability and energy efficiency. Their efforts are turning dorms across the nation into green residences.
According to an article titled "Eco In the Halls of Academe", written by Lini Kadaba and published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, across the region and the country, the green movement has taken up residence on college campuses.
Kadaba reports that new or renovated dorms have organic suites at Drexel University, green roofs at Princeton, geothermal cooling and heating at West Chester, and eco-friendly furniture at Villanova. Known as green dorms, they are building in popularity as economics make more sense and eco-wise collegians expect and demand it.
In her piece Kadaba quotes Paul Rowland, executive director of the Lexington,
Kentucky-based Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
"More and more students are saying, 'We want to know how green the campus is before we come there,' " Rowland told Kadaba.
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which gives its seal of approval, LEED, to new buildings that meet its standards, has certified 76 dorm projects since it first offered the rating in 2000. An additional 307 are registered to pursue certification.
"Since 2006, the number of green dorms that have registered for LEED certification has doubled each year. Moreover, there has been a continuous rise for Leed Training and Leed Ap Certification among students.
In 2008, a record 127 projects applied. Through August of this year, 87 more projects had been submitted," Kadaba writes. "The data doesn't reflect renovations, popular with colleges and arguably more environmentally conscious."
Also quoted in Kadaba's piece is Amy Seif Hattan, director of the Advancing Green Building in Higher Education program at Second Nature, a Boston-based organization. "In most cases, a dorm is just a shell in which to throw your stuff and sleep," Hattan told Kadaba. "A green building is an ecosystem. It's a pleasant place, it promotes health, it encourages dialogue."
While environmentally conscious housing can trim the campus energy bill, it also offers less prosaic advantages, Kadaba writes. "Green dorms expose students to the science of sustainability in practical ways and instill a way of life."
"You're getting a generation of kids who will be green natives," Marie Coleman, a communications associate for the USGBC told Kadaba. "It's what they know."
Examples of what the students are up to at the dorms include timed showers with a 10-minute maximum, composting food scraps, hanging laundry to dry, and using lights with certain stinginess. A green meter installed in a common room displays real-time consumption of electricity while another device shows water usage.
by: CleanEdison
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