Sustainable School Buildings

California Division of the State Architect resources to help schools increase facility energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions with each new construction and modernization.

The Ashkin Group is an internationally recognized consulting firm working to green the professional cleaning industry and help organizations implement effective, sustainability programs.

Guide explaining the economic, environmental, and community benefits of natural landscaping. Natural landscaping is the planting or preservation of native vegetation in ways that help retain or augmentnatural landscape features, such as wetlands, prairies or woodlands. Natural landscaping can be applied in nearly any public green space, from parks to school grounds to municipal building lawns.

Searchable database of green building case studies.

Information about technologies, including automation controls, HVAC and mechanical, lighting, energy management, water heating, and windows, that make buildings more efficient.

Rodent and roach infestation, mice droppings, mold that has caused mushrooms to grow, asbestos, extreme heat or cold in classrooms, severe overcrowding, and nonfunctional bathrooms are just some examples of the appalling physical conditions found in thousands of our nation's public schools, a American Federation of Teachers (AFT) report revealed. These conditions are adversely affecting millions of students and school staff -- and potentially every student and school employee who walks through the doors of our public schools. Schools can be modernized or built from scratch using proven, cost-effective and environmentally sound solutions. Many schools already are meeting these high standards, serving as models to others. The AFT believes that healthy, well-maintained schools that are conducive to learning cannot be reserved for select communities; they must be part of the academic agenda for every American student.

The mission of CampusERC is to provide individuals and educational institutions with the knowledge and tools to maintain environmental regulatory compliance, improve management, and operate sustainably. A project of the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Part of the U.S. Green Building Council, this center helps schools become more sustainable. Also provides information about LEED for schools.

A guide to saving older school buildings from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Provides information on daylighting for reducing electricity use and increasing energy efficiency.

EPA’s State and Local Energy and Environment Program offers free tools, data and technical expertise about energy strategies, including energy efficiency, renewable energy and other emerging technologies, to help state, local and tribal governments achieve their environmental, energy and economic objectives.

EnergySense is an applied research center at the University of Illinois System. Their mission is to empower organizations with practical solutions for climate, energy, and sustainability.

K-12 school districts spend over $8 billion nationwide on energy costs each year. More than 30 percent of energy use goes to waste and ten percent can be saved by implementing low-cost measures. This page will help you learn how to assess your building's energy efficiency, find financing, save energy, and earn recognition.

The Go Green Initiative is a simple, comprehensive program designed to create a culture of environmental responsibility on school campuses across the nation.

A healthy school environment is key to supporting the well-being and academic performance of all students. Keeping schools clean and safe is essential to maintaining such an environment, especially as schools return to in-person learning. However, many conventional cleaning products contain potentially harmful chemicals that can negatively affect indoor air quality and lead to health problems for students and adults, including asthma and other respiratory illnesses, headaches, nausea, and skin irritation. Greening your cleaning routine can be a simple and cost-effective solution to keeping your school clean and healthy.

Education and awareness raising is a starting point in achieving sustainability in the built environment.

Written by Gregory Kats, this report is intended to answer this fundamental question: how much more do green schools cost, and is greening schools cost effective? This report documents the financial costs and benefits of green schools compared to conventional schools. This national review of 30 green schools demonstrates that green schools cost less than 2% more than conventional schools - or about $3 per square foot ($3/ft2) - but provide financial benefits that are 20 times as large. Greening school design provides an extraordinarily cost-effective way to enhance student learning, reduce health and operational costs and, ultimately, increase school quality and competitiveness.

The GreenPrint™ is a framework for whole school transformation that promotes best practices in leadership, curriculum and instruction, culture and climate, and facilities and operations. GreenPrint™ serves as a road map as you plan your school or district’s journey to become healthy learning environment. This tool will help you diagnose strengths and challenges, plan strategically, analyze progress as you implement change, and adjust course in response to emerging issues or priorities.

Evidence has accumulated that shows that the quality of indoor environments can affect the health and productivity of adults and children. One consequence is that a movement has emerged to promote the design of schools that have fewer adverse environmental effects. To examine the potential of such design for improving education, several private organizations asked the National Research Council (NRC) to review and assess the health and productivity benefits of green schools. This report provides an analysis of the complexity of making such a determination; and an assessment of the potential human health and performance benefits of improvements in the building envelope, indoor air quality, lighting, and acoustical quality. The report also presents an assessment of the overall building condition and student achievement, and offers an analysis of and recommendations for planning and maintaining green schools including research considerations. (PDF Format; Length: 192 pages)

Certifies a wide variety of products and services.

How-to-guide on organizing and running a design charrette. Helps define what it is, when it should occur, who should participate, role of the owner, and desired outcomes.

To support facility management professionals operating with budget limitations, the Healthy Green Schools & Colleges standard prioritizes measures that can make a big impact without major capital investments. The standard was designed in partnership with the award-winning school facility directors on our Steering Committee, who know firsthand what support facility professionals need. The science-based standard has a points-based scoring system and covers the full range of facilities management practices, including: Cleaning, Sanitizing and Disinfecting; Integrated Pest Management; Sustainable Purchasing; HVAC and Electric Maintenance; Indoor Air Quality Testing and Monitoring; Sidewalk and Pavement Maintenance; Training and Communications

The main purposes of a Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system are to help maintain good indoor air quality (IAQ) through adequate ventilation with filtration and provide thermal comfort. HVAC systems are among the largest energy consumers in schools. The choice and design of the HVAC system can also affect many other high performance goals, including water consumption (water cooled air conditioning equipment) and acoustics. This page details how engineers can design a quality system that is cost-competitive with traditional ventilation designs, while successfully providing an appropriate quantity and quality of outdoor air, lower energy costs and easier maintenance.

This document describes the sustainable features of the Roy Lee Walker Elementary School (Texas), a prototype Eco Education school that blends the physical environment with the student learning process while protecting the site.

By reusing existing buildings historic preservation is essentially a recycling program of 'historic' proportions. Existing buildings can often be inherently energy efficient through their use of natural ventilation attributes, durable materials, and spatial relationships. An immediate advantage of older buildings is that a building already exists; therefore energy is not necessary to demolish a building or create new building materials and the infrastructure may already be in place. Minor modifications can be made to adapt existing buildings to compatible new uses. Systems can be upgraded to meet modern building requirements and codes. Part of the Whole Building Design Guide.

Check out the many ways that schools across Illinois that are finding creative and impactful ways to prioritize sustainability across their school cultures, educational programming, and physical space.

Intended to help Illinois school administrators, school board members and other key decision makers learn the principles of health school design so they can engage in a meaningful dialogue with their design team about the plans for their new school. From 2006.

Life cycle analysis (LCA) is the systematic approach of looking at a product’s complete life cycle, from raw materials to final disposal of the product. It offers a “cradle to grave” look at a product or process, considering environmental aspects and potential impacts. This report covers LCA basics, including issues to consider when starting a product life cycle assessment.

This guide covers lighting and daylighting retrofit strategies that have consistently proven to provide the greatest long-term energy savings while maintaining, and often improving, lighting quality. These strategies and technologies have been tested and demonstrated on campuses throughout California.

This report describes how to control the costs of green building projects by summarizing the research done on that topic for the Alameda County Waste Management Authority (ACWMA), the California State and Consumer Services Agency (SCSA), California's Sustainable Building Task Force, and the California Department of General Services (DGS). (PDF Format; Length: 88 pages)

The B3 Case Studies Database provides design and performance information on projects using the B3 Guidelines and the SB 2030 Energy Standard. Each project case study includes a Scorecard with several performance metrics including energy, carbon, water, stormwater, and waste. The case study also includes an SB 2030 Label indicating the projects Energy Use Intensity (EUI) during design and actual performance.

Minnesota's Buildings, Benchmarks and Beyond (B3) tools and programs are designed to help make buildings more energy efficient and sustainable.The B3 programs have been developed for and are required on State-funded projects in Minnesota but are easily applied to any project. The B3 Guidelines and the SB 2030 Energy Standard can be applied to new and renovated buildings during design. B3 Benchmarking, B3 Energy Efficient Operations and the B3 Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) can be used to evaluate and improve existing buildings. The site also includes case studies.

Part of the suite of products developed to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in schools. It was developed specifically for architects and engineers who are responsible for designing or retrofitting schools, and for the project managers who work with the design teams.

The U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools (ED-GRS) program recognizes schools taking a comprehensive approach to greening their school. A comprehensive approach incorporates environmental learning with improving environmental and health impacts. While the federal program has been paused, the New York State Department of Education, would like to continue recognizing candidates making strides in the ED-GRS Pillars.

The NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE) program helps employees, employers, and unions recognize and control health hazards in their workplace. For on-site evaluations, findings are published online (without company or employee names) in NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation Reports. Reports are searchable by keyword, state, industry category and subcategory, or health effect.

This study of three green building rating systems (Green Globes, SBTool 07, and LEED NC 2.2) assesses their effectiveness in supporting the goals of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) sustainability position statement. In late 2007, the initial results were shared with the three groups whose systems were reviewed. After receiving feedback, the study was modified and further refined into the final report. The purpose of this exercise is to offer analysis to both industry and the public as an opportunity to learn how three unique, creative and evolving green building rating systems resonate in various dimensions with the goals of the AIA position statement on sustainability and our goal to achieve carbon neutrality in buildings by 2030.

This common-sense guidance is designed to help you prevent and solve the majority of indoor air problems with minimal cost and involvement.

Designed for K-12 school system business officials and facilities managers to meet the specific needs of school district staff for integrating energy efficiency into school building operation and maintenance. It not only provides technical information, but also organizational information on barriers, challenges, and the necessary steps required to develop this type of energy management program within the school district organizational structure. In addition, it contains case studies that are essential to providing experience-based observations and "real life" approaches to which school district staff can relate.

Permeable pavements are a stormwater control that allows stormwater to infiltrate through the surface of the pavement to the ground below—a green infrastructure alternative to traditional impervious surfaces. Types of permeable pavements include porous asphalt, pervious
concrete and permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP).

Sizeable school systems should have a strategic energy management plan. The objective of requiring a strategic plan is to ensure that the school system is doing everything that is economically feasible to manage energy
consumption to hold down energy and water related expenditures while also having a positive impact on community environmental initiatives.

The building envelope is comprised of the outer elements of a building—foundations, walls, roof, windows, doors and floors. The prime functions of the building envelope are to provide shelter, security, solar and thermal control, moisture control, indoor air quality control, access to daylight, and views to outside, fire resistance, acoustics, cost effectiveness and aesthetics. Because of the varied and sometimes competing functions associated with the building envelope, an integrated, synergistic approach considering all phases of the facility life cycle is warranted. This "sustainable" approach supports an increased commitment to environmental stewardship and conservation, and results in an optimal balance of cost, environmental, societal, and human benefits while meeting the mission and function of the intended facility.

This guide provides designers with information and resources needed to
retrofit school buildings in a responsible and efficient way.

SITES is a rating system that guides, evaluates and certifies a project’s sustainability in the planning, design, construction and management of landscapes and other outdoor spaces. SITES supports landscape architects, planners and others in implementing nature-based solutions. SITES projects enhance biodiversity and mitigate climate change, while conserving resources, improving public health and protecting critical ecosystems.

Includes guides, case studies, and other resources to help schools improve energy efficiency.

The U.S. Department of Energy has developed a comprehensive suite of tools for accessing, managing, analyzing and sharing building energy data. This website describes how they can be used to support building performance standards (BPS) policies.

The health of a school's environment can affect the attendance, concentration, performance and health of both students and educators. This website presents information on key topics about establishing and enhancing healthy school environments.

Heat islands occur when a developed area experiences higher temperature than nearby rural areas, or when areas experience hotter temperatures within a city. This U.S. EPA site provides information about heat islands, cooling strategies, implementation examples, and outreach materials to help reduce heat islands and their impacts on communities and neighborhoods.

Promote a healthy learning environment at your school to reduce absenteeism, improve test scores and enhance student and staff productivity.

IAQ Tools for Schools Action Kit shows schools how to carry out a practical plan to improve indoor air problems at little- or no-cost using straightforward activities and in-house staff.

U.S. EPA information on IPM in schools.

This website from U.S. EPA provides K-12 students and educators with access to quality homework resources, lesson plans and project ideas for learning and teaching about the environment. Environmental education (EE) is a multi-disciplinary approach to learning about environmental issues that enhances knowledge, builds critical thinking skills, and helps students make informed and responsible decisions.

A rain garden is a depressed area in the landscape that collects rain water from a roof, driveway or street and allows it to soak into the ground. Planted with grasses and flowering perennials, rain gardens can be a cost effective and beautiful way to reduce runoff from your property. Rain gardens can also help filter out pollutants in runoff and provide food and shelter for butterflies, song birds and other wildlife.

Green school buildings case studies from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Includes publications, case studies, and videos and presentations.

Resources on how to manage rainfall and what you can do at your home and community.

LEED is the world’s premier green building certification system and applies to all buildings at all phases of development (design, construction, operations and maintenance). LEED buildings and communities can be found in over 180 countries around the globe, with around 2.2 million square feet being certified daily. From the Center for Green Schools.

These guidelines offer Chicago Public Building Commission staff, project architects, engineers, facility managers, maintenance staff, and user
agencies both a design reference and an educational tool for water reuse systems.

The WBDG was created and continues to evolve as the only online portal providing built environment practitioners access to relevant building-related guidance, up-to-date federal criteria, new technology information, and workforce development training from a 'whole building' perspective.