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Green Buildings and High Performance Schools
Frequently, facility planners, managers, and school decision-makers talk about “green building” and “high performance schools” when they address the connections between the built environment and occupant health and performance. Green building includes using healthier, less polluting, and more resource-efficient practices. High performance school buildings take advantage of integrated design strategies and existing building technologies.
What is Green Building?
Green building refers to efforts to increase building efficiency by decreasing energy, water, and materials use, and to reduce building impacts on human health and the environment. Green building relates to site selection, design, construction, operations, and maintenance — otherwise known as the building life cycle. To learn more about green building, visit EPA’s Green Buildings Website at www.epa.gov/greenbuilding/.
High Performance Schools
Facilities that protect student, teacher, and staff health and improve the learning environment while saving energy, resources, and money are often called high performance schools. When schools plan new facilities or renovations to existing facilities, they should consider the lifetime value of high performance schools. Investing time and money to construct high performance facilities will reduce operations costs, safeguard the natural environment and occupant health, and promote top performance.
Creating a high performance school is not difficult, but it requires an integrated, "whole building" approach to the design process. Key systems and technologies must be considered together, from the beginning of the design process, and optimized based on their combined impact on the comfort and productivity of students and teachers.
A high performance school is:
- Healthy
- Thermally, visually, and acoustically comfortable
- Energy efficient
- Material efficient
- Water efficient
- Easy to maintain and operate
- Commissioned
- An environmentally responsive site
- A teaching tool
- Safe and secure
- A community resource
- Stimulating architecture
For more detailed information about designing, financing, and maintaining high performance schools, visit EPA’s High Performance Schools Website at www.epa.gov/iaq/schooldesign/highperformance.html.
Related Links
- Collaborative for High Performance Schools. This Web site contains information on training and events and tools such as school planning kits,
best practices manuals, videos, and other publications www.chps.net/
- High Performance Building Guidelines. The New York City Department of Design and Construction provides guidelines to help integrate high performance design principles into facilities and identify building actions that are cost effective and practical http://home.nyc.gov/html/ddc/html/ddcgreen/
- High Performance School Buildings Resource List. The National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities created a resource list of documents, reports, links, books, and journal articles exploring high performance schools, including sustainability and green design issues, cost and funding concerns, and educational and community benefits www.edfacilities.org/rl/high_performance.cfm
- High Performance Schools Partnership. This Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection report documents information from four Pittsburgh schools on an initiative to encourage schools, communities, and businesses to come together to promote environmental stewardship and healthy educational facilities
www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/pollprev/p2_features/hpsp.htm
- Minnesota Sustainable Design Guide. This University of Minnesota tool teaches about sustainability, design decisions, and integrating sustainable design into the building design and operation processes for new and renovated facilities.
www.sustainabledesignguide.umn.edu/
- National Best Practices Manual for Building High Performance Schools. This U.S. Department of Energy manual is designed for architects, engineers, and project managers to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in schools
www.nrel.gov/docs/fy02osti/31545.pdf
(PDF, 457 pp, 11MB)
- Office of Facilities Planning. The New York State Education Department's Web site contains the latest information on facilities planning in the state, in addition to laws, regulations, publications, surveys, and grants www.emsc.nysed.gov/facplan/
- School Indoor Air Quality Best Management Practices Manual. Washington State Department of Health developed this manual to help prevent or reduce indoor air quality problems in Washington’s schools by focusing on practices for use during siting, design, construction, and renovation www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/ts/IAQ/schooliaqbmp.pdf
- Sustainable Schools. This California Division of the State Architect's Web site provides a diverse collection of sustainable building resources, including the numerous benefits, guidelines, programs, case studies, relevant publications, and funding options/incentives for those interested and involved in designing, developing, and constructing high performance schools
www.green.ca.gov/GreenBuildings/schools.htm
- LEED: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The U.S. Green Building Council created the LEED Green Building Rating System ® as a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19